Why Am I Scared of Change?

Recognizing the Grief Experienced When We Seek Change and How Therapy Helps

When we go into therapy, we usually want to feel better. Sometimes we find that we aren’t ready to feel better. It is like some part of us wants to hold onto the pain. Even though it hurts, it takes some time to accept something new.

Think about grief. When we grieve, we might be in denial for a while, we try bargaining to see if our actions can make it not be happening, we feel depressed and sad, maybe we get angry and resentful, and eventually we move on. We typically think of grief as something we only experience when someone passes away, but we grieve for the loss of many things in our lives.

We grieve the loss of hopes and dreams. We grieve the life we once knew. We grieve the life we thought we would have. We grieve the life we should have had. We grieve the person we once were. We grieve the loss of what we used to know.

A therapist provides space for you to notice and actually acknowledge all that was lost. In the therapy office, there is room to focus on those feelings, instead of ignoring them by focusing on the responsibilities you have in your day-to-day life. The process helps us realize why it means so much to us and observe why we might avoid healing.

A lot of times, being able to keep the pain gives you a feeling of being in control. Even if everything outside of yourself is outside of your control, your internal experiences are something that no one can take away from you. With most grief, there is a loss of control, change without consent. So being in control of your healing is important for moving through grief.

As things come and go in our lives, we search for the meaning of these experiences. However, meaning isn’t something found, but instead meaning is created. We often associate strong feelings, especially pain, with meaning. In therapy, we create meaning by giving the experience words. Doing so helps us no longer need to suffer to honor the meaning of something we have lost.

Therapy is seeking change and change inherently creates grief. It is okay to honor your grief process by taking what time you need.

These sand tray miniatures can be seen in my office, at 1930 S. Alma School Rd., Ste. A210, Mesa, AZ 85210, but I originally found them on Etsy! TheTherapistToolbox created the tombstones, and SandTrayMinis created the hand reaching out. Both are fabulous businesses, creating much needed imagery to be used in therapy!