Therapy can be life-changing. Not just because therapists are pretty much the only people who can’t wait to hear about our weird dreams and childhood trauma, but because they can help us sort out the tangled mess of thoughts and feelings we have. That’s a pretty big deal.
Recently, a Reddit poster asked folks to share the most impactful things their therapist had said to them. People poured in with their stories, and this mental health thread became full of thought-proving statements, some of which were certainly Gandalfesque!
More info: Reddit
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The anxiety you're feeling is not evil or your enemy, it’s an overprotective friend trying to keep you safe because it once saw you hurt. Do not fight it, prove it wrong.
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The biggest misconception about therapy is that the counselor will give advice. People start attending sessions hoping they’ll be told what to do and their lives will magically improve. But that’s not the case at all. Actually, mental health professionals help patients better understand what motivates them and causes them to act or think the way they do. Therapy also empowers people to make their own decisions and face what’s bothering them.
The best way to understand therapy sessions is from a trained professional, which is why Bored Panda contacted Vidya Kale, a Yoga Therapy practitioner. She shared that she had been dealing with extreme trauma and that yoga therapy helped her deal with the bodily symptoms of it. She also credited her therapist, Ankita Deshmukh, with her healing and shared things the counselor said that stayed with her. You can check it out below.
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When you read these profound pearls of wisdom that therapists have imparted, it makes complete sense why they stuck in the clients’ heads for so long. Vidya Kale, the counselor we interviewed, also shared something her therapist asked her that was very impactful. She said, “early on during the therapy sessions, I used to tell her about all my weaknesses, bad qualities, and what was wrong with me. After many sessions, she asked me one question, ‘What is something in you that is enough?’ It doesn’t have to be something exceptional, just enough.”
“That was like a shock for me that not everything has to be about reaching an expert level, I can just be enough. We don’t tend to acknowledge the okay qualities in us and focus on the negative. I have also experimented with using this question with my clients, and it’s quite impactful. They too get shocked and realize they never acknowledged the things that were ‘enough’ in themselves,” she added.
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Therapy isn’t about just sitting and talking to a counselor. The mental health professional and the client tackle important issues in the person’s life and try to find tools they can use to work through their struggles. According to a survey by ValuePenguin, around 86% of their 1.3k respondents found that therapy helped them cope better. This happens because counselors ask important questions to make their clients reflect on complex situations.
Vidya shared her experience, stating, “my therapist asked what I would do if I learned about a security threat that would affect my city, and how I would save it. I told her that on the spot, I might not be able to do much, but I gave her a list of things I’d do if I had 24 hours. She then said, ‘see, your brain is able to deal with the toughest situations, and it finds a way out. So trust that you can manage even the most difficult situations and find a way out.’ Even now, my hair stands on end while telling you this.”
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Research has found that receiving more counseling sessions can improve patient outcomes. Studies show that out of clients who dropped out, only 12% recovered as compared to 60% of those patients that completed their course of therapy. That’s why it’s so important to stick with these mental health sessions and fight the urge to drop out if things get hard.
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When we asked Vidya about the impact of therapy and her therapist on her, she said: “no therapy can have an impact if the client doesn’t take any initiative. If their mindset is set to think ‘everything is bad and everything is wrong, nothing is good,’ nothing will change no matter how much you do or how good the therapist is. I have been working for 4.5 years, and my therapist for 8 years. We also found that people who are spiritual or have spiritual beliefs have better chances of healing and it being sustainable.”
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With technology becoming even more innovative, it’s no shock that something like therapy can also be done online. Studies have found that online counseling sessions are just as effective as in-person ones to treat mental illnesses. The only concerns that exist involve privacy both on the counselor's and client’s side. In physical settings, confidentiality is easier to maintain since only the therapist and patient are in the room. With virtual therapy, people find it tougher to find that same level of privacy in their homes.
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As Vidya puts it, “everyone only wants someone who can understand them. The therapist needs to look beyond words, understand the person’s emotion, and respond to that.” That’s exactly why this thread exists. People who went to therapy felt heard and understood by their counselors, which is why these statements stuck with them.
Have you ever experienced that? We’d love to hear if something a therapist has said really resonated with you.
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"Change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change.".I asked him, "How do you process all of the negative feelings that are projected at you?" and he said "They aren't my feelings"
I don't think he realized how profound that was.You aren’t that interesting.
