Many clients come to therapy actively seeking solutions for life problems. Some clients come to therapy because they don’t feel quite ok, like something is missing from life. Few clients come to therapy actively seeking growth, yet this is what all clients must be seeking if they want to accomplish their therapy goals.
Growth looks different to different people, however in a therapy setting growth refers to challenging internal belief sets and established patterns of behavior. What does this mean? Think about it this way: until we really start to pause and reflect on our lives, and what role we may unintentionally be playing in our challenges, we are likely doomed to continue to repeat them. I use the term “sleepwalking through life” when describing the patterns we often find ourselves in. It makes plenty of sense if we think about it: the more we practice something, the better we generally become at it. Few people learn how to ride a bike without practicing! As we advance from tricycles, to bicycles with training wheels, to eventually just two weeks, learning is happening on several levels. Yes we begin to feel more confident and balanced, but this is not by accident. On a neurological level, different areas of our brain are building relationships with each other. This same process happens with our thoughts and beliefs, and not always in a helpful way.
Sometimes we learn unfortunate lessons about the world through our life experiences. We asked our crush out but she laughed at us in front of all of her friends.” Why did I do that?! I’ll never ask anyone out again”. We ask our boss for a raise, and he belittles our level of work and tells us to be grateful that we have a job. “I’ll never do that again, what a dumb choice…what was I thinking”. The examples go on, but the basic idea stands: I took a risk, it paid off terribly, and we’re less likely to do it again in the future. Tough lessons learned.
When it comes to therapy, I encourage my clients to learn and practice 5 skills as it relates to “doing the work” with counseling. Notice, Name, Validate, Feel, and Process. These 5 steps hold an immense amount of psychological healing power. Without learning and practicing these skills, Internal Growth is simply not possible! It pains me when I come across folks in my everyday life that believe learning is a process that is meant to have an end. I like to say “learning stops when we return to the Earth, and not a moment before”. We are human beings, neurologically programmed to soak up and process information from the moment we’re born. It would be silly to think that these processes and parts of our brains just turn off! It is human to learn, be curious, and expand our minds.
