In their own words

“I feel free and hopeful.”

When I first sought out therapy I was feeling pulled down by a quicksand of thoughts. I felt trapped and helpless. Which caused severe depression and unhappiness. I placed all fault on others.

After 1.5 years of therapy I came to realize the circumstances in my overall life never changed, yet now instead of feeling stuck, I'm running free. The magical difference was nothing more than a change in my perspective. Learning how to change my perspective came down to nothing more than learning how to take accountability. Through my therapy journey I learned I was responsible, not others. Only I could free myself from the thoughts that were pulling me down. Only I could rebuild my mind the way I wanted it to be. No amount of fault that I could place on others would cause them to take accountability and pull me out. Everyone is the hero in their own mind. In their mind they could be feeling trapped and helpless by their own quicksand of thoughts and placing fault on me.

I invested three years of my life building a home. Starting a therapy journey is a lot like building a home. It's time consuming. It's messy. It's frustrating. And it feels like it will never get done. But because there were blueprints, I understood the pace it would take. Eventually I moved into my home and the work it took faded away, becoming a thing of the past.

I had to learn patience with myself to go at the pace it would take when building my mind. Taking accountability to change my perspective was time consuming work, like when building my home, only this time it was much more complicated because the work in my mind didn't come with any blueprints. Therapy helped me draw up my own set of blueprints. I drew up a visualization in my mind, of my thoughts being like a highway. My blueprints showed that using the same thoughts over & over, throughout my lifetime, caused them to create a highway in my mind. The highway grew wider, and became easier to use, the more my thoughts stayed the same. There are many reasons these thought patterns reoccurred over the years. Childhood trauma. Narcissistic relationships. A difficult boss or coworker. An annoying sales clerk. An asshole driver. And so on.

Every situation I perceived in a negative way contributed to creating my highway. The highway became so easy to use, that I convinced myself that thinking negatively was helping me somehow. I didn't want to admit to myself that my negative thoughts were actually harming me because I didn't want to admit to myself that it was up to me to put in the work it would take to correct them. It was so much easier to place the fault on others.

I had a really difficult time separating myself from others because in my mind there was only one highway and we were all on my highway together. If I even so much as thought someone was upset with me, my thoughts would run wild, whether or not there was even any evidence to support them.

Once I admitted to myself that no one else was responsible for my thoughts—that my thoughts were negative & harmful, and I truly wanted them to be positive & helpful—I was ready to begin my hard work. It was the hardest work I have ever done.

It helped to imagine my highway had a wall of forest on both sides. In order to created a new highway of thought, I had to drive off of my highway, straight into the forest, which of course stopped me dead in my tracks. It was immediately dark. Cold. Unfamiliar. Impossible to get through. There was no road. How was I ever going to get through this? I would look back at the highway, so familiar, so easy to take, and then look back in front of me at the lonely darkness. I would try to proceed only to be slapped in the face by branch after branch. Much like building a house piece by piece, a road must be built branch by branch.

I learned that for every negative thought I could also think a positive one. That there is also good in every situation that appears bad. Every time I was able to focus on a positive thought, and good in a situation, a branch was removed. And eventually the dark forest started to gain light. And eventually started showing a path. As my path grew, I was able to see myself as separate from others who were still using the highway in my mind. I was able to see that their thoughts, feelings, and actions were separate from mine. I was able to place value in my own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Just like my home was built stronger with time, so was my confidence.

I'm still working on making the path a highway, but now that there are blueprints, I understand the pace it will take. And I know the work will eventually fade away, becoming a thing of the past. I feel free and hopeful.