The Problem With Therapy

Look, therapy’s great. I love it as much as the next neurotic, culturally-Jewish New Yorker.
In other words, I’ve done a LOT of therapy.
But I hit a wall with it.

I had done it for years and just felt like I wasn’t getting any closer to my dreams.
Does this sound familiar?
For me, and for many of my clients, therapy is too past-focused. It’s about dredging up the pain from the past. Reliving it. Hoping to release it.
For me, that moment of release it never came. And reliving pain from the past was, frankly, exhausting and dispiriting. 
I finally got impatient and started looking for something else. And that’s when I stumbled across coaching.
It’s not that coaching doesn’t include the past. It does.

But coaching helps me realize the thought errors from my past, the thoughts that I was thinking that kept me from achieving my goals.  
Once I recognized those thought errors, I could change them. Not necessarily to the perfect thought. But to a thought that moved me closer to my goal. 
For example, I had an emotionally abusive, narcissistic father. My childhood was spent cowering in fear. 
I can’t change that childhood experience. And I don't want to pretend that it was an acceptable experience.

But years of focusing on my victimhood kept me as a victim. 
When I realized that other options were available to me, for example, “Wow, I must have been really strong to survive that and still succeed in life,” I suddenly felt empowered instead of victimized. 

​That thought allowed me to focus on my strengths without needing to change my past.  
I don’t know about you, but my life experience is a hell of a lot better when I feel powerful instead of victimized. 

Somehow, without doing other work, relationships have become easier in my life. I have more close friends and a thriving romantic partnership. I almost never shout at my kids anymore. I am slowly gaining confidence in stating my opinions and sharing my needs. Authentically and vulnerably. Even with my children. 

Some days, I barely recognize the person I have become. But I am overwhelmed with gratitude by my life these days. 

Where would you like to take back your power in your life? Set up a complimentary life coaching session to experience the transformation that is available to you.