S2 · Ep 2: Understanding Therapy as a Process - Not a Quick Fix | Tina Wilston | The MindSpa Podcast

In this episode of The MindSpa Podcast, we take the mystery out of therapy and show how real change happens, not through quick fixes or venting on repeat, but through a practical process that builds self-knowledge, calms the body, and changes daily choices.

From perfectionism’s moving goalposts to the way your heart rate and breath shape anxious thoughts, we break down what actually helps — and what keeps you stuck.

We reframe therapy as a steady practice of self-exploration. Patterns that once protected you can become rigid rules that drain joy and strain relationships. You’ll learn how to spot those loops, trace them back to early experiences without getting trapped in blame, and replace them with realistic standards and kinder self-talk.

We also explore nervous system literacy, how tight jaws, lifted shoulders, and shallow breaths pull you into fight-or-flight, and share simple, reliable tools like body scans and slow exhales to reset in the moment.

Then we get concrete:

• Communication that lands

• Boundaries as actions, not demands

• Emotional regulation in daily life

• Reclaiming agency in work and relationships

Therapy isn’t about fixing other people, being told what to do, or chasing instant relief. It’s a collaborative space to build skills and create sustainable change.

If this resonates, follow the podcast, share the episode with someone who needs a grounded take on therapy, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

The MindSpa Podcast

Thoughtful conversations about mental health, relationships, identity, healing, grounded in clinical expertise and steady human insight.

