Imperfectly Growing
Why do we come to therapy? Sometimes we come to therapy to fix ourselves, fix our relationships or we may even come to therapy to fix others. The ‘fixing of things’ might be a byproduct of effective counselling work. Though, it is not really the work that gets done. It tends to be a deeper process than that. Often, in counselling, we start with the goal to fix things and in the process of therapy, we end up learning who we are and what we want. We learn how to recognise our voice and how to use our voice. We might even begin to remember things we knew as truths about ourselves and about others. Life giving and powerful truths that have been forgotten or have been buried by life events or by the voices of others who spoke heavy or untrue things over us. The work in therapy, is often more about working on the relationship with ourselves, before we can work on the relationship with others, our communities, and, for some, our spiritual relationships.
Fixing our focus on to the good and the healthy while also being able to look at and embrace places of tension or paradox, can help 'fix' the things we come to therapy for. It is not the ‘fixing’ we need but the development of techniques to ‘imperfectly grow’. By this I mean that we can become more and more able to notice, acknowledge, look at and sit with pain, fear, worry and discomfort. When we sit with the difficult feelings, they can lose their power and we place ourselves in a position that enables us to be curious about the how and why these feelings are there. Our nervous system is less threatened by them, and we can explore what is under the surface of these feelings. This can help guide you to know what you need more of or less of, in your life.
Therapy helps us grow and it helps us learn to allow a margin in our life for errors. We don't want to become perfect, fix things perfectly or aim for perfection. Perfectionism is a trap that is hard to break free from. Counselling helps you become comfortable with and able to go with the ebbs and flows of life, to feel equipped and resourced to imperfectly grow. From this more grounded place, we can live a very authentic and satisfying life. We will also recognise and choose healthy connections with people and able to hold healthy boundaries with others. Feeling able to give and receive as we feel comfortable doing so.
There is much to gain from the work done in counselling sessions. How deep you wish to go is totally up to you. Book in some counselling sessions and experience what it is like to imperfectly grow.
At Merie Burton Counselling and Psychotherapy, each of the practitioners will meet you where you are. You will be encouraged to go at your own pace and set goals for the work you want to do.
Author: Rachel Whitton