The #1 Question I Hear as a Therapist - And How it's Keeps Us Stuck

A short reflection

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“How do I make this feeling go away?”

I hear this question nearly every day in my therapy office.

Some version of, "How do I stop feeling this way?" or "What can I do to fix this?"

Honestly, I get it. When we're hurting, we want relief.

I vividly remember being glued to the living room chair after I had shoulder surgery in high school. I was in so much pain. Constantly.

You better bet there was a myriad of ways I tried to distract myself from the pain, yet it didn’t make it go away.

We've become so obsessed with finding ways to feel better. To avoid discomfort. To feel “happy.”

Our culture has sold us the idea that discomfort is something to be avoided.

At. All. Costs.

Be honest— what happens when you think of sitting with yourself for five minutes without reaching for your phones or some other device?

Maybe you feel your chest tighten or your face muscles tense when you imagine doing that. In other words, you might feel some discomfort.

But all that avoidance and distraction, it actually creates even more discomfort in our nervous systems.

We're caught in this strange paradox:

• The more desperately we try to escape our pain, the more it seems to intensify.

I’ve grown up in church most of my life. I’m very familiar that as followers of Jesus, we're quick to talk about how He cares about our pain and struggles.

We preach it, teach it, sing about it.

Yet when it comes down to it… we spend a lot of our time trying to avoid those very things or ignore them completely.

I'm all about moving toward health and freedom and experiencing less of the symptoms that keep us stuck. That's part of why I became a therapist.

I find myself saying this, in some way or another, to clients every day:

Trying to find new ways to not feel those things isn't the way to get that freedom.

It just delays it.

I want to be really compassionate here. I know many of you have experienced trauma. You've been harmed by people who should have cared for you.

To suddenly turn toward your pain and embrace it can feel threatening and incredibly challenging.

There's a real wisdom in how your system has protected you.

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Okay, I’m going to pause here for now and let you marinate on this. Sunday we’ll talk about something called the “window of tolerance” — the range of emotions and sensations that feel manageable to you.

We don’t need to “get rid of” uncomfortable feelings; we need to expand our capacity (our window) to move through those feelings.

As a therapist and a follower of Jesus, I believe healing comes not from avoiding our pain but from bringing it into relationship – with God, with others who can hold it with us (with care and intention), and eventually, with our own compassionate hearts.

Be on the lookout Sunday for the second part of this letter.

With care,

Blake

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