Hosts

Tina Wilston, M.Ed., Registered Psychotherapist 

Co-Owner, MindSpa Mental Health Centre

LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook

Michelle Massunken, MSW, RSW

Co-Owner, MindSpa Mental Health Centre

LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook

MindSpa Mental Health Centre

Ottawa - Kanata & Gloucester

themindspa.ca

LinkedIn, instagram

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Transcript

Tempo: 120.0

Tina Wilston 0:01

Welcome back to The MindSpa Podcast. Today we are going to talk about a really important topic. Today we're going to talk about what therapy is and what therapy is not. I'm hoping that this is going to be helpful for people that not only are already in therapy, so in order to actually get the most out of your therapy sessions, I'm hoping you can learn a little here. But also, this is an episode for anyone who was maybe thinking about doing therapy, but they didn't really know exactly what it was. So we're going to start with what therapy is. Therapy is a process. And actually, I just want to take a minute to stop there because a lot of times people focus on the end result of what therapy is going to do for them. And unfortunately, when we're focused on the end result, a lot of times we don't stick with the process part that's actually going to get us where we want to go. And so I think that it's always good to start out understanding that following the process, it can be a little bit slow at first. And interestingly, change is difficult to do. People, change is hard. And so practice and time are things that really, really help change occur. And so if you go in knowing that to begin with, it makes things so much easier. It's also a process of self-exploration. We want to better understand and help you better understand who you are and how you got here. Because very often we are the way that we are for a reason. A lot of the things are patterns, the way that we feel, the way that we think, the things that we do are all patterns that have shown up in our lives. And they helped us survive at first, but very often can contribute to stress, anxiety, burnout, conflict, or feeling stuck. And so a lot of people, let me think of a good example. One of my favorite examples actually is perfectionism. I think a lot of people listening could probably relate to the concept of perfectionism or at least understand it. And very often, perfectionism stems from fear of failure to begin with. It stems from something that happened early on, where maybe we failed an important test or we disappointed someone. And that was really, really painful. And we don't want to feel that pain again. We don't want to feel a feeling of rejection again. We don't want to feel a feeling of failure again. And so we start putting these really high standards in place. And those high standards actually help us get a ton of reward. So we're going to get good grades. We're going to get positive uh feedback from parents, teachers, all that type of stuff. And so over time, we learn, okay, I need to put in all this effort. I need to check over my work. I can't make any mistakes. When I make mistakes, I feel bad about myself. When I make mistakes, maybe I even get criticized. And so I'm going to work really, really hard not to make any more mistakes. And so with that, I start um putting higher and higher standards. And then I actually succeed. But the problem is very often my standards are higher than is reasonably attainable. And so now I'm stuck where I meet a high standard without meeting the perfectionistic standard. And I still tell myself I'm not good enough because I still didn't meet that unrealistic standard. And we also see that people who actually maybe sometimes do meet that standard, all they say to themselves is, obviously, my standard wasn't high enough. That's why I succeeded at it. So therefore I need to actually just push up my standards even higher. And this whole time, the self-esteem is actually going down and down and down. And that's where a lot of people with perfectionism don't feel like they've been successful, even though the world is telling them that they've actually are doing a good job, like their boss or their teachers. And so we get stuck in this very, very unhealthy pattern of anxiety, burnout, and conflict because this perfectionistic tendency, while it has an upside, has a strong downside as well. The next one hasn't come up. The other thing that therapy is about is actually understanding our bodies more and our nervous system more. Nervous system, a good way to think about how our nervous system works is it's really about our body responses. So our heart rate, um, our breath rate, um, sweat, uh, all the things for the fight, flight, freeze sort of response and how our body responds is part of our nervous system. And what can happen is we can misread our nervous system. So an example of that could look like um you're thinking about uh a stressful thing that's gonna happen tomorrow. And then all of a sudden your heart rate starts actually going faster. And then your body responds in saying, okay, I'm anxious now, I'm upset, I'm bothered. And that will actually attract a bunch of anxious thoughts. And so part in therapy is learning how to be able to be aware of that change in your heart rate, recognize I had that thought about that stressful thing tomorrow, but that stressful thing is not happening right now. I'm safe right now. So I need to take a nice deep breath, relax my uh shoulders, relax that tension in my body and recognize I'm actually safe right now. My mind had just gone to this unsafe place. So