WHY I DO Therapy

A big goal of mine in 2024 was to start therapy. It was something that had been on my mind for years but never pulled the trigger, mostly for fear of the unknown, the process of finding someone was daunting, and not entirely understanding if I had a real “reason” to even do it. What propelled me forward was sharing it with my community and receiving an overwhelming amount of feedback and encouragement to do it. Once it was out there that I was open to it, a friend of mine reached out and offered to make an intro to someone she felt would be a good fit for me. I got very lucky with this because I’ve heard sometimes you have to “date” multiple therapists before finding the one. I could tell from our first consult session she was my kind of woman.

The main reason I was interested in therapy was to improve who I was / am as a parent. As my kids get older and discipline, respect, hard topics, boundaries, rules, and emotions come into play I was finding myself very lost how to navigate. I could see myself slipping into repeated patterns of behavior I have encountered, where I was mostly a reactive parent. I wanted to stop feeling confused how to handle situations with my kids, but rather go into them with confidence and tools to help me help them.

Yes, there are books and podcasts you can use as resources, but no shock here, my attention span for reading vague advice is very minimal. I needed someone to hear me out, understand my specific situation(s), and provide me with guidance to not only work through the situation, but also help me regulate my own emotions. Something I didn’t even realize I was needing emotionally, was the validation of someone else who could simply just understand my frustration without judgement.

What I have realized as a parent who is constantly reading articles and served random bits of knowledge via social media, is that one of our main jobs as parents is to teach our kids how to regulate their own emotions, which will serve them tremendously as adults. I was struggling with this because I didn’t even realize I could barely regulate my own emotions. Naming my emotions is also something I struggle with. Maybe it’s the Scorpio in me, but when asked “what emotion does that bring up for you” I literally don’t know…it’s something I’m working on.

So, with all that said, a major red flag was waving in my face when I realized ‘how could I possibly teach my kids to regulate and identify their own emotions when I can barely do that myself as a 36 year old woman?!’

It took maybe 1 or 2 sessions for me to have this revelation before knowing with certainty that I had work to do. I started therapy in January of this year, and have consistently kept up with it weekly. I had some changes happen at the start of the year that enabled me to free up a morning time slot to be replaced by therapy. It was a blessing in disguise, and without freeing up my mental capacity for therapy, I don’t think it would have been as effective. I went into this journey completely open minded to making change and improving who I am as a person.

In addition to parenting, our conversations have veered in all directions; covering topics like marriage, business, my career, childhood, friendships, life changes, etc. For someone like me, who has an overwhelming amount of responsibility, pressure, and expectations on them, therapy has been a life saver. It has really helped me put things into perspective, understand my emotions and reactions, while just generally feeling like I have someone with a very unbiased opinion to help guide me through whatever I’m currently dealing with in life.

I cannot say enough positive things about therapy. If you have been considering it I highly recommend trying it out. The way I view it – we make such an effort to take care of ourselves physically that sometimes we don’t pay attention to our mental health. This year I was committed to not only my physical health, but my mental and emotional one as well and I’m really proud of myself for putting in the work and continuing to want to better myself.

Hope that answered your questions about my journey with therapy. I know a lot of you have been asking and I really didn’t know where to begin with this article, but happy to elaborate further if anyone is interested.