Feel your feelings: What Therapy Taught Me

I have been in therapy for a while now. 

Its been an interesting journey of self discovery and understanding my wounds. As a therapist, understanding what its like to be a client is important, otherwise how can you help others? “If you don’t feel your sadness, how can you help other people with their own sadness?” — this is something my therapist said to me (somewhat paraphrased) during my early days of my psychotherapy sessions. Understanding your emotions is crucial to helping others at least try understand what they might be feeling. 

Along the way I have learnt some very important lessons by attending therapy and developing a therapeutic alliance (therapists babble for ‘Bond’) with my therapist. 

Boundaries

Boundary setting is something I have struggled with since young. I always found it hard to draw the line at unacceptable behaviour. I believe I have tolerated a lot of nonsense over the years, so boundary setting became a goal I decided to work on in therapy. 

Boundaries are essentially a guideline a person sets for themselves on how they want to be treated. Having boundaries in place can lead to better relationships and possibly prevent you from being taken advantage of — particularly if you struggle with being a people pleaser. 

Dating & Healthy Relationships 

What comes to mind when you think of healthy relationships? — Respect, Trust, Honesty, Support, Interdependence, good communication etc. I find that most of my relationships, particularly in the dating department were lacking these key ingredients. As result, this lead me into a few situationships and thus leaving me unsatisfied and hurt. 

In a healthy relationship, you should feel able to express your thoughts and feelings without the fear of being reprimanded. Therapy has provided me with a space openly say my thoughts and feelings without fear. 

Celebrate your wins/accomplishments/successes

Celebrating my wins has been somewhat difficult at times. For example, when I got my first psychotherapist job, I felt somewhat shocked that I had been granted the role and self-doubt began to creep in. There are times when I have noticed that I down play my accomplishments instead of praising myself for doing well. 

Having a safe space

Sometimes you just want to get away from the outdoors and its accompanying noise — my therapy space provides just that. When I was studying to become a Psychotherapist, I realised that I hardly ever had any time to myself. I was always busy. If wasn’t the trainee psychotherapist, then I was student, health care assistant or friend, daughter, sister, you get my drift. Having my therapy space gave me some me time.

Feel your feelings

Prior to my training as a therapist I really struggled with feeling my emotions and would avoid them at all costs. However, by avoiding my emotions I ended up avoiding the ‘good’ emotions too. Emotional suppression can lead to mental health difficulties and illnesses such as depression and anxiety. It causes more pain and you just end up emotionally exploding to people or things. I learnt that when I did not feel my feelings, it would manifest in different ways, like dreams or behaviours. Since I struggle with revealing my feelings with friends and family (fear of getting hurt, ignored, or hurting others), I took up journalling. I have over 7 journals filled with emotional content since 2013 and I must say that it has helped. Drawing and poetry have been alternative ways of expressing my feelings. 

Communication 

Communication is a key ingredient to lasting relationships. As someone who keeps to themselves, communication was a weak point for me. Constantly struggling to get my emotional needs met or expressing my true feelings towards loved ones, my therapist encouraged me to be vocal about my needs and has reminded me that people are not mind readers.