that would be an intervention that we would potentially do in a session, would be let's say a body scan, in which we have you observe kind of what's going on in these different areas of your body, particularly places that we often hold tension. So we often hold tension right here in between our eyebrows. We're kind of like knitting our eyebrows together, hold a lot of tension in our jaw very often. If you're stressed, you kind of clench your teeth and you might not even realize it. Um, again, our shoulders is another place we can, when we're feeling stressed, we can even sometimes notice our shoulders have ended up up near our ears. And we have to learn to be aware of that body language and actually purposely push those shoulders back down, purposely, purposely um unclench the jaw and lighten that space right here uh in between your eyebrows. And you'll notice, oh, I feel actually less stressed when I do that. Um, another place that we often feel a lot of our feelings as well. So sadness is a good example. If you actually pause when you're feeling sad and check in with your body to figure out where you're feeling that in your body, you're gonna notice it a lot of times in the throat. You're gonna notice it feels like really, really tight in the throat. I'm sure a lot of people have noticed when they go to speak when they feel sad about something or they're about to cry, their voice goes up many octaves and they're actually speaking at a much higher um tone. Um, it's because it's all tight in this area. But if you take a moment, take a drink of water, breathe, and relax, you'll notice, oh, okay, that tension actually goes away. Um, we also often feel a lot of our emotions and our stress actually in our chest. So a lot of people will notice a tightness in their chest first. It might be the first thing that they notice, like, oh, I think I might be feeling stress. I feel all this tightness in my chest. Um, and that can affect how we breathe. So very often we're gonna breathe in these like really shallow ways. It feels hard to take a deep breath in, but shallow breathing actually will keep us in that fight, flight, freeze response because it's preparing us to run. That's actually a great place to breathe when you're running. Um, but if you're just sitting still in a car, let's say, um, and you can't really burn off any of that um adrenaline that's kind of pumping for you, um, then it feels really, really hard to take a deep breath in. And that's how we actually trigger our body to calm down. So a lot of times we're gonna be working with people on how to breathe to help relax their body. And it is really very much about slowing the breath down and really focusing on the out breath and slowing the out breath down because a lot of time the discomfort is in taking a deep breath in. Um, that can actually feel that can sometimes make us feel worse because it feels really tight in here and it's hard to take a deep breath in. But if you actually focus more on the out breath, you'll notice, oh, that feels a lot, that feels a lot easier. Um, the other thing that therapy is is a non-judgmental space where you can openly share the tough stuff because a lot of times when we're sharing what's going on in our lives, we kind of put this little, this rose-colored glasses on it. Picture our our uh uh our social media feeds, we kind of put the highlight reel on there and we are trying to curate this, we're trying to curate this vision of what our life is. And in therapy, we can actually sit and talk about that harder stuff without feeling like you're gonna get judged for it. We see so much stuff in the work that we do. And one thing that I have never um struggled to do is make sense of why. So, for example, let's think of something that people can face a lot of judgment for. Um, infidelity is something that people can face a lot of judgment for. But in the therapeutic space, we're gonna explore what happened, what what need was not getting met? What difficulty in communicating may have been there that I wasn't able to express to my partner that my needs were not getting met? What self-esteem, what role did self-esteem play in this? Is there something where maybe I was bullied a lot when I was younger? And then I I don't know, they call it like having a glow up, but like my my looks changed. I got all of this attention all of a sudden, and now this gap that gets filled with the attention, I I've had a really hard time um not engaging in it. Um, we want to better understand. It's always about trying to understand and figure out how I can get that need met in a healthier way that doesn't lead me to doing something that doesn't isn't alignment with my values, for example. Um, but we're not gonna be judging you for why that happened. Usually we're just trying to better understand it. And therapy is also a place to slow down and reflect and to be more intentional with how you respond to what's going on in your life. Very often we are coming from this very reactive space. We're not spending a lot of time trying to understand ourselves, trying to understand our mood. So, a good example of this one, and this is actually one of my favorite, favorite things to recommend to people, is especially if if what they're describing is when I get home from work, all the problems start, right? Um, there's chaos in the home. I get angry, I get frustrated, and I don't want to be that way anymore, for example. So my first actual um conversation is gonna lead to is, or I guess the first thing that I'm gonna ask the client to do is on your drive home. Ideally, you have a drive home. This is so much easier if you