Years ago I homed in on the traits that were causing me the most trouble: control, getting everything just right, and resentment-laden caregiving. But those are just cute words to explain the calamity of issues those tendencies lead to. One of the stark realizations I had, though, was that those three attributes also made me feel safe, accomplished, and loving. So what’s a girl to do?

I figured out that I only really had to make adjustments when these characteristics were causing me trouble.

Recently, I discovered that the same is true for therapy. Do I still need therapy? Not necessarily. I don’t have to spend years in counseling digging up and staring at the past if I’m relatively peaceful and happy with my life and my relationships.

The time period right after my brother died is a good example. I truly benefited from the help I got from my therapist. There was a lot going on in my mind that was keeping me from enjoying my life and the people in it—understandably so. And speaking of the grief process, I came across this quote from psychologist and author Edith Eger. In her book The Gift she writes, “All therapy is grief work…. When we have unresolved grief, we often live with overwhelming rage.” Yikes, Edie, “overwhelming rage”? Whoopsies—pretty confident my seething anger started way before Tucker died. But, I guess whatever gets you in the chair, right, Team?

So, with a therapist, I slowly worked through my old grief, my new grief—other people’s grief. There was a lot of processing. And over an extended period of time, I noticed that it might have been a bit too much processing. Staring at things was no longer serving me. So now I only call my therapist when a challenge surfaces. That’s been a much more productive approach for me. 

Part of recovering from my old ways means accepting that I don’t have to resolve every single sharp edge to feel complete. So this is how I know when to throw up the bat signal for my therapist: if something from the past is holding me back from enjoying my present. I feel like I owe it to myself and the people I love to work through my unresolved issues with a professional. But if things are relatively peaceful in my present, there’s really no need for me to continue to look back. Because when I dwell too much on old memories, my focus can get stuck on things that went wrong in the past rather than all the things that are going right in the present. 

Thanks for listening, TeamConfessioners!