Why Everyone Needs Therapy

From our first years till our last breath, life takes us on highs and lows. From the moment we were as little and helpless as embryos, we carry the emotional baggage and trauma of our parents and ancestors, then we get out to face the world as individuals, enduring pains of our own and undergoing traumas of our own. We, in a way, though unconsciously, bring about our own suffering, when we decide that this time a parent disappointed us or a friend betrayed our trust, or a partner gaslight us every time we have an argument is just no big deal, we move on, and label all these occurrences as water under the bridge.

 

Barely do we ever take the time to pause the rush, step out of autopilot mode, and dig really deep to understand why certain things cause us pain, why we throw tantrums like children when we could have had a mature conversation, why we avoid instead of confront. In short, we don’t dig deep enough to understand what makes us who we are and why we behave the way we do. And it is for this very reason, we all need therapy. Therapy is not a step that we only need to take when life knocks us down, it is a journey everyone needs to take, at least once in their life. Everyone needs therapy

 

Because we might not really know our true selves. Learning about ourselves is a lifelong journey. We change along the way; the experiences we go through change and reshape us, and the people we encounter play a role in how we treat others after them. In the process of it all, we lose touch with our true selves; we don’t really know who we are anymore.

 

Because survival mode can’t be a way of living. We become reactive, only trying to get by and live day by day. The autopilot mode we got stuck in hinders our growth, pulling us back from evolving. When we live every day merely in survival mode, we leave no room for exploring more about who we are and learning ways we can better cope with life.

 

Because old wounds need healing. Our inner child is crying for help, and that inner child we failed to heal keeps coming out more than we expect; we just don’t know much about it. A lot of pain and wounds we just walk past them without giving ourselves the proper time to understand why we are hurting and how to heal. We keep sweeping it all under the carpet, and one day, all this pain resurfaces, and trust me, it will.

 

Because we carry a legacy of our parents’ traumas. Whether we know it or not, we all carry imprints of their lived experiences and traumas. They lacked the awareness we have today, they didn’t do the work they needed to do, and mostly unknowingly, they passed on their traumas to us.  We are shaped by their experiences and feelings, their setbacks and mistakes; we all carry some parts of them within us.

 

Because we all need different perspectives. We need to see things in a different light. We need someone who can help us understand that not all our beliefs are necessarily valid, that things can be looked at differently. We need to know that not every way we learned to do things is the right way, and that an open mind will always help us get rid of old and unhelpful ways of thinking.

 

Because navigating life is never easy. It takes us in a rollercoaster; one day we feel we are on top of the world, and the next, life pushes us down to rock bottom. Because life never promised us eternal happiness and sunshine, in fact, we will always, always have our fair share of challenges, obstacles, tough times, disappointments, loss, and heartbreaks.

 

But, first of foremost, you need to know that therapy is never an easy journey. It is not the romanticized self-care rituals of bubble baths and scented candles. Therapy is going to be one of the toughest things you go through, it will unearth parts you never knew existed in you. It will bring you face to face with your fears and insecurities. It will show you a side of yourself you were running away from. It will revive sad experiences and traumas and remind you of things you decided to just ignore.

 

But as tough as therapy is, you will come out of it a new person, one that you will love and feel proud of. A new person strong enough to face whatever life throws at them and curious enough to never want to stop learning, exploring, evolving, and growing. Finally, therapy can be one of the toughest things you’ll do for yourself, but remember, nothing rewarding is ever easy.