have a drive home. It's it's a bit more challenging if you don't, because you have to sit in your office space and take a moment. Like so you can still do this, but you just you basically close the door, make sure the door is still closed, you take a moment to self-reflect of am I feeling irritable at all? The drive home is easier because you'll notice things like, is every red light making me angry? Is that person who got in front of me, do I want to tailgate them now because I feel like they didn't leave enough space? Or um am I, am I, am I, um, am I listening? Am I trying to avoid right now? Am I throwing on a podcast automatically and I can only drive home with other words in my mind because if not, I'm gonna be thinking really negative thoughts. Um, this is a great space because if let's say you notice, oh yeah, every red light is making me really angry, now you know you're walking into the home space already irritable, already done with the day, already on edge. And that means the people that you're coming into contact with could do what they always do, behave the way they always behave, and you're more annoyed with them. So you're actually the one who's irritable. And so you're gonna want to take a moment. Let's say you you're you identify, okay, I'm irritable. Why am I irritable? What's going on? Did I get a good night's sleep last night? No, I did not. Did I eat lunch today? No, I skipped it. So maybe I'm hangry. Maybe the first thing I need to do when I get in is actually get a bite to eat really quick or a snack. Maybe I need to learn to keep a snack in my car for the drive home because I tend to feel this way when I'm hungry and I tend to be hungry on my drive home. We can start actually understanding it and then try to solve for it so it doesn't sort of take you over. Another thing to know about therapy is actually that it's a collaborative process. I think that, and I understand why. I think some people come to therapy thinking we have all the answers and we don't. I wish we did, but we definitely don't. Um, or that we're experts of of your life and that type of stuff. And we actually, we really aren't. We need so much information from you in order to be helpful to you because we don't, we don't actually want to make assumptions. We don't want to look at you and then think, oh, this person probably uh thinks this way, feels this way, has had this experience. We don't actually want to make assumptions. So I actually need you to share with us as much information as you can that feels safe to do so, which is why, again, it's a process because ideally you get to know your therapist over time, you start feeling more and more comfortable, and you can be more and more open with your therapist to let them know kind of everything that's going on with you. Um, because at the end of the day, there could be a thousand different reasons why something's going on for you. And in those thousand reasons why, there's an equal number of ways we can kind of tackle it and try to um stop it from being a negative thing in your life. And so, in that is another it is also a place to build skills. Communication skills is probably one of the top things that we work on. Um, a lot of people, um, a lot of people's intentions on what they want to communicate and what they end up communicating are really, really different. And so the therapeutic process is somewhere where you can actually learn how to express yourself in a way that has the other person be able to hear you. So a good example of that would be um sometimes people in a in conflict, let's say they're upset about something, they're gonna start with, you did this, you did that, you did this, you made me angry. Um, I don't like when you do this. And very often, if you're on the receiving end of that, you're gonna be thinking about all the ways that person is wrong. Uh, you never take out the trash. You're gonna think of that one time that you did take out the trash. Or you always interrupt me. And you're gonna think of all the times you wanted to interrupt, but didn't because you held back and you're gonna want to point those things out. Flip side, another way to approach the situation, and one of the things we recommend a lot is to try to avoid always and never in general, but also I'm and I I know it's become cliche almost, but the I statements, but you don't necessarily have to stick to I statements. It's just trying to express yourself from your perspective and not in that accusatory way, right? So when you interrupt me, it makes me feel like you're not listening. Um, and you're just waiting for the next time for you to say something. It would really help me if before you tell me what you want to say, you sort of let me know what you heard me say first or acknowledge or address what I said first, and then we can kind of switch over to you as an example. And so uh that's one one set of skills that we might work on. Uh, another set of skills that we're often gonna work on is emotional regulation. Um, that's a kind of way of saying, like, how do I feel in control of my emotions? And not that they feel in control of me. And so um that that is very much uh a practice of that inner reflection. And that's that's a skill. Not everybody, uh, some people have it more than others, and it's always something that we can kind of build on. Um, it's also therapy is another place to practice boundaries. So boundaries is is kind of like a hot topic right now. I actually love talking about boundaries, and we do a lot of those. Am I the jerk posts? Um, and most of them actually boil down to boundaries. Um, but a lot of people struggle