My Therapist Told Me I Was Good At Therapy

I beamed. I did a mental fist pump. I even told my friends, proudly and (half) jokingly puffing my chest.

I began therapy in February of this year, and it has grown me tremendously—helping me better manage my anxiety, process past trauma, and tote tools to support healthy relationships in all areas of my life.

Over the past 10 months, I’ve settled into the rhythm of the 60-minute Zoom appointments. Every week, my therapist pops onto my screen, smiling, and asks, “How was your week?”

The thoughts that saturate me begin to ripple out, usually starting with, “Good! This week, let’s see…”

After 30 minutes and a few follow-up questions, dew may slowly form in my eyes (could be happy dew, could be sad dew—I wouldn’t dare deprive my dew of embodying all the emotions it pleases), but I continue to talk and talk and talk.

There is a lot I still don’t know, but a lot I’ve already learned, including the direction her guidance often takes. I can now anticipate what some of her questions will be. So I, like a good patient, start to incorporate them into my stream. I continue to talk and talk and talk until it’s 50 minutes later and I find myself ending on a frequent final note of,

“… So maybe that’s why I’ve been feeling like that… Huh.”

She just looks at me and smiles again. Sometimes it’s almost like I walk my own questions straight into their answers.

Almost.

I still rely on her thought-inducing insight, while hoping not to end every session with too much dew on my tissues. Sometimes it feels really good when I do, and sometimes it doesn’t. When it does, I wipe my eyes and channel my energy into a run or a dance in the mirror. When it doesn’t, I perform breathing exercises she’s shown me to help calm my nervous system. In both instances, I scratch notes down in my journal to expand upon later. I know I will arrive at a place where ultimately, it will feel—and be—good.

My therapist told me I was good at therapy, and I think it’s because I like to learn.

Frankly, I miss being in the classroom. I don’t want to disappoint my therapist, much like I never wanted to disappoint a teacher in school. In this way, I’ve noticed that my relationship with my therapist and my relationship with myself have a somewhat direct correlation: You can let your therapist down, sure, but ultimately, you’re also letting past, present, and future self down too.

In this classroom, she gives me homework that we review each week. Sometimes it’s a writing prompt, sometimes it’s a hard conversation, sometimes it’s simply to ask a question. It evokes the same tendencies in me from when I was a student. So my reflexive desire to come to each session with ample, thoughtful notes is driven not only by my motivation to improve emotionally, interpersonally, and well, humanly, but also because I simply want to “do well” on the homework assignment.

I wasn’t being graded, and I didn’t know someone could be “good” at therapy, but when the student in me resurfaced, I had an even stronger urge to prove (i.e., improve) myself. And just like scoring high on a test after studying really hard, the best part is that I don’t only make my therapist proud, I make myself proud too.

My therapist told me I was good at therapy, and I think it’s because I’m a writer.

My journalistic proclivity has always had me naturally challenging what I know, observing the way I direct my narrative, and seeking new ways to think and be. I like doing the work, because I learn more about myself. I more deeply understand what has made me who I am and what I choose will make me who I want to be.

I’ve also always been good at pouring onto a page. Pouring out to a person (whose job it is to analyze you) feels very different, but I know that’s probably the point. After a while at it, and finally feeling familiarity in the face on my screen gazing back at me, it comes very easily now. Each minute that passes is another turn of a transparent page as my words whirl through the air to meet it. I sometimes require no prompt.

My therapist told me I was good at therapy, and I think it’s because I like to be challenged.

I don’t want to downplay the fact that this “homework” is hard. I drag my feet sometimes. But ultimately, I am grateful for the support in creating mental and emotional goals. The focus of personal goals I typically see are oriented around things like career, finances, fitness. All great, but what of your internal well-being? What of your relational well-being, with others and yourself? How are you investing in what is such a fundamental part of your life experience? Our mind and gut are preeminent forces, forming and fueling us, and it would be antagonistic to underestimate them.

At the end of the day, I know that digging in is how I show up for myself. So I do it for me. I do it for my family. I do it for my friends. I do it for the child I was and the adult I want to be. I do it for the life I want to live and the world I want to live in.

What therapy has shown me is that I enjoy the idea that life is a test to become our best human selves. To do well, we must study—and therapy is our classroom. A space to pause, observe, and think critically about our inner rhythms and outer ripples. A space to further understand and have grace for our mistakes. Why do I do what I do? Why do I feel what I feel? How does it currently affect others in my life? How do I want it to affect others in my life? The answers to these questions will tell you most things you need to know.

And the more we learn, the more we grow, the better we become — to ourselves, those around us, and the world we create.

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