Life Happens

I was talking to my cousin the other day, and I said, "yeah I told XYZ s(he) should go to therapy." 

My cousin replied, "you tell everyone to go to therapy." 

I started to feel offended as if she was discounting what I said. 

In my mind, I thought, "no I just told you that, so you think I say that to everyone." 

I didn't say it, but I was thinking it. 

Hey girl hey if you're reading. :) Love you boo.

So I replied, "No I only tell people who need to go." Then I changed the subject. 

I think therapy is amazing!

What therapist doesn't think its amazing?!? Forgive me for being partial. 

I've been to therapy twice. Both experiences were awkward. The first time I was in high school and I thought my therapist was a clown. [I’m an adult and still know her & still think she's a clown] Not all therapists are created equally. 

I only saw her once and thought therapy was for suckers.  

The second time I was in grad school. It's always suggested that counseling students go to therapy to resolve their own issues and understand how it feels to go to therapy. 

This time I had an array of emotions and thoughts. Aside from going for the experience, I was going THROUGH some stuff.  

I knew I had high resilience and was dealing with it, but I was still going THROUGH. I was honest with her. Extremely honest. 

I just didn't want her to diagnose me.

Granted I knew she had to diagnose me, because the insurance companies don't pay just "because." 

So I asked her what my diagnosis was. 

She was shocked. I explained to her that with everything I was going through, I was handling it. I'll never forget it was as if I were in front of a judge pleading my case. First I had just bared my soul to this woman for 60 minutes. Then for 10 minutes I'm in lawyer mode. [Therapy is generally 45-60 minutes, but the first session can be longer depending…]

She said, “baby, you're going to be an amazing therapist, and you know what?”

I teared up, “what?”

She replied: Life happens. 

I smiled and wiped my teary eyes. 

That session changed my whole thought process of therapy.

That one session was all I needed. 

Things happen to people. Some horrible things. Some not so horrible things. Some people can deal with it. Others get stuck. Some try to move on but leave it unresolved. 

Those that leave it unresolved are those that I recommend to go to therapy. 

When issues go unresolved for long periods of time it becomes like an internal 6 car pile up. The clean up isn't as easy as if there were just one car, even two. The bigger pile ups usually have a web of onlookers, witnesses, and bystanders. Someone is hurting, if not dead. And since this an internal pile up, the hurt person is the one with the unresolved issues and the pain can feel as if they lost a piece of their soul. 

These are the people I tell to go to therapy. Because life does happens. Sometimes its out of our control. Other times we’re the ring leader of our own crazy circus. We all go through things. Some things as we were children and some as adults.

How we navigate through these things determines our resiliency. 

When doing life coaching I always assess where my ladies are. Even my business ladies. Being stuck is an easy thing to get over. We can work through that in coaching. Everyone gets stuck. The thing about being stuck is it's easy to self identify. 

Ignoring and acting as if everything is okay without processing and healing leads to unresolvement. 

Unresolved issues are deeply embedded and are a distant memory. The pain pushes it into the subconscious portion of our brains. You know they say denial is one hell of a drug. Indeed it is. 

Are there areas of your life where you are stuck or are you walking on the broken glass of unresolvement? 

Life happens to us all. Life is so beautiful and rich when we are actively LIVING not just existing and working through.