Is Therapy Supposed to Be Uncomfortable?
Healing begins when we can stand at a crossroads and tolerate the discomfort, not numb it—the discomfort of examining who we have been and who we aspire to be. At the crossroads, you are a rubber band, stretching from your past self to your ideal future self. This stage feels tense. You are stretched tightly, feeling soon you will snap and terrified of where you will land once snapped.
People come to me stretched, but they don't know it yet. They often come to me because of a symptom: sleep, racing heart or thoughts, low motivation, or can't concentrate. They don't know this is a battle of the selves; they only know there's tension, which feels unbearable.
Have you ever stretched a rubber band until it becomes white? You may start to feel the stress of the rubber band, wondering if it will snap. Before therapy, you snap back and forth from a past self to an ideal self, snapping endlessly back and forth, entirely out of control. The "white" appears in our lives as a symptom, often read as a warning that we are doing something wrong, and we react to them by trying to tune them out. "If I scroll social media endlessly, I won't notice my racing thoughts." While they are a warning, the symptoms are also an invitation to ask critical questions. Why am I feeling this? Where is this coming from? When did this start? Most importantly, what is this symptom trying to tell me? Asking these questions guides us to tolerate the tension without snapping.
The mistake people make when they think of therapy is thinking therapy is solely the answer. They think spending 50 minutes together discussing what is happening will fix it. They then get frustrated and maybe even start to feel hopeless: "Man, even therapy isn't working." But extending that 50 minutes to all the other waking minutes is the point. To start to hear your therapist's voice coming faintly from the far depths of your mind, asking gentle, compassionate questions.
Your therapist is there to guide you, not to fix your life. They may teach you techniques to tolerate discomfort but won't tell you how to fix your life. The truth is, we don't know what will fix your life. I know, I know, I know - "Ummm, excuse me, why am I paying you $200 an hour if you aren't going to fix my life?" Yes, I know, how frustrating. It is frustrating! But I'm not telling you what will "fix your life." I'm teaching you how to uncover yourself and get in touch with the life you would like to live. I'm teaching you how to ask the questions that will bring you in line with yourself. I'm showing you the questions to ask to shed light on why you do what you do and why this may create symptoms.
Many of us strive to become our ideal selves without questioning where the idea of our ideal selves even came from. Is your ideal self truly of your own creation? This process of self-discovery is not just intriguing; it's also profoundly motivating. It leads us to explore our identity and the influences that have shaped us. What has shaped you? The values of your family, culture, community? Are those values in line with you, or is there a part of you, sending signals via symptoms, saying something isn't right? This process of self-discovery puts you on the path to answering those questions.
In therapy, we zoom in on the white tension and the symptoms, befriending them and treating them not as something to fear but as a signal to listen. After all, they are still a part of you and they deserve to be held in respect, not totally shut down and not listened to. What does it mean to befriend the tension? That looks different for everyone, but we can start with respect. How do you currently refer to your symptoms? Do you treat them like an inconvenience? How does that treatment make them feel? How do they react? Do they get stronger?
Now, imagine if, instead of treating your symptoms like an inconvenience, you treated them compassionately, like a little friend with a need. How would you speak to that friend? "Hey, can I get you anything so you can feel more comfortable?" Take a moment, close your eyes, and breathe deeply. How would asking that feel in your body?
Therapy is about quieting the noise so you can listen to yourself, learn to have a constructive inner dialogue, and do so more often. Your therapist is there to stand, blocking the noise that keeps you from hearing that voice and learning the language. The people selling fixes are wrong. They don't know you. Those with the best intentions are excitedly telling you what worked for them. Those with not the best intentions are looking to profit off your uncertainty and insecurities. I don't know you either, but I do know there is a way to feel better, and it takes training. Learning to ask questions that will allow you to speak the same language as your inner voice.