How counseling changed my life

How has counseling changed my life? As with most things in life, the more effort you put into something, the more you will get out. This is especially true with counseling. The more you are willing to look inside yourself and peel back the layers of your being, the better results you will get.

Counseling can help you recognize things about yourself you may have never noticed. There is a benefit to having that neutral person to speak to each week to offer unbiased advice and see things from a non-judgmental perspective.  Often some of our “issues” can seem obvious (i.e., dealing with grief or a specific trauma); however other times, there may be a certain feeling of uncertainty bubbling up under the surface that we would like to learn to identify and deal with. Learning to identify the triggers and ways of coping with them can greatly impact our day-to-day living. Through counseling, you can learn to take situations that were previously riddled with emotion and handle them seamlessly (or at the very least better).

When you are in a therapeutic relationship, you open yourself up and share parts of yourself that might be uncomfortable or have strong emotions associated with them (sadness, anger, shame). For this reason, it is important to feel like you are safe with your therapist. You may feel vulnerable when discussing sensitive topics, and if you do not feel comfortable or safe, the experience may not be as positive as it could have been otherwise. Many times, these are things we have not discussed previously for fear of being judged or hurt. However, a therapist can help you process the situation's emotions and hopefully make it less powerful. There is great value in taking thoughts from inside our minds and processing them out loud. When we keep things “bottled up,” they can grow and become ugly; however, voicing them out loud or even through journaling and sharing them can help in processing them and help the healing process.

Counseling can have a huge impact on your life. There may be times when you meet with your therapist, and it may seem like not much is going on, and there is not a lot to talk about, but I challenge you to reflect on how you feel afterward, and I would venture to say you at the very least a little bit more whole than you were before your session.