As I’m writing this, I’ve just finished my first week of my final year at Lancaster University. This incited many changes in my life because, although I’d successfully managed two years in Lancaster, I went on a year abroad last year that hadn’t gone to plan, so I’d spent the past eight months at my family home in Stockport. I’d been out of the academic environment for so long that I didn’t know what to expect.
It turns out that, as with most things, it’s turned out to be not nearly as bad as I was anticipating; yes uni is stressful with the workload, but I’m living in a lovely house with friends, in a pleasant little city I love, studying a course that fascinates me, and doing extra-curricular activities that push me outside my comfort zone.
One big change, though, is that I’m no longer in therapy. I started seeing my therapist in April this year, shortly after my ex and I broke up, when I was still learning to manage my anxiety. He was a massive help, and I looked forward to our weekly sessions where I could offload my feelings and be told that I wasn’t unjustified for many things I felt, did or said: validation I was in need of at the time.
I felt apprehensive in the weeks leading up to uni because I knew I’d miss this outlet. In our last session, he gave me some papers with coping mechanisms for anxiety, making me feel slightly more equipped to ‘live life untherapised’. I’d also learnt plenty of useful things from him over our five months together, which I think others could learn from too.
When it came to brainstorming for this post, I realised it’s easier said than done to ‘list everything you’ve learnt from your therapist’, as I found it was a holistic process above all else. He did teach me some interesting facts from counselling theory and psychology, which isn’t particularly common in therapy, but he knew I was curious and enjoyed the theoretical bits, so our work centred around this.
1. A bad 15 minutes ≠ a bad day
While this seems fairly obvious when said aloud, it took me a while to really grasp it. I used to set a goal every night that, “tomorrow I’m not going to be anxious”, and then when I’d inevitably feel anxious about one thing or another, I’d treat it as though I’ve ‘failed’ and the cycle would restart. My brain would gravitate towards the negative and ignore anything positive that happened.
Once, my therapist told me at the end of a session that “a bad 15 minutes only makes a bad day if you indulge in that feeling”, which just about sums up what I’d been doing. If I’d ever feel anxiety, instead of allowing it and letting it pass, my brain would sound more like, “Oh my God, we said we weren’t going to be anxious. This is so stupid.”, only making the feeling persist.
At the time, I happened to be reading Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck* where he explores the idea of life metrics. To save you reading it, he writes that if you measure the quality of your life with an unrealistic ‘metric’, you’re setting yourself up for unhappiness. I realised I’d subconsciously set my metric as not feeling anxiety, a natural human emotion, when there are so many other things to use.
Instead, I wrote in my journal that my new life metric is “to try to remain grateful and as present as possible”. Note that it isn’t “to be grateful and present every second of the day”; I know I can’t realistically do this, and that would probably cause me further anxiety. I’ve since done lots of reading about Buddhism, which also emphasises presence and acceptance, and it’s made me feel far more at peace.
2. We aren’t in control of our thoughts
This came up when I was explaining how much I wished I could stop certain thoughts from crossing my mind. My therapist responded by asking me the classic question: “If someone tells you not to think of pink elephants, what’s the first thing you’re going to think of?”, making the point that we simply can’t control our thoughts, only how we react to them.
Something that helped me, was realising I’m not my thoughts — just the observer of them. Buddhism uses the analogy of leaves on a river, the river representing the impermanent nature of everything in life. “When you watch leaves float downstream, you don’t grab every single one because you know that more will come.” Truly understanding this lightened my mind. Nothing lasts forever, so stay for the ride.
3. Many things can be considered trauma
I secretly find it hilarious when older people say things like: “Back in my day we didn’t need therapy — we all just got on with it. Your generation is so spineless!”. The irony is that many of them carry harmful habits they’ve normalised, like constant negative self-talk, which could be resolved if they, you guessed it, went to therapy!
