I love working with breakups. I don’t enjoy seeing people suffer with heartbreak or stuck in all consuming rage. Even so, the rawness of this time in someone’s life is rich with opportunity for self-reflection and healing. Radical shifts in perspective and radical changes in life choices can come from a breakup, and I never lose sight of this when I witness my clients grieving the end of a relationship. I have such conviction in this belief that I have too much to say in just one post. Keep reading for part one of what I keep in mind when supporting someone through this transition. 

1.) Remember that a lot more of your friend’s past might be triggered right now than what meets the eye. 

It might seem from the outside that your friend is responding to the fallout of the relationship — and of course, they are. But breakups also commonly stir up pain from previous relationships with other ex-partners, friends, or even painful experiences with family members. Your friend might express feeling confused or ashamed of how they are reacting to the breakup, and you might even be having a hard time not passing judgment on they are reacting. Gently share with your friend that it’s normal for the end of one relationship to bring up pain from previous relationships. Keep in mind that some of what’s coming up might be completely rooted in subconscious or unconscious dynamics. For example, your friend might not be thinking that their reaction to the breakup is connected to how rejected they felt by their classmates in middle school… but connections like this are completely common. The good news is that by showing up with support through this time, you are helping your friend heal from previous hurt, even if it doesn’t feel like you are doing enough. 

You may have heard that therapy is not the place for politics, and that therapists are obligated to maintain neutrality in the room, regardless of their personal beliefs. It is true that there used to be a time when therapists were trained this way, and this history still finds its way into many or most training programs. Today, there are still therapists who attempt to practice this way. I am not one of them. In fact, my practice is founded on the basis that our mental and spiritual health is intertwined with the ways in which we interact with the world and the world interacts with us- individually and collectively. Our racial identities and experiences are a core part of how the world interacts with us, and we cannot meditate or therapize ourselves out of the reality of racism. 

As many of us continue to be living with stay at home orders, social distancing, and limited options for safely engaging with the outside world, we are spending more time with ourselves. I am hearing from many that this increase in self-reflective time has increased the pre-therapy jitters. It’s common to feel a bit nervous before a therapy session. In a pre-pandemic world, it may have been a quieter build up of nerves due to rushing to session (maybe even in person) from work, or going right into a social get together after a session. With less face to face interaction with others, we can hear ourselves that much more clearly, and that might bring up fears of doing therapy “wrong” or fear of really being seen in therapy. Today we’ll take a look at factors that contribute to these nerves, how to cope, and when it might be time to reconsider your path with therapy.