with boundaries, and and there's a good reason for it is that very often the people closest to us in our lives don't like when we put boundaries up. And so it ends up creating conflict in our lives. So then we want to avoid conflicts, so then we don't set them. But then that has a price to pay as well. Um, one of my favorite things to bring up about boundaries is a lot of people mistake setting making a request with setting a boundary. Um, and I know that that's happened if someone says to me, for example, uh, they don't respect my boundaries, because boundaries are not for other people's behavior, they're actually for our behavior. So it is a request. I would like it if you did not yell at me when we're speaking. Don't raise your voice at me. Um, the boundary I'm setting is if you do, then I will hang up the phone or I will walk away or I'll remove myself from this conversation if you cannot um not yell at me. And so that's a really powerful difference that a lot of people um struggle with because they'll also say, but then I'm not gonna walk away. And okay, let's not set that boundary then, right? Because we actually don't want to set a consequence that we actually won't uh follow through on, because that will mistakenly teach the person that what I say doesn't actually matter and they don't have to listen. Yep. Something just beeped. Oh, it stopped. Oh no, it didn't stop. I got a plug, so just switch to this one. Oh yeah? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, really good. Is it working with the uh yes, it's perfect. Yes, it's absolutely perfect. Here's the before, here's the after. Yes, it is perfect. Perfect. Sorry. Okay, no, that's good. And that's good. I wanted to pause stop you at some point anyway, because I'm gonna make sure that it's it's working and you don't feel rushed. Yeah, I don't. Okay. It's fantastic. That's the hard thing with a teleprompter, is you someone feel rushed. I'm like, no, no, no, you're in control. Yeah, we can control this. Yes. So uh just give it a second. It'll come back on it. It unplugged. That's weird. It unplugged. Yeah, well, I must have unplugged it. Oh, I see. Not while you were sitting there. At some point it got unplugged. Okay. I was like, hold on, how did it just like spontaneously unplugged unplugged? The first like ten minutes of that, and you're like, Oh my god. But it's so true, that's the thing, right? Like, it's so true, and you don't notice. You don't notice it's happening. Yeah, yeah. And what you said about the like someone's someone's I was pulled in front of you and it kind of swissed you off. Yeah. I am a little stressed out, and I I know that now because of that. That's kind of tricky or whatever. Like, yeah, that was a really good A lot of people think it's like the person pulling in front of you that's irritating you versus recognizing sometimes people do that and it doesn't bother me, and sometimes they do it and it does. Oh, I remember one time like feeling so peeved at every red light, and I was like, I am irritable. Like, I'm not I've hit many red lights in my in my life. Like, why am I so irritated about these lights right now? Yeah, exactly. So we're still rolling. Two, can I see your eyes for a second? Oh right at the camera? Okay. Sorry, it's not weird, but that's how you know if people are in focus or not. Ah the teleprompter did just turn off, just so you know. So this is an example of this one is a great example of like for me. You're hitting all these things like I've never thought of it before. Right. This is the knowledge that it's just so yeah. We don't know. Yeah. Right? Um think of the end goal. Yeah. That's all I think about here. Yeah. But like, no, don't. No. It's great. No, it's good. It actually can be detrimental to be so focused on it because then if you're always like, but I'm not there yet, you start questioning, is what I'm doing working. Totally. And thinking of the processing, yeah. We should we should do a couple of podcasts. Yeah. Okay. Um so you were in the I can do empower. I think I can go straight to process of empowerment. Okay. Oh wait, oh no, recognizing what's within your control. This one's I I kind of moved so you could see the thing. No, that's perfect though. Coming up. So no, it was good the the other, you can go back to what it was, but because then I can see what's coming next too. Because I actually mostly like to see what's what I'm talking about and what's next, because then I kind of keep it. It's easier to where were you that approaching skills or I already did the boundaries is recognizing what's within your control. Okay. And then can I see what's after it as well? There we go. Perfect. Yeah. Okay. So that's good. So that's what I was starting to do. Okay. Okay. Yeah, because it's loud. You're comfy. One of my favorite things actually about doing therapy with people is actually helping them recognize what's in their control and letting go of what's not in their control. You would potentially be surprised to know how many people are sort of coming in, really, really focused on the pieces of their life they don't actually have any control over. So one of those being other people's behavior. Yet if we actually turn it around and look at, well, what about my reaction to their behavior? How am I potentially allowing it? How am I potentially encouraging it? What are ways that I could handle it differently than how I am now that might make me feel better about the situation? And so it's an it is a process of empowerment. We want to teach you what you have control over and how to focus on that instead of getting stuck on focusing on the things