Therapy: A Radical Act of Self Care and Discovery
Often
times when we are culturally given permission to claim and stand firm in our
mental, emotional, or physical spaces; we hear statements such as “Do You” or
“Speak Your Truth.” But what often happens is this reclamation of independence
is celebrated, until reality sets in that to “Do You” and “Speak Your Truth”
comes at a cost. The cost of unraveling the “you” that was handed to you along
the way through the relational lens of family, peers, career, spirituality,
etc.
At the unraveling stage of healing, you start to
feel like a stranger to yourself which makes this thing called therapy, a
resource to help you, feel like it’s the very thing that threatens you….
should you fight, flight, or freeze? No! You should stay and BE because this
first stage is needed for you to learn how to not operate and respond on
autopilot in all the ways you adapted through your survivor mode to past
traumas or direct/indirect messages of how you accessorized others’ sense of
well-being. This is the stage where you start to become aware and pay attention
the “hmmms” and “ahhhs” of your intuition that you disconnected from or stop
trusting at a certain point.
The bridge stage of healing soon follows which
is the phase of healing where you start to feel a little more settled in your
healing space and realize your resilience is stronger that your fear of
unraveling…..and honestly you have already done the hardest part which is
surviving. During the bridge phase, you start to recognize you can’t logic your
way out of your emotions and you can’t feel yourself away from your thoughts.
You need to connection of mind, body, spirit to honor and recognize the
totality of your human experience through your wounds and your healing. In
survivor mode, the bottom part of our brain becomes active as the upper parts
shut down to prepare for the objective at hand to just survive some way some
how. Our bodies and mind then continues to form a habit around what we know to
work in our physical and emotional times of need, which is compartmentalizing
or approaching life through “black and white” terms. The problem with that is
while surviving works through compartmentalization, living and healing works
through connection of whole being. The bridge stage starts to merge all the
pieces of you and evokes the questions “what of my past do I keep because it
informs and serves my direction, growth, and goals?” “What part of my past do I
need to thank for getting me this far, but I now need to let go because holding
it beyond it’s immediate purpose is starting to hinder my direction, growth,
and goals?”
The interdependence stage is the later phase of
healing where you understand the importance of defining, re-defining, and
claiming your own sense of self, while accepting that the quality of connection
with others serve as a reflection and periodic self inventory to how you
nurture or neglect your care of self. I intentionally did not state this as the
end of healing, because healing is not a linear process and life is a delicate
balance of surviving, existing, and thriving. The attention in this stage is on
self-preservation. The rules for this stage are the development and
re-development of boundaries. The practice of this stage is accountability. And
the on going question of this stage is “where do others end, where do I begin,
and do we make for a healthy or unhealthy blend?”
To walk into an unfamiliar space with an
unfamiliar face to put into question the known of survival and/or dysfunction
and commit to the unknown towards healing is therapy at its essence. Now THAT’s
a radical act of self-love and discovery that deserves to be revered as the
strength it is!
Written by:
Shameitra N. Green, LMFT
Founder of Nexus Therapy
*Shameitra Green is a psychotherapist and founder of her private practice, Nexus Therapy, where she serves adolescents, adults, and families in Pearland. TX and surrounding areas. Shameitra’s client populations include individuals and families dealing with complex trauma and PTSD, survivors of neglect and sexual abuse, grief, and attachment disorders. Shameitra also provides trauma informed trainings and consultation to assist with agencies, schools, and trauma professionals in enhancing their trauma informed best practices.
