An argument for THERAPY and TRANSFORMATION
Therapy is still a ‘dirty word’ in many circles. Going to see a ‘therapist’ seems to mean that you are not just close to crashing but have pretty much settled all the way down in the dumps. You cannot help yourself anymore. You’re a failure. You are broken. Lost. Unable to sort out your life… You lost all control over yourself. The list goes on. I myself remember very well how I felt the very first time I sought ‘mental health support’. It was during my time at Oxford when my father had died about a year previously, three month after which my boyfriend at the time ended the relationship, which also involved me losing my temporary London home with him and his family. From one day to the next, I slept on the couches of two very dear girlfriends in London and Oxford and had lost dad, boyfriend, my home, and, on top of this, my Ph.D. supervisor was super unsupportive. After this, I fell in love quite heavily with someone but the relationship ended in a way that was quite painful for me to digest. There was a point when a weird dark humour kicked in and the whole situation nearly seemed absurdly funny.
As the second year of my Ph.D. began, I sometimes found it hard to get up in the morning because I was so tired and depressed. Just so you know. I know these places. With hindsight, knowing all the tools I know today and having such an amazing support team around me, I don’t quite understand how I could have spent all this time trying to find all the solutions by myself. But at the time, the only ‘help with myself’ (why do we not get delivered with manuals?!?!?!) which my own and the collective belief-system I was surrounded by allowed me to come up with was to contact the Oxford University Counselling Service. While the four free sessions any Oxford student has access to did not really help much, still, they were in a way my first contact with self-development, healing, and ‘therapy’. It was definitely a first crossing of my ‘therapy’ comfort zone, this decision that I was ready to ask for support. And, wow, I so remember the feeling I had going there — it felt a bit like admitting defeat. Having failed. At life, at being the best version of myself, at being a legitimate Oxford student. Such shame!
Now, the irony of this is that, according to an Oxford Professor friend of mine, about a third or so of all Oxford students seek mental health support during their time in this highly-charged, high-pressure environment. I mean, a place where towers get locked during exam-time so that desperate students can’t jump off them… Yeah. Not really the epitome of mental and emotional health, right? But somehow, this is still one of the most highly-regarded educational institutions and environments! For a reason, too, of course! Being at Oxford for five years was an extraordinary experience in so many ways. Yet at the same time, the university is a breeding-place for ‘not enough’, impostor syndrome, and adrenal fatigue.
Today, 6 years after the completion of my Ph.D., I am so grateful to past Hannah for having chosen (and choosing on a daily basis) peace, true fulfilment and self-worth, happiness, and freedom over continuing on pathways that suggest success to those around me while keeping me from reaching or rather creating the happy valley I have now made my number 1 priority in life. I am grateful to my past self that I became such a self-development geek! I LOVE exploring all my inner highs and lows and their origins. As a result of this complete remodelling of myself — of my thinking and of my feeling and of my life — I know and experience on a daily basis that peace and happiness DON’T contradict being successful. And while I am writing this, my little daughter is listening to Frozen and I hear ‘I am free, I am free’. Yes. I am free. And I choose freely. And I choose to experience what feels easy, light, fun, and pure. And abundant. Always and in all ways. And this always involves pushing through new barriers in the subconscious that are ready to be cleared to allow for the next upleveling. Because movement is one of the characteristics of life
Today, I had the great pleasure of guiding one of my current 1:1 long-term clients through yet another beautiful, deep, transformative healing session. He is an incredibly impressive, brave, and successful young man who also dares to turn around every part of his ‘identity’ (in the sense of current belief system) in order to shed all that is limiting, restrictive, or fear-based. I can assure you: we are not just talking love, light, and unicorns in our sessions, we go straight to the deepest place we can possibly reach. This beautiful man does not shy away from looking at his fears, visions, inner stories, and wounds even if they are traumatic, hard, embarrassing, or painful. He is rewarded with instant transformation of his experience of life. Literally and immediately. And today, after our fourth session together, he told me that our weekly sessions have become the highlight of his week! I cannot tell you HOW deeply this touched me: not just because of course it makes me happy when my work is appreciated, but because this proves once again what I KNOW to be true from my own experience: that deep, deep healing CAN be a quick, amazing, safe, professional, and valued yet at the same time totally loving, connected, honest, and open experience. For both sides. And this is one of the reasons I am here. To show others that there ARE options. That it is completely fine and the only sane thing to do to put our own self-care and happiness first. That it is not selfish to do so (or that the term selfish should lose its negative connotation). We cannot serve — if service is meant to be in the highest possible frequency, one that is free, happy, and abundant — from a place of self-neglect.
If you discover anything inside your system that you feel reluctant to talk about, that seems too horrible, or if you still feel that seeking ‘mental help’ means that there is something wrong with you, please feel into HOW heavy this feels. HOW inescapable and fear-invoking. Claustrophobic. If receiving support in order to be happy and able to live in alignment with one’s true purpose is connected with being broken and with failure, this constitutes a profound stigmatisation of any deep inner transformation-work. It only leaves us one option: repressing what would be ready to bubble up in order to be released — in a safe environment — and resigning into a normalised experience of life as stuckness, pain, struggle, and hustle.
And now imagine such a safe space — where everything you bring is welcome and where no judgement exists. I recently came across a beautiful statement written by the channel Paul Selig: that every energy in existence first wants to be acknowledged for what it IS before it can transform. To me, this is such a profound truth! Extrapolated, this means that your feelings of shame and guilt are not the highest truth about you or your life. The highest truth, in my belief system, is that you are already born perfect, worthy, and connected to the greatest love there is, and that there is absolutely nothing you can do to change this. I promise you, if you find someone you truly trust and resonate with — and I urge you to really trust your gut here because your choice of healer, coach, or any other therapist is what makes or breaks the success of your healing-process — you will realise that there is nothing behind that shame and guilt that cannot be transformed easily. You just need to be prepared to have a look. Allowing things to be there in the first place is actually VERY close to them having changed. You will get the hang of life being amazing, free, and fun in no time, I know it! Therapy is transformation is allowing yourself to become the most happy, true, abundant version you can possibly be.