you don't have control over. One of uh what comes to mind for me is we get a lot of people who don't like their jobs. Um, and actually being here in Ottawa, um, gonna shout out to all the government, federal employees, love you all. But I do know that a lot of you can get pretty uh disengaged at work. And what I notice is it has a lot to do with your team. Uh, who's your manager, who are the people you're working with, all that kind of stuff. And that job, and I bring this one up specifically because a lot of people feel stuck in those types of jobs. So anything like hospital, teachers, um, federal employees, because they have good benefits, they have a good pension, and they're safe, right? They give me a sense of safety and security. Um, the issue with that is that if you get stuck in it, they call it the golden handcuffs. I think somebody has downgraded them to the silver handcuffs, but they do feel like handcuffs. I can't leave this job. And so people come in and they're kind of stuck in that narrative and that story about oh, my, let me tell you about my boss, let me tell you about my job, let me tell you about how much I hate this. Um, they're they're rude, they're they're demanding, whatever it is. I'm really unhappy. Um, and and we're focusing again on the things that we can't control, and we don't feel empowered in that position at all. Flip side to that, what we look at is number one, you're not actually stuck. So it is a choice. It is a choice to stay at a role, um at a job within a position because I like the safety, I like the security, I like the benefits, I like the um uh I like the pension. And so actually I am choosing this. I'm choosing to stay. I'm not actually stuck here. And what can I control? I can't control who my manager is, but what I can do is I can keep my options open for potential sideways moves, lateral moves, moves that will put me with a different team member. Um, sometimes people get stuck in, well, what if I don't, what if I hate it over there as well? And so that is a mindset that can keep us really, really stuck. And we would explore that. Yep, that is definitely possible. You could dislike it more where where you go next. But that actually means that the next place you go could be as bad as where you are now, but you'll be happier there because you know there's worse out there. So it's actually not always a bad thing. What if that happens? Because that is something that gets people a lot of stuck, a lot of people stuck is what if? What if this worst thing happens and therefore I'm gonna stay in this misery that I know instead of actually trying to change it? So that's an example of something that we might explore together. It's also a place for growth and insight, not just symptom relief. Because I think that sometimes, again, people are wanting this, unfortunately, and I get it, people want like a fast fix. They they they want to feel better and they want to feel better now. Um, and I do understand the desire to feel better immediately. Um, however, it's actually not very sustainable. So, a good example of this is actually probably medication. And uh uh, if anybody's ever heard of benzodiazepines, those are used for, let's say, panic attacks to calm you down really, really fast. They're very, very effective. They they work very, very fast. The downside to them is they are highly addictive and you will need more and more and more of it to get that calm feeling over time. So they are very, you want to use them very, very sparingly and you don't want to actually become dependent on them. And so even people who take a typical anti-anxiety medication, an antidepressant, it's not a quick fix. They don't immediately feel better. That still takes time as well. So I'd say something that that people often turn to for more quick fixes would be um alcohol, uh, substances in general, uh, definitely media. So social media is actually like a really quick fix to I'm feeling bored, I'm feeling stressed, I'm feeling upset, I'm feeling, I want to forget what I'm thinking about or going through. So I kind of numb out by go going to those things. They are very fast, but they're not overall effective. So the way I always look of it, look at it is the faster it can help the situation, um, the probably the bigger the problem it can be in the long term. And it actually doesn't usually solve the core of what the issue is. Anything that takes a lot longer to benefit you actually is going to um get to what the core of the actual issue is. And so we want to be looking at therapy as a process that takes time and that it's about growth and insight, not just symptom relief. The symptom relief is almost like the the um the after-effect. It's sort of like if you're trying to make healthy choices and you move your body more and you eat healthfully, a side effect might be weight loss. But we never actually want to do that for the purpose of weight loss because then you're not wanna, you're not gonna wanna keep up um those those activities. Um, it's not as motivating. And then the other piece that I think people might get wrong about therapy and what it is, is that it it is for everyone. It's not just for people in crisis or with diagnosis, right? With a diagnosis of something. It's not just for um the worst of the worst. It is navigating change or transition. It is for high-functioning people who feel overwhelmed or disconnected. Um, it's for people who want better relationships, want to learn about boundaries. It's for people who feel stuck and want things to be different, people who want to understand themselves more deeply, um, people who don't meet