It’s not uncommon for us all to seek support and change once we feel we have no other options. Practically speaking, we like to know that we already tried “everything” or we might just underestimate the size of what we are facing. Either way, it can be difficult to accept that counseling may not have a magic “redo” button or a fast-track to fixing everything.
There can be some really valuable reasons that counseling moves slower than we might expect. Let’s explore the process of change, hope and healing and why time is so important.
Facing a problem can be confusing. We can recognize changes in our mood, actions and perhaps even our thoughts, but that doesn’t automatically mean we understand what is going on or what we need to do. It might take a series of arguments to realize we are more irritable than normal. Feedback from friends might point out what we’ve been ignoring.
Counseling’s purpose is to help you define what you think the challenge is. That itself can require time and reflection. Perhaps everyone around you thinks it’s one thing and you disagree. Maybe your counselor will have some suggestions on how you can look at what is going on. Ultimately, we can’t start “working” or making change until we figure out what to aim at.
Loss of hope is real. It’s common in the hustle culture to use negative words to describe an inability to reach our goals. Even if we try and keep our goals personal and realistic, avoiding the comparison on social media, when we are struggling with daily life typically we take that as evidence of “failing” in some way. This might even be why many people avoid seeking counseling. In a highly independent and information-drenched culture, we internalize the sense that there is no excuse for hesitating or not being able to figure things out. Especially when its something appears pretty basic.
Lack of energy and enthusiasm for life can look like skipping basic hygiene routines, avoiding socializing, not sleeping well or sleeping too much. These basic body-needs are deeply indicative of a loss of hope or perhaps significant depression. Expecting to go from a daily struggle to suddenly back to “normal” may be unrealistic. When doing the things that help us heal are difficult, it will take some time to get things rolling again.
A good counselor will help you see progress and give it credit. Putting yourself down or focusing on difficulties are common challenges connected to mental illness. This simply means you are struggling, not that you aren’t trying.
Recognizing patterns can give us a roadmap and a way forward. While your counselor can’t fully understand your story without exploring it with you, they have worked with perhaps even hundreds of other clients who may have similar struggles. This experience can help you feel less alone and provide suggestions that you might not have come up with on your own. Even just hearing this isn’t your fatal flaw or your singular failure can start the process of hope. Hope is built on small pieces of evidence. With hope then we start to have faith; believing in something that hasn’t been revealed yet. Like reclaiming certain losses in your life after years of chronic anxiety.
A hard truth can be that certain mental illness may remain a chronic part of your life. Learning it’s patterns, what helps and having someone mark your progress can build forward momentum as well as acceptance. Without a bit of acceptance mental illness can be an unbearable burden.
Speaking our story rather than hiding our experience is healing. You might have heard the word “process” in relation to work done in therapy and counseling. What is “processing” exactly? It is the gift and internal work we experience around making sense of our lives and deciding what we make if it. Often when we talk or think in circles we are trying to find a meaning that settles us. Cognitive behavioral counseling (CBT), insight-based counseling and even art therapy all work to help us see where we are distorting or damaging our story-telling process. Lack of information, self-judgement, and isolation are just a few things that can stand in the way of us making sense of our life.
Or maybe we have “made sense” of things. We may decide we are “destined to fail” or other internal mantras that begin to destroy the foundation of who we are. A therapeutic environment not only points out negative meaning we may assign, it is a safe place to admit the worst and darkest without judgement. It is only when we are honest with ourselves that we can start making meaning of what has happened to us.
The neuro-science of telling our story is amazing. Research shows that journaling and speaking out-loud thoughts that we have actually transitions the work to a different part of the brain. This is revealed by metabolic energy lighting up PET scans, showing patterns of change in the shift of location, color/intensity of the neural networks. This can take a thought that is distracting and interfering with our concentration and shifts it into the long-term memory of our brain. Essentially it takes active attention, listening and working with our thoughts for some of them to “calm” and settle into the archives. They are less angry, less painful and actually more accessible when we want to look at them again. This is just a small reflection of the large-scale healing that simple things like words can start within our body, mind and soul.
If you are struggling with rumination, tension and stress or hopelessness in your life it may be time to set aside time and meet with a trained counselor. It doesn’t have to be a crisis to deserve attention. In fact, that is how we avoid crisis. Reach out today to explore what counseling might look like for you.
