Wanting to feel less anxious, less angry or less negative about yourself is a fantastic starting point. It means you are showing up for yourself and that you want to improve your own situation - basically, it means you care enough to try.
The issues some people find is the question of what next. The conversation with yourself looks a little like this: "I know I'm feeling tired/stressed/anxious/sad/angry (go ahead and insert your own appropriate feeling here), but how do I start to feel better?"
That's where therapy can be useful. There are a range of tools, techniques and strategies a qualified therapist can walk you through to help you meet whatever your goal is or help answer the question you're asking yourself.
- Want to understand why you feel so stressed and exhausted all the time? Let's talk about how much you're holding, how much you want to be holding and how much of that is actually yours to hold. Then let's explore why you thought that was all yours to hold to being with.
- Want to understand how you stop flying off the handle at the slightest provocation? Let's talk about recognising how the anger shows up in your body, how to recognise that and respond (rather than react) to that and then let's talk about the reasons it might exist in the first place.
- Want to feel more positive about yourself? Let's talk about reframing your self-view and adjusting the language you use in your self-talk before we explore why those negative beliefs are there to start with.
- Want to feel more in control of your to-do list? Let's talk about prioritisation, personal resource management and self-care, before we work together on understanding who (and why) you're trying to please by taking all that responsibility on your shoulders.
There isn't a single tool that is a fix-all and every person will need something slightly different. The role of the therapist is to work with you and offer tools, strategies or just a safe place to talk and this will hopefully help you understand what you need a little better. Therapy can be there to help you explore how or what you want to change, what you want to stay the same and bring a little clarity to the complexity of your own human experience and everything that entails. The therapists main job is to hold the emotional space so that you can do this exploration safely.