criteria for diagnosis and never will. There, there is this whole the way I think of the diagnostic manual is it really is a description of normal human behavior on a spectrum. And once you hit a certain point of it, you might meet a diagnostic criteria. For example, let's go with OCD, is actually a good example because a lot of people think they have OCD when in reality they don't have any diagnostic-level OCD. They just have really strong preferences or little idiosyncrasies, but it doesn't ever interfere with their actual life. Now, this would be something you could bring to therapy and we could still work on it so that it doesn't turn into something that negatively impacts your life, but you don't actually have to wait for the OCD tendencies to develop an actual like crisis in your life. We can actually work on it long before that. I I heard an analogy once and I really liked it when it can when it actually comes to physiotherapy, which is, and my physiotherapist um gets mad at me for this a lot because I do do this a lot, where it's sort of the sooner after the injury occurs that we actually do the intervention, the the easier and better it is. So you don't have to wait until you're in crisis to actually get support. It it works quite well to do it sort of early days. Um okay, so now I really want to debunk some what therapy is not. Um, because yeah, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what it is. So uh let's talk a little bit about what it's not. So it is not a way to fix, change, or control other people. And I think that the just tiny change that you have to go into therapy with is let's say you're in a relationship that's having a lot of struggles, communication struggles, a lot of uh conflict. Um, then you can come into therapy and work on that. But it would be really focused on how can I change? What can I do differently? How can I speak differently? How can I, what's my role in the dynamic? Um, because very in all relationships, there is a dynamic at play. You do what you do, then I do what I do, and then we get stuck in this system back and forth. And most people can relate to this because they'll be able to say, with this one person, I'm so much more argumentative or I'm so much more stubborn. I seem to be so much more open-minded when I'm talking to this other person. But whenever I'm talking to person A, I seem to always uh be more combative. So, what is it about that dynamic that bothers me? Oh, I do notice that person A tends to um speak with an air of arrogance and condescension. And I don't like that feeling. And so I respond by being more stubborn, for example. And I don't want them to be right and I don't want them to get their way. And so that's a good recognition of okay, I play a role in this with this other person. What is a way that I could behave differently that will actually relieve my discomfort in these situations? And that could be I don't debate that person. I don't need to, and therefore I don't debate this person as an example. And so uh I think that it can be really helpful because I think if people go in thinking it's the other way around, where you're gonna teach me how to change their behavior, you might get frustrated when the therapist keeps bringing it back to you and your role. And it's not actually, and I think mistakenly, sometimes people can feel attacked or blamed in that situation, but it's actually that there's no purpose and desire to feel have you feel attacked and blamed is actually to have you feel empowered of what role do you have in this and how can you change your role. Uh, another one is that it's a place where you are told what to do. It is not, it is not a place where you're told what to do. Um, I think that I think that some people maybe go in not realizing that's what they're looking for. Um, and it you'll notice that you never get that need met, and that can feel really frustrating. And so it could be a good thing to sort of bring up and talk with your therapist about like I was hoping for some more answers, I was hoping for some more direction so that you can actually work that through with your with your therapist to figure out how your need can get met in a healthy way. Because, first of all, we're not the expert and telling you what to do with your life. And so we don't want you relying on us. Um, at the end of the day, we'd much rather you learn the skill to figure that out on your own without needing the sort of validation from someone else. Um, but then it also is gonna feel so much more empowering, but also relevant to your day-to-day life because we don't have all the details. You have all the details. And so we definitely want to see you figuring it out what with our support and not us telling you. Another one is venting. So this one is really interesting. And you might find this one interesting from a um uh when I'm doing supervision with my my other therapist who will be telling me we're getting kind of stuck in this storytelling, venting, and I'm not sure if this is really helpful or not for the client. And the thing about venting, so yes, it's helpful, right? It's helpful, especially when it's something that you can't vent to a lot of people about. And so it's really, really beneficial to kind of get that off your chest. Um, it and it'll feel really good in the moment. However, we can get stuck in the pattern of therapy that all I do is come in and vent. So venting is actually a great space for therapists to gather information about what bothers you, gather information about the people in your life, gather um information about your situation. So we allow a lot of it, allow