If you haven’t tried therapy — whether because of stigma, stubbornness or something else — do yourself a favor and scan through these insights from Darling Magazine’s Ann Swindell .
As mental health becomes an increasingly important topic in wellness, we’re exploring what it could look like to make therapy a part of our regular routine. Here’s what one woman learned after trying professional counseling for a season of life and finding it to be “one of the best gifts I’ve ever given myself”…
1. Counseling helps us to walk the journey of health and wholeness intentionally.
Most of us long to live in healthy, empowering ways in our daily lives; we want to respond to ourselves and others with kindness, and we want to live from a place of love rather than fear. But there are very few practical ways to determine if we are actually growing in wholeness and personal wellbeing. There’s not a to-do list that we can check off at the end of every day. Rather, the journey to healing and health is one that will take a lifetime of intentionality. Committing to counseling sets at least one clear step before us on the path to wholeness, and it offers us tools for not only coping with, but thriving in our daily lives.
2. Counseling helps us to own our brokenness and our glory.
A good counselor — one who is seeking to help us rather than trying to appease us — is a person who will speak truth. And when that truth is about our brokenness and the ways we have failed, it can be hard to hear. But it is necessary for us to come to terms with the brokenness that we carry so that we can better understand how we respond when confronted with pain and anger and fear. We need to hear the hard truth so that we can forgive and change and grow. And the good news is that as we better understand our brokenness, we can better understand our glory, too. For we are not solely broken; we are those who are choosing to try again, to ask for forgiveness again, to show up again. We have more strength than we know, and more resilience than we might have imagined. These are gifts that a good counselor helps us to see in ourselves.
We have more strength than we know, and more resilience than we might have imagined.
3. Counseling helps us to take ourselves seriously.
Talking to friends about our struggles and our triumphs is immensely important — and can never be replaced. But something changes when we decide to invest in our mental and spiritual health by paying a professional to help us wade through our questions and our issues: we take the process seriously. We aren’t looking for relational communion with a counselor — we’re looking for growth and change. And making appointments and paying for that helps flip a switch in most of us. It helps us to see that this is important, meaningful work we are doing in that hour every week — work that we want to invest in and work that we hope will yield good fruit in our hearts and minds. When we decide to see a counselor, we are in effect stating: it is worth it to invest in myself and pursue healing. This is valuable, important work, because I am valuable and important. There aren’t many better gifts we can give ourselves.
If you’re not sure where to find a good counselor, the best place to start is to reach out to a friend who receives counseling and ask if she would recommend her counselor to you. If you don’t know anyone who is already being counseled, you can also search for well-rated counselors online who are near your zip code. However, with any potential counselor you are considering, make sure that he or she has the necessary credentials: either a Psy.D or Ph.D with an LPC (licensed professional counselor), or an M.A. with an LPC. This means that the counselor has completed advanced training in psychology, and that they have been licensed by your home state to practice professionally.
When we decide to see a counselor, we are in effect stating: it is worth it to invest in myself and pursue healing.
All of this comes with the caveat that it may take some time to find a counselor who fits you well — one who you trust and who is in line with your worldview. As a Christian, it was important for me to find a counselor who understood my faith and could speak to me out of that shared faith; make sure to find a counselor who understands and respects your values, as well.
No matter your season of life or the struggles before or behind you, the partnership of an insightful, truth-telling counselor can be a grace and a gift.
