Are you desperate enough?
When I was talking about setting up my practice, a friend told me, “People will only reach out when they’re desperate. No one comes to therapy unless there’s no other choice.”
I didn’t like her words.
Do you have to be on the brink of divorce to go to marital counselling?
Does your child need to be on the streets before you get parental advice?
Do you need to be deep in the throes of depression or overtaken by acute anxiety to make you reach out for help?
How absurd.
Reaching out for support doesn’t mean you’re in some devastating crisis.
It just means there’s something you want to improve.
It saddens me that people stay stuck in whatever the situation is - whether disordered eating, unhappy relationships or inner tension - when change is so very possible. No, she’s not anorexic, that couple are going to stay married, there’s not going to be a breakdown.
Everyone will survive.
But Hashem put us down into this world to become the very best person we can be. To live our lives to the fullest. To fill ourselves up and spread our light to others.
And we can’t do that if we remain miserably stuck within our limitations.
That doesn’t mean everybody needs to be in therapy. It does mean that we all need to keep on recognizing what limits us and gaining tools to break free from those limits.
That might mean going to anger management classes, doing some therapeutic journaling, talking to a mentor or reading a self-help book. It might mean attending a marriage course or of course, doing some EFT.
It is only by reaching beyond our own limited selves -
outside our comfort zone -
outside who are at this moment -
that we can grow.
That we can become the person Hashem knows we can be.
Because this is the paradox of being human - so very limited, yet with limitless potential for change.
So take a moment to look at your life. Be gentle with yourself, but be honest as well. See where you’re stuck - either within yourself or in relation to others.
Choose one small act you can do today to start breaking free.
And as you step out of the person you are today into your future self - the one you can’t even imagine is possible - know that this is the taste of redemption.
May we merit to see geula in our own lives, and as a nation.