I would have panic attacks and paranoia that people were out to get me (PTSD etc) and would think that people were judging me in grocery stores because my toddler was crying or that my hair was messy. And honestly it boiled down to…nobody cares. We’re all trying to survive and get through the day and what someone looks like or does, we observe and move on. Nobody is that interesting. Nobody (for the most part) is going to remember to toddler crying for a brief moment or the way I was dressed or if my makeup was perfect. Nobody. The only person who will remember is me, and how I made MYSELF feel.I was discussing with my therapist that although I’m still young, I felt like it was too late to achieve what I wanted my life to be. She very seriously looked me in the eye and said “Are you dead?” “Well….no” “Then there’s time” and it’s a motto I’ve been reminding myself of daily.Sometimes a thought is just a thought.Your friends should not make you cry.
Pathetic that I needed to learn this in my 30’s, but there it is.We judge ourselves by our intentions but we judge others by their actions.You can't control others, but you can control how you respond.You're going to put yourself in an early grave trying to make your Mother happy. Your Mother is sick, trying to make her happy is like trying to fill a bucket that has no bottom, its not going to happen unless she fixes the bucket. You can't fix it for her.Some people are like a colander, it doesn't matter how much time, love and support you pour into them, it will never fill them up enough to make a difference. ."You need to show yourself the same kindness and compassion that you show others."
I did not expect to get something like that in my second session.As a teen in therapy, I used to call myself a potato because of my ugly appearance. The woman I had sessions with actually gave me a small plastic potato replica and had written on it in sharpie "some people like potatoes."
I think it was just the effort she went to trying to help me/cheer me up that really affected me and my judgement of professional help (I was an angsty kid) and after that I took getting help much more seriously.“Be the mirror, not the sponge”. Don’t absorb other people’s stress and anxiety, show it back to them gently. Changed my life."Just because the mentally ill person screaming at you lives in your home instead of on the streets doesn't mean their opinion is any more true"
"The fact that the relationships you have with some people are involuntary doesn't mean you should hold them to a lower standard than voluntary relationships; you can hold them to a higher standard".When I broke down because I was so fed up of being scared and anxious all the time he said something like.
“You can’t be brave without being scared first.”
It always stuck with me that fear, no matter how overwhelming, won’t last forever and I try to see it as a chance for me to prove to myself I can fight back and try to get through this.I’m a therapist. You know that phrase “You can’t love someone until you love yourself”?
I tell my patients thats b******t and replace it with:
“Sometimes through loving someone else, you can begin to love yourself.”."You deserve to take up space just as much as anyone."
There was a whole process involved in allowing me to see my own self worth.“Don’t live as though the thing you fear has happened when it hasn’t”.Me: I just want to get back to my baseline and feel okay again.
Therapist: Or, potentially feel even better than your baseline.
Very eye-opening for me in the moment because the thought had never occurred to me.That I was more addicted to the breaks and deep breathing than I was to the nicotine.
Over one year without smoking and watching my dad die of lung cancer due to a lifetime of smoking.Not every friend has to be a close friend, you're able to have different kinds of friends (like levels of how close they are or how much you confide in them).
I struggle with being a loner and it affected my mental health a lot because I could count my friends on one hand. I thought of people as acquaintances or close friends with no grey area. This advice helped me appreciate more of the people who I'm not super close with but they still have a presence in my life.Just because you feel bad doesn't mean you are bad.“Sorry, but you’re just not that powerful.”
In response to my tendency to accept blame for everything that has gone wrong in mine and my kids lives. It should have been obvious to me but it wasn’t. When I processed this statement I felt overwhelmingly relieved.That the best way to get rid of cortisol is to scream, sing or hum. Animals shake when their levels get too high to get rid of it. Our Vargas nerve runs down our windpipe. So scream sing! You’ll feel better. Also that guilt is a heavy and useless emotion, put it down like a suitcase and walk off.As you become more educated and more experienced you will outgrow people and behaviors and it will not be comfortable. You will no longer fit in.“You don’t need to please everyone all of the time. People who love you will not leave you because you disagree with them or do something they don’t like.”
She nailed a lot of my behaviours back to the fact my biological dad left when I was 9 months old. I cannot cope with perceived abandonment, and will do everything in my power to keep people happy… because they might leave me.“I’m not taking your insurance anymore”.A question she asked that Immediately changed the way I saw a relationship. How much more of this b******t are you going to put up with?I had been in therapy for about a decade, and was talking to her about online dating. I said it was like being sucked into a whirlpool, in that there is only one small step between just playing around the edges and being sucked into the thing. She asked me why I used that example, and I said "Because, when I was 9, I was sucked into a whirlpool in a creek, and only survived because my brother managed to pull me out." This started a flurry of scribbling in her notebook I had not seen before. Also answered LOTS of things.
