Here are 5 lessons I have Learned in my 5 years as a therapist
1. SETTING BOUNDARIES IS EASIER SAID THAN DONE
Setting boundaries is easier said than done. Boundaries? What is that? Boundaries are the limits and rules you set for yourself within a relationship. They are based on your values or things that are important to you. With that knowledge, you would think that setting boundaries would be easy. In my work as a therapist and in my personal experience, this has not been the case. Setting boundaries can be very difficult for those of you who have people-pleasing tendencies because setting boundaries requires you to actually prioritize your own needs rather than consistently putting others needs first. When you are not used to prioritizing your needs, you might feel selfish when you start to do so. This is an uncomfortable emotion that you just have to sit with in the beginning stages of implementing boundaries. Because in reality, setting boundaries IS selfish, but it is selfish in a healthy way. How can you be selfish in a healthy way? By setting limits and rules for yourself within relationships based on your values and things that are important to you.
There are a variety of effects that happen when you set boundaries. Most of the effects will be good feelings, but I want to make you aware of some of the “negative” effects and feelings that might come up. We talked about the feeling of selfishness that happens in the beginning stages of setting boundaries, but I can promise you that feeling will diminish as you have more practice with setting boundaries. Another “negative” effect that can cause some emotional pain when you set boundaries with people is that you will begin to unveil the people that were just using you. This unveiling will be very noticeable because the person you are setting a boundary with will react with annoyance, anger, frustration and might even go as far as yell at you. This will hurt in the moment, yes, but paying attention to how someone responds to you when you set a boundary will help you to see how that person values you or not. So is it good to realize those people didn’t value you? Absolutely! You don’t want to put effort into a relationship where the other person doesn’t value you. But it still stings in the process, especially when it results in the loss of that relationship entirely. Now, this isn’t to say that others can’t ask questions about why you are setting the boundary especially if that hasn’t been normal for the relationship dynamic. It’s more so noting how they are asking the questions and if they are showing you respect.
Another reason why boundaries are easier said than done is because even if you work up the courage to begin to set a boundary, that doesn’t mean the person you are setting the boundary with will respect you, And if that’s the case, you will have to work hard to continue to set the boundary and maintain the boundary with that person. (This, assuming that you still want a relationship with this person or this person is someone that you are going to have to see on a regular basis. If you don’t want a relationship with them, you won’t necessarily have to focus on maintaining the boundary). But continually trying to maintain the boundary can be emotionally and mentally exhausting. This, in part, can exacerbate due to the other person escalating the more you set boundaries. This can create a toxic cycle, at which point evaluating the need for the relationship will be crucial. So again, boundaries can result in the loss of a relationship but this isn’t always a bad thing.
So how do we go about putting boundaries into place? What steps do you take? Well, the first thing you need to do is to assess your limits, rules, and values. Ask yourself what things are important to you? What are your priorities? Is time a priority? Family? Self-care time? Really look at your life and list out the things that are important to you and that you want to prioritize in your life. Once you assess what’s important and the areas of your life that you want to set some boundaries, the next step is mapping out how to vocalize these boundaries. Planning out what and how you are going to say the boundary. This will help you feel more confident because you don’t have to think of what to say in the moment.
Action plan for setting a boundary: Start small. Pick one person that you have been wanting to set a boundary with, think of a specific boundary you are wanting to set with them, write it down on a piece of paper or on your phone, write out a sentence of how exactly to say the boundary, and then find the courage to say it to them. (*finding the courage might be the hardest part. Just remind yourself that the boundary is necessary for your mental well being and the relationship).
2. HEALING ISN’T LINEAR… AND IT’S NOT A DESTINATION
A very common misconception about healing is that it should be this nice, straight linear path. In an ideal world, sure. That would be great if healing was just a straight shot from point A to point B. Truth is, we don’t live in an “ideal” world. We live in the real world. And in the real world, life doesn’t just stop because you are working on healing. You work on healing WHILE still going through the everyday motions of life. This causes healing to look a little like a roller coaster. Healing is still getting from point A to point B, but with a few bumps and turns in the mix. And that’s okay! Healing is simply about moving forward, not perfection. This leads me to my other point.
Healing is a journey, NOT a destination. I know, I know. You are probably making a face and saying “what?!? What do you mean it’s NOT a destination.” Just hear me out. Whether it’s something from your past or something from the present, healing will be a journey. I say it’s a journey because there is no definitive line where a person can say “I’m healed! I don’t need to do work anymore.” Is it possible to completely heal from things? Yes and no. It is possible to heal from an event, but that doesn’t mean you might not still get triggered. And when you get triggered, you use the tools you learned in therapy to help diminish the intensity of that trigger… which is a continual process of healing. See where I am going with this? Yes, you can heal from an event, but there will always be a continuous need to keep healing. Especially because of life in general. Just because you heal from one event doesn’t mean another event isn’t going to happen. Life is a mystery, so healing is a journey.
3. SHOVING YOUR EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS DOWN, DOESN’T MAKE THEM GO AWAY.
Shoving our emotions and feelings down is, unfortunately, a very common thing that adults do. Sometimes it’s because we have too, such as needing to work, or dealing with children, etc. Sometimes, it’s simply because we don’t want to deal with them. And we think that if we just shove them down, they will go away. This is a lie! Our body actually holds on to those emotions and feelings.
