The 15 most valuable things people have learned from therapy

Everyone knows that attending therapy is a good way to look after our mental health. After all, it’s where people can openly share their feelings with someone without the fear of being judged.

We can learn a lot about ourselves and pick up a few life lessons on the way too.

People on Reddit have come together to answer the question: “What is the best, most valuable thing you’ve learned from therapy?”

Here are the 15 most valuable things people have learned from therapy:

“You can’t control the actions of others, and you can’t presume to know their motivations either.”

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“I know it’s a silly example, but it applies to a lot of things. We tend to be very self-centred in our thinking.”

“A simple example would be “Jack is always drumming his fingers on the desk to annoy me. He knows I hate that!”

The fact is that, unless Jack tells you that, you cannot know if that’s his motivation. Most likely, he’s doing it absent-mindedly.”

Don’t judge your feelings, just try to understand where they’re coming from. Judge your actions.

Give yourself permission to grieve. Not just for the loss of loved ones, but for anything that makes you feel sad.

That my past trauma and upbringing aren’t excuses for my bad behavior, and I have to be the one to break the cycle.

Not all relationships are worth saving.

That my anxiety is a part of me and that it’s not something I need to constantly fight against.

Thoughts are not facts. Really changed my perspective on things.

The power of self-talk!

“In short, the subconscious accepts whatever thoughts you are feeding it and isn’t able to filter out if a thought is accurate or not. So it doesn’t matter if those negative thoughts about yourself are true or not, your subconscious is accepting them as reality.

“The perk to that however is that you can lie to yourself. Tell yourself a positive thought over and over again and over time your subconscious starts accepting that thought as truth.”

The way someone treats you is often a reflection of themselves, that being said, it also may be a reflection of how you also treat yourself. We often choose to stay in situations that we believe we deserve.

Problems aren’t solved after one session. Things can take much longer to heal than you realise, but don’t give up and celebrate any accomplishment no matter how small.

There is no invalid emotion. They all come from somewhere and they are worth listening to.

Talk to yourself in the same way you would talk to a friend going through the same thing.

That it doesn’t have to go on for years. You can work out a problem, and be done. Much like a cast fixes a broken bone.

The law of intention.

“Someone cuts us off in traffic, they did it on purpose and they’re an asshole. We cut someone off in traffic and it’s because we are so tired, or the sun was in our eyes.”

That you can choose who you allow in your life.

“You don’t have to allow toxic people in your life just because you have a history with them. If there is ongoing behavior that is causing you unneeded stress and you have attempted to talk to them about it but they refuse to work it out or change, you can end the relationship.”

There is certainly a lot of advice we can take away from this discussion and apply to our own lives...