Maybe you’ve been in therapy for years, maybe you’re thinking about starting, or maybe you don’t think it’s for you at all. Either way, people have learned valuable lessons about how they see themselves, others, and the world around them through therapy. So Redditor Known-Dot-8314 asked, “What’s something you learned in therapy that you think everyone should know?” Here’s what people said.
1.“Most people don’t really hate you, they’re just focused on themselves.”
2.“You can’t control the actions of others, and you can’t assume you know their motives. A simple example would be, ‘Jack is always drumming his fingers on the table to annoy me. He knows I hate it!’ The fact is, unless Jack tells you, you can’t know if that’s his motivation, he’s doing it absent-mindedly, but it relates to a lot of things in our thinking.”
—OceanaMist
3.“Changing the words you use to think about yourself is extremely powerful, even as an afterthought. For example: ‘I’m shit.'” Or, you can think, ‘I made a mistake, people do that’.”
4.“Boundaries go around you, not around others. Setting boundaries around others is called control.”
—gpky
5.“The importance of being kind to yourself. I used to struggle a lot with negative self-talk. I always told myself that I was worthless, that I was a burden to others, and I hated myself. In order to get better, I had to start positive self-talk, telling myself that I was good, loved and confident, even if I didn’t believe or was disgusted by the positive things I was saying.”
6.“How to say ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I forgive you’ I’m not talking about a constant apology, but a sincere apology. I grew up in a house with fights, but there was never an apology to sweep it under the rug.”
7.“Setting boundaries isn’t mean or selfish; it’s necessary for healthy relationships. Learning to say ‘no’ and protect your peace is one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself.”
— sharolynrenz
8.“The human brain is not designed to keep us happy. It is designed to keep us alive.”
9.“Think about the spoon analogy as it relates to emotional energy: Every day you wake up with a certain number of spoons. You give one to your spouse, one to your job, one to your children, one to your friends, etc. But at the end of the day, you have to make sure you only give spoons to people who deserve them and keep at least one spoon for yourself.”
10.“Hurt people hurt people. If you don’t heal, you will be dangerous in the same way that people you knew were dangerous were once unable to heal their wounds.”
—SlouchinTwrdsNirvana
11.“When flight attendants give instructions on what to do during an emergency, they always say put the mask on yourself first, before you put it on the child. It’s a great reminder that helping others isn’t a great idea when you’re not feeling well.”
12.“It’s better to do things half-heartedly than not at all. So brushing your teeth for a minute is better than nothing, even if you haven’t done it for three full minutes. Washing clothes but not putting them away is better than having those small victories at all and seeing them as good things instead of failing to complete an entire task was the first step for me to actually finish things and not feel trapped by tasks I couldn’t start.”
13.“Self-care isn’t just about taking bubble baths; that’s what you need to maintain your mental health, even when it’s hard.”
14.“Don’t judge your feelings. Instead, try to understand where they come from. Judge your actions.”
—Peony_Twinklee
15.“Being ‘selfish’ isn’t necessarily wrong or bad. It certainly can be, but being selfish can also mean setting boundaries, saying ‘no’ more often, taking care of yourself, and more. Being selfish is sometimes necessary.”
16.“My therapist once said, ‘Your thoughts are not facts.’ It hit me hard just because I think it’s true.
—ComfortableFinger354
17.“People forget and move on, so let go of that embarrassing thing that happened years ago. You’re the only one who remembers.”
18.“When someone says something about you or has an opinion about you, it doesn’t automatically make it so. Even if that person loves you very much. My dad would project his flaws onto me, and I believed that I must have been really bad because He said so, but it wasn’t about me, and I’d also like to add: just because someone doesn’t want to hurt you, it doesn’t make it right that they did.
—Scullyxmulder1013
19.“The Holy Trinity of Mental Health Care: Sleep, Diet, Exercise.” At first it was hard to accept this and get into a routine, but I don’t know where I would be without it. That was one of the first things my therapist came up with. She ‘prescribed’ me 15 minutes of exercise a day during our first session, and it seriously changed my whole outlook on mental health care. I don’t have to run 15 miles a day, but if I don’t move my body for at least 30 minutes a day, I feel the impact. Now, I look at exercise as something I do for my brain; its effect on my body is only a positive side effect. And it makes it feel like less of a chore, and it’s easier to maintain a consistent routine.”
20.“Healing doesn’t mean forgetting or justifying what happened. It means learning to live without letting it control you. And part of that healing is accepting that you can’t control others—only how you react to them.”
—YChocolaton
21.“Just because you’re upset doesn’t mean the other person did something wrong.”
22.“A counselor at my university taught me that just because anxiety tells you something is going to happen, it doesn’t mean it’s true. One way to illustrate this is to put a pencil on the table, tell yourself you won’t be able to pick it up, and then do it anyway, so strange, yet so comforting to know that your thoughts don’t have as much influence on your life as you might like to believe. “
What is the most important lesson you learned in therapy—something that actually changed the way you think about yourself or see yourself, others, and the world around you? Tell us in the comments or in this anonymous form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