I often use, what I call, the volcano analogy when explaining why shoving our emotions down doesn’t make them go away. The analogy is that our emotions and feelings are like a volcano. So just humor me and imagine yourself being a volcano, okay? And obviously when you are near a volcano there are going to be lava rocks, right? Well imagine that these lava rocks are different events or things that happen to you. When you throw a lava rock into a volcano, the lava inside the volcano is going to react but eventually it will fizzle out and the volcano won’t end up erupting. This part of the analogy explains that when you deal with an event while it happens and you let yourself feel those emotions rather than shoving them down, eventually you will work through that emotion and return to a baseline. Following me so far? Good, I hope so at least.
However, often what happens is we put a net in our volcano. The net represents those times when we either don’t have the time to feel our emotions, or we are at work so it’s not the appropriate place, or because we simply just don’t want to deal with them. So what happens when the lava rocks (aka life events) get thrown in? The net catches them. And since the net catches them, the lava in the volcano remains undisturbed. But notice, the lava rocks didn’t go away, they are just hanging in a net above the lava. When we continue to add lava rocks to the net, the net becomes weaker and weaker, right? Because a net can only hold so much weight. So what happens when the net breaks? All of the lava rocks that were in the net, fall into the lava at the same time. And what happens when the volcano gets too much disturbance? It erupts! This part of the analogy shows that when we shove down our emotions and don’t process them, they don’t just go away. They fester in our body until the smallest event sets us off and then we have an emotional outburst. This emotional outburst is when your body releases all of those pent up emotions and feelings.
I hope you are sitting there shaking your head up and down realizing that this is something you do. Acknowledging that you do this is the first step towards working on changing it.
4. NOBODY HAS LIFE 100% FIGURED OUT, NOT EVEN THERAPIST’S…. SO STOP COMPARING!
Especially with the rise of social media, it seems like people have life figured out. We see these people on tiktok or instagram who have financial wealth, have nice material things, appear to be so happy with their life, appear to have their life together. Well, I am sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s all a facade. Nobody, and I truly mean nobody, has life 100% figured out 100% of the time. Sure there might be moments in a person’s life where they feel like they have it figured out, the key word being feel. Only to realize moments later that what they thought they had figured out, wasn’t actually figured out at all.
A big thing that comes from social media and thinking these people have life figured out, is comparison. How many times have you been scrolling through tiktok, instagram, twitter, facebook, etc., and thought to yourself, “Man, I wish I had their life,” or “Man, I wish I had as much money as them”, or even, “Dang, I am the same age as them and look at what they have accomplished versus me.” I can almost guarantee, even if you don’t have social media, that you have had thoughts like these at least once. Whether it was comparing yourself to your parents, friends, other family members, or even random strangers. The comparison game is not fun. And it’s not helpful. Comparing your stage of life to someone else’s stage of life is causing more damage to your mental, physical, and even spiritual well being. I get that it’s hard not to compare your life to others lives. The important thing to remember, is that when you notice having these comparison thoughts, stop it in its tracks and tell yourself, “This isn’t helpful. It’s not fair to compare my stage of life to someone else’s stage of life.
Action plan: Work on not comparing your life to others just in general. But when or if it happens, tell yourself the following statement on repeat until your brain stops the comparison:
Comparing my life to someone else’s is not beneficial to my life. I am being unfair to myself by comparing my stage of life to their stage of life. I am in the exact stage of life I am meant to be in right now.
5. STOP DIAGNOSING YOURSELF
I can’t tell you how many times a client has come in already having a diagnosis picked out that they think they have because of seeing something on social media and/or reading something online. Now, I am not saying that the information you get online isn’t helpful. What I am saying is to take it with a grain of salt, go see a professional, and DON’T diagnose yourself.
Why do I say these things? Mental health diagnoses can have such similar symptoms which is why you should leave the diagnosing to a professional because they go to school to be able to differentiate between the various diagnoses. Now, if you have an idea of what you are struggling with, absolutely bring that up to your therapist so that you and your therapist can explore that diagnosis together. What I don’t suggest doing is diagnosing yourself.
Let’s wrap it back around to a question you might have of what I mean when I say diagnoses can have similar symptoms. Therapist’s use a book called the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, 5th edition” (DSM-5). The DSM-5 has the explanation of symptoms for all of the current mental health diagnoses. It is what mental health professionals use in order to give clients the most accurate diagnosis by being able to differentiate between diagnoses that have similar symptoms. Take Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder for example. Both of these diagnoses fall under the umbrella of anxiety so they both have similar symptoms. However, there are criteria that are present that allow Generalized Anxiety Disorder to be differentiated from Social Anxiety Disorder. Now, this is only one example. There are 298 diagnoses in the DSM-5 which is why you should leave it up to the professional to diagnose you so that they can implement the differentiation process in order to give you the most accurate diagnosis.
Action Plan: DON’T DIAGNOSIS YOURSELF. Again, this doesn’t mean that if you have an idea you shouldn’t bring it up to your therapist, because you 100% should. BUT, you should allow your therapist the opportunity to have a conversation with you about the diagnosis so that the both of you can go over it together.