we we we want actually a good amount of it. However, and this is the moment that I always recommend to my therapist to watch out for, but you can watch out for it yourself as well is am I starting to repeat? Am I starting to tell the same story over and over and over again? Um, the same people, the same situation. I'm talking like true just repetition. That's when it inherently now starts getting not very helpful and not very beneficial in therapy. So venting a little, not venting where we're repeating over and over again, because now we're getting stuck. We're getting stuck, no, maybe this story, we're looking at the feeling under it too. Just so you guys know, we're looking at the feeling underneath the story. But let's say the the story is about um, I feel victimized in this situation. Let me tell you how I was victimized in this situation. Now we're just reinforcing this story of I'm a victim, I'm a victim, I'm a victim. And we don't want that because that's not a very empowering place to be coming from. We want to be able to focus on this is how it made me feel. It made me feel like a victim in this moment. Okay, let's deep more deeply explore that feeling. How long has that feeling been present? Where else does it get triggered? All that kind of stuff. That's where that venting story is going to be the most helpful to you. And it's understanding your therapist does not want to interrupt you or tell you not to talk about things or, but it is, we are always trying to go. Is this venting helpful at this point? Is it or is it hurtful? Um, next is that it's I I talked about this already, but that this quick fix or instant relief. So it is not a quick fix. There are very, very few things. I'm trying to think of anything that we have a quick fix on. I can tell you, this actually is interesting, is that the quickest fix to anxiety a lot of the times is actually exposure to the thing I feel anxious about. So technically, there's a somewhat quick fix to certain things that are stemming from my avoidance, but it can take a long time to actually work with a client to the degree that they're ready to actually do the thing that they're avoiding. And so even our things that we have that are quick fixes is actually can take a while to get somebody ready to do them. It's also not about blaming your past or your parents or a diagnosis. It is those things are used for understanding where things came from. We do focus a lot about your past. We do focus a lot about your parents. We do focus less probably on a diagnosis, but definitely on your past and your parents. And one of the reasons why is because of what we understand about developmental psychology. We understand about how during your childhood, let's go with attachment, right? If there was any attachment wounds in your childhood, it could help explain why you're having problems in your present-day relationship. Um, your how your parents treated you is so foundationally impactful on who you become as a person. So there's these different stages we go through as well with identity formation. So during that really pivotal, pivotal identity formation period, what happened to you? So let's go with bullying. If I was bullied mercilessly during the point in which I was developing my sense of self, my sense of identity, which tends to happen in the sort of puberty to early adulthood, that is going to form how I view myself. So a good example of this can be, and you'll see you see it all the time, again, someone who goes through maybe an awkward phase with their appearance and they struggle with their weight, let's say in their youth, they get horribly bullied for it. And then they hit the gym and maybe become quite obsessive about their looks. Maybe they get plastic surgery. They do all these things to change their outward look, but still on the inside, they don't feel attractive or they don't feel worthy, or they don't feel lovable. Well, that's very often because of what happened in the past and what happened in their childhood. So that's for us why that information is really important, but it's not about blaming, it's just about understanding. It's also not a place to avoid responsibility or wait for others to change. And so one of the things that can be really challenging is actually taking there, there's this taking responsibility without blame. So a good example of this can be someone who present day, let's say, doesn't treat their partner the best. Let's say, let's go with their, they're always accusing them of or worried that they're gonna cheat. So they they they can come across or they can engage in some really controlling behaviors. Um, but they'll say, Well, I can't help it. I was cheated on. Of course, I'm going to be this way with my current partner because I was cheated on the past by another partner. And we would look at that and we would say, Well, we can't actually take away the responsibility that we have to not behave that way with our partner because of what happened in the past. We want to actually understand what happened and develop a sense of safety now, of I can handle it if they were to cheat on me again and I cannot control their behaviour. So it is a place that we want to take and learn how to take responsibility. So that is not an exhaustive list, but a good start in trying to understand what therapy is and what therapy is not. And I really hope this helps some people make some decisions on whether or not they feel like therapy could be good for them and potentially help anyone who's maybe already in therapy, but approach it in a slightly different way that could be um helpful. Thanks for tuning in.