You don’t have to have been raped, physically hurt, et cetera, to have trauma; so many things you might have disregarded or even suppressed, especially ones that happened before age five, can form deep mental narratives. In fact, my therapist told me the worst thing you can do to a child is ignore them for this very reason. I once mentioned the time I was the only girl in my class who wasn’t invited to someone’s birthday party, and he told me how significant that is — likely contributing to my anxious attachment style today.
Narratives in themselves are interesting. My therapist explained them with the example of a man’s mother abandoning the family when he was young, where he’ll form the narrative that “women always leave me”. Each future breakup then validates that belief, and he might unconsciously act in ways to push women away.
Maybe you have a similar belief, and if you do, don’t panic. You can ‘fix’ it through challenging these beliefs that no longer serve you and replacing them with more helpful thoughts. In this example, the man might analyse his behaviour in past relationships and question why he pushes women away, when he’ll likely realise that it’s due to his fear of abandonment. This awareness can transform his future relationships.
The process can be challenging, but our brains aren’t as stuck in their habits as you may think, so it’s certainly worth trying to rid yourself of these toxic beliefs to lead a more fulfilling life.
4. Make friends with overthinking, but tell it off when necessary
This was what inspired my article about nurturing your inner child, so give that a read to learn more, but in brief: my therapist told me about how our overthinking is a survival mechanism we adopted due to negative experiences in childhood, so we should treat it as such. The way I do this is by imagining my overthinking as little Ela, and speaking to her with tenderness when she tries to warn me of dangers that don’t exist.
My therapist also encouraged me to ‘tell off’ my overthinking when it won’t switch off. I was a bit worried about trying this as I felt as though that’s what I’d sort of already done, which had only made it worse; it made me feel bad about feeling bad. He explained that this is different, because you can quieten it by asking a question, like you would with a child. For example, when I’m stuck ruminating, I might ask, “What are we achieving from this?”. When the answer is “nothing”, it soon shuts up.
Another one I’ve adopted leaning into the childlike curiosity. When I’m assuming the worst for every decision — recently it’s been battles between productivity and rest, where it’s either worrying about laziness and failing uni, or burning myself out — I say to myself, “let’s see what happens!” Kids are often fearless because they don’t predict every possible failure, and borrowing that mindset brings me a bit of relief.
5. Our brains would rather cling to uncomfortable familiarity than risk the unknown
Our brains fear uncertainty more than anything else. Think about it: their job is to keep us safe, so if the outcome is unknown, say, presenting to an audience, it’s going to predict the worst. In this example, the worst case would be social rejection, a genuine survival threat in caveman times.
It explains so many behaviours that may seem simple from the outside. From people who stay in abusive relationships, to drug addicts, to those with crippling social anxiety, to workaholics, to people with big ambitions but take no steps towards them. I could go on and on, but in my case, it was worrying about returning to uni. I even said it at the start: “I’d been out of the academic environment for so long that I didn’t know what to expect.”
It’s also why negative self-talk is such a trap. If your inner dialogue sounds like, “I hate my life, everything sucks, I’m worthless…”, your brain deepens those neural pathways, and when you try instead to think, “I enjoy my life, everything is okay, I am worthy”, it feels uncomfortable.
As with the narratives, you can undo this by catching the thoughts and replacing them with positive ones, even if you don’t believe them yet. It’s essentially the law of attraction — act as though you’re already the person you want to be until it feels natural. I take it even further by listening to positive affirmations using a manifestation journal.
Whenever I’d read self-help books or listen to podcasts on mental health giving similar advice to this, I’d think it was a load of rubbish as “they make it sound so easy. If I wanted to be happy then I would”, which you may be thinking after reading all of these. I’ll be the first to say that it is difficult to ‘undo’ a lifetime of trauma, bad habits and low self-esteem, and I’m not saying to implement all these lessons to be ‘cured’ tomorrow.
What I am saying, though, is trying is a worthwhile process; it will push you towards a happier life where you can show up better in relationships, achieve more, and have more fun! The path isn’t always straight — there will be obstacles in your way, but knowing they’re only temporary and being able to overcome them will ultimately make you stronger.
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