How you being in therapy helps others
Do you have someone in your life who you think needs therapy, but they just won’t go? Their reluctance to get help or go to couples counseling with you has led you to a spot where you’re considering your own therapy! But then you start to wonder, if I go for me, how is that going to help us?
Or do you have a partner who thinks you need therapy and you’re wondering the same thing?
One of the things that dialectics reminds us is that change is transactional. This means that our environment and the people in it influence us, and at the same time we influence our environment and the people in it. When you go to individual therapy and work through challenges, the people you love and care about are going to benefit as you begin to have more emotional energy and shift out of survival mode and intro thriving mode.
What will I learn in therapy that will be helpful to others?
Our emotions play a big role in how we interact with others. When we’re excited, that shines through in what we say and the joyful look on our faces when we say it. When we’re frustrated or irritated, that also comes through in our tone, word choice, and furrowed eyebrows. Sometimes we are aware of how our emotions are coming through in the moment, but sometimes they sneak through in ways we don’t fully realize.
Have you ever come home from a really stressful day and you feel like your family (or partner) bombards you with 101 questions when you walk in the door? You’re overwhelmed with choice paralysis or decision fatigue, and your overthinking brain cannot take on anymore. You might have been friendly for the first couple, exasperated for the new couple, and then downright irritated by the 5th. Whoever asked that last question probably got a short and snippy answer from you, and may have felt really confused about why you reacted that way.
Going to therapy and learning skills in regulating emotions is a huge benefit for you because you learn how emotions show up for you and how you can change them, when and if you want to. Learning skills in therapy for recognizing the impact of that stressful day and strategies to change or cope with those emotions can help you AND the people you’re interacting with.
This helps others because they won’t need to worry about your reaction if they catch you in a tough moment, and they may feel more comfortable getting vulnerable with you when they need to because their guard doesn’t need to up as much.
Communication is tough for so many people. Especially when it’s about tense topics or in relationships that are in a season or moment of tension. Challenges can be in both the expressing and listening side, and spiral little conflicts into epic blow-out arguments.
Therapy can help you better understand your strengths and areas-for-improvement with communication. While couple’s counseling or family therapy can be really helpful in strengthening communication on all sides, individual therapy can also help in situations where your partner may not be able or willing to go to that type of therapy. Many of my clients notice that once they are better able to recognize and name their feelings and needs for themselves through their work with me, it’s much easier to more clearly express them to other people.
This is helpful to others because they can better understand what you’re needing and how they may be able to help, rather than getting stuck in communication holes where they might be trying to fill in the blanks and assume incorrectly.
One of the common challenges my client’s experience is that they over-prioritize relationship goals (what’s needed to maintain or improve the connection) and under-prioritize self-respect goals (what’s needed to maintain or improve your self-respect). This looks like saying yes to more than they can, agreeing to things they don’t like or want, or being the one to sacrifice more in a compromise in an effort to “keep the peace.” The problem here is that they can only do this for so long before they burn out. They get exhausted about their wants and needs not being met, even if they never even communicated them in the first place. They’ve forgotten what it looks like to check in and acknowledge their self-respect goals.
When they come to therapy and start to dig into this, they learn how to recognize BOTH relationship and self-respect goals, and how to create more of a balance in how those goals are prioritized so there’s not an overcorrection one way or another. In the long-term this helps to keep healthy relationships in a more sustainable place, and reduce the risk of resentment sneaking in. The improved balance in relationships also helps my clients not feel as emotionally exhausted because their wants and needs are being met along with the other person, and it doesn’t feel like such a one-way-street.
This is helpful to others because you’ll be more present in your relationships, and it lowers the risk of resentment and frustration building up. They will benefit from you feeling more fulfilled by the relationships, and it may even strengthen the relationship along with strengthening your self-respect and sense of self-worth.
You know the saying, you cannot pour from an empty cup. If you’re someone who’s had an empty cup for awhile now because anxiety and overthinking have drained it, therapy can help you learn how to refill it in meaningful ways. And not just one quick refill, but really getting into sustainable strategies that help you refill it again and again so you can continue to give in all the ways you want to be able to.
Ready to learn more about online therapy with mindfully balanced therapy?
Kimberleigh provides therapy for women online in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Illinois. Book a call today of click the button below to learn more about what this can look like for you and the next steps to get started!
