Be Gracious, Be Patient and Be Curious: The 3 Keys to Thrive in Therapy
“Why isn’t this working?” Have you ever had that thought while attending therapy? As discussed in the blog article “Why Isn’t This Working: 4 Areas That May Be Preventing An Effective Therapy Experience.”, regardless of what you’re seeking therapy for, it’s not uncommon to run into obstacles preventing you from feeling as though you’re getting the most out of therapy.
It’s also not uncommon to experience self-doubt when it comes to mental health. This self-doubt can surface both inside and outside of the therapy process. Outside of therapy, self-doubt might sound like “I’ve never experienced anxiety before, what’s wrong with me?” While engaging in therapy, self-doubt might sound like “I thought I’d be over this by now.” Regardless of where and how the self-doubt surfaces, it’s always an unpleasant and challenging experience to navigate.
In my years of working with clients experiencing self-doubt around the improvement of their mental health, I’ve identified 3 key factors needed to help you thrive in therapy:
Be Gracious
Be Patient
Be Curious
Let’s walk through each of these individually to help you better understand they’re ability to help you thrive.
Be gracious
It’s not uncommon for self-defeating thoughts to surface when self-doubt is present; in fact, they can have a tendency to feed off of each other. Being gracious simply speaks to the idea of being gentle and kind to yourself while you work towards progress. While this appears as a simple concept, the execution of giving yourself grace can be challenging. Here are a few ideas to begin (and continue) allowing for grace:
Normalize your experience: overcoming mental health hurdles can be challenging; you desiring to reach your goals in a quick fashion is you being human. This is okay!
Highlight progress already made: it’s easy to only look at what’s not working and what we still have left to achieve. I invite you to take a moment to pause and highlight all the progress you’ve already made. If that progress is recognizing you’re struggling and exploring how you might work towards improvements, GREAT! Small progress is still progress!
Seek out encouragement: Whether it’s your safe and healthy support system, a particular song that brings you hope, or a phrase you recite to yourself, I invite you to find elements to turn to throughout your day that encourages you to keep pushing forward.
be patient
As I mentioned above, the desire to quickly reach your goals and overcome whatever battle(s) you’re facing is natural. And, with that being said, some hurdles take time to climb over and move beyond. Being patient with the process can also be another element of giving yourself grace. In some cases, you may have been navigating a certain way (despite that certain way not always serving you) for a long period of time. It’s going to take time to introduce and learn new approaches. If you don’t find full benefit from a new tool/exercise/strategy/skill right away, that’s okay! It may take a little bit before a new way of functioning feels like your new norm.
be curious
When something feels off or isn’t working right, we can either ignore it or become curious (this applies to both yourself, as someone walking this journey, and those who are supporting you along the way). Curiosity allows you to:
determine exactly where and how the concern is presenting; providing insight into the direction of your next steps
tweak the skills/strategies/tools provided to fit you and your needs
Curiosity might sound like: “is it possible to never have struggled with depression or anxiety before this point?” or “I’ve attempted using the safe space exercise to help me mentally step away but I’m having a hard time stopping my thoughts. What else can I do?”
For those of you supporting a loved one walking through a tough time, curiosity might sound like: “what do you find to be the most challenging thing right now?” or “Is there anything I’ve done in attempts to support you that’s been helpful? Anything that hasn’t helped?”
Mental health can be challenging at times. We don’t have to get it right, we just have to try! As you walk your journey (whatever journey that might be), I invite and encourage you to remember to be gracious, be patient and be curious. If you would like to begin your journey, or become CURIOUS about what your journey could look like, click below to schedule your free 15 minute consultation.
Here’s to living a better life as your best self.
Brittany Squillace, MA, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
