9 Things That I've Learned From Going To Therapy So Far

What you KNOW is one thing, and what you FEEL can be something else entirely.

1. Therapy isn't about stirring up drama or uncovering mysterious, hidden forces at work in your life. On the contrary, it simply helps to make things less complicated.

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Before I started going to therapy, I thought the point was to "discover" what hidden traumas there were in your life. Actually, it's more about learning to see things as they are, and reducing — not increasing — the drama.

2. The more you open up about the things that bother you, the more those things lose their "power" over you.

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Sure, you do sometimes need to talk openly about some heavy stuff. And that isn't always painless. But, after you get going, you'll feel relieved.

3. Taking responsibility for your own actions doesn't make life harder. It makes it easier.

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In therapy, you learn to differentiate between things that just happen in life because of other people, and the things that happen as a result of our choices. And if it's the latter, we can always learn to do things a little differently for next time.

4. Talking about trivial, everyday things is never actually trivial. Nothing is too boring to talk about in therapy.

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This includes things like changing your hairstyle or going to a different bar, even! Nothing is silly or useless, because it always reveals something about the way we make choices and pursue meaning.

5. Knowing yourself better often helps you deal with other people more easily.

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We can't predict what other people are going to do, or what they think about us. But with therapy, we can begin to get to know ourselves better, which makes it a little easier to understand and accept other people for who they are.

6. Sometimes, getting angry or upset can be a matter of an old habit, especially if a situation unconsciously reminds you of something you've experienced before.

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Our mind sometimes forgets that every person and every situation we encounter IS different from the previous one. Which means we aren't doomed to patterns and cycles – we always have the choice to make things better.

7. You have to be patient to see "results" from going to therapy.

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You may feel like therapy is already "working" after the first session, but sometimes it takes weeks before you notice progress. Change happens slowly, and we need to be patient with ourselves.

8. What you KNOW is one thing, what you FEEL is another.

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For example, you can KNOW that you have a lot of great qualities, but low self-esteem might keep you from FEELING that it's true. And that's where therapy comes in to untangle the knots involved with that.

9. Therapy only "works" when you come to each conclusion yourself.

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It doesn't matter what we've been told to believe — once you're truly ready to acknowledge your truths, that's when change will happen from the inside out.

See also:

16 Problems With Self-Esteem That Affect Way More People Than You Think

35 Thoughts We've All Had While Going To Therapy ... Right?

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This post was translated from Portuguese.