On ne se lasse pas de ces façades… • We can’t get enough of those façades… • 📷 @clangart
Je ne suis pas en train de dire que je n'aime pas travailler mais si les week-end pouvaient durer 7 jours, ça m'irait très bien. • I’m not saying that I don’t like to work but if weekends could last 7 days, I’d find that perfectly fine. • 📷 @parisinfourmonths
yesdarlingido
I think my biggest passion in discussing therapy with those who aren’t in therapy is to help minimize the anxiety and fear of being uncomfortable or judged. Here’s some insight to what I view as part of the therapist’s role, or at least what role I seek to play with my clients.
No matter how complex the issue, people come to therapy for simple reasons. It’s either because something in their life is causing them some level of distress, or to gain insight/clarity/direction on a various topic or decision in their life. In my experience, it always boils down to helping someone through shame, a past wound, present distress, or future-focused anxiety. My goal is to model a response that’s either unfamiliar or difficult for them to do for themselves. My goal is to serve as a reference for what compassion, curiosity, courage, and care looks like, feels like, and sounds like, until they become so familiar with it as I model it for them and offer it to them that they can practice it themselves. You try out self-compassion for example, so you’re not just getting it from me, but cultivating it for your self.
I only see my clients one hour a week, and the only one to be with them for all one hundred sixty eight hours in a week is themselves. So, together, we figure out why judgement is so much more automatic than compassion. We explore why it’s so much easier to jump to conclusions and make assumptions about ourselves and our situations than it is to be curious about what else might be going on. We look at why it’s so foreign to be gentle and kind and caring to themselves.
We look at the depth and complexity of all the pain that has taught you to fiercely protect yourself from the ache of loneliness, neglect, abuse or the pain of feeling misunderstood. We lay a foundation of safety and install beams of trust. We take our time weaving together a secure place for you to lay down all the armor you’ve been carrying around. And you breathe. Breathe in clarity; loosen your grip on the lies. Take in caring feedback, and let go of the stubborn, sabotaging patterns. Receive compassion, and release yourself from criticism.
You take small risks, letting yourself be seen, and it will be hard. But then you’re given what you may not be used to: Hope, because you are resilient. Confidence, because there is more to you than the part that holds you back. Empathy, because no one should ever have to feel so alone in their experience. Competence, because there is always a way to sift through the mess and untangle the knots until we can make sense of it and choose to deal with it appropriately and practically.
This is my role: to see you, to hear you, to sit with you. To lean in, to learn what it means to be you, and to give you the safety and the comfort that allows you to open up even more. To care for you, to challenge you, to walk alongside you, to root for you. To do for you what you will one day do for yourself.
-L,
