Life will inevitably throw you some curveballs. Unfortunately hardships in life are unavoidable and we can all use some support when times get tough and someone who can guide us through those times. Whether you are dealing with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, self-esteem, or simply need some guidance in life, therapy can help people of all ages, from children to young adults, families and couples. Here are 6 reasons why you should consider taking advantage of the benefits of counselling:
1. Self-Exploration and Self-Acceptance can lead to Personal Growth
In some instances, traumatic experiences and other influencing factors may result in losing one’s identity and self-worth. Engaging in therapy makes people recognise and understand their individual personality and identity.
Counselling aims to help develop healthy well-being and stable mental health through the promotion of individuality and independence. Seeing a therapist provides you with the opportunity to learn about yourself and gain a greater understanding into your personality, values, and beliefs. It allows you to increase self-awareness and insight into your own role in the problems you may be facing and awareness is key to change. It encourages you to commence a unique journey toward personal growth. With self-acceptance comes self-love, self-compassion, and a stronger sense of self-confidence. You will be able to improve your weaknesses by building upon your strengths.
2. Therapists Provide a Non-Judgemental Space, Support and Validation
Engaging in counselling and speaking with a licensed therapist allows you to find the comfort and security you need to open up about your emotional state. Counsellors strive to provide a safe, non-judgmental, warm, and caring environment for clients to feel comfortable with disclosing personal information. Whatever you tell them will remain between you and your counsellor. A therapist is trained to validate your emotions and normalise situations to ensure you don’t feel alone.
3. Awareness can Help Change Self-Defeating Habits or Behaviour
In some cases our habits are contributing to problems in our life. Therapy can help you be more aware of those thoughts, emotions, and behaviours that result in a toxic and never-ending cycle of self-defeat. With awareness of those behaviours, you can learn about steps that can be taken to regain control over your behaviours in order to enhance more positive change. Therapy can also help you discover obstacles blocking you from performing at your best. These types of roadblocks, such as perfectionism or overthinking, are challenges a therapist can help you work through to find an effective solution. You may also discuss time-management skills with your therapist and whether changing negative long-term habits could help with your focus and productivity.
4. Management of Emotions and Better Expression of Feelings
Whether you are dealing with anxiety, depression, anger or stress, seeing a therapist can help you identify, express, and better regulate the emotions that you are experiencing. Or maybe the ones that you are not expressing. Through an increased awareness of triggers, you can learn to express and cope with your emotions in a healthy way. This way you can prevent unhealthy escalation of negative emotions that may lead to unwanted behaviours. Best of all, once you learn these techniques, you carry them with you into the rest of your life and they will help you long term to manage your stress levels.
5. Nurturing Hope, Motivation, and Encouragement
Whether you feel completely hopeless or simply need a boost of motivation and encouragement, therapy can help. Without hope or motivation, our lives can appear to be falling apart because we struggle to take action or make change. However, counselling can help spark that lacking motivation by bringing awareness to positive achievements in the present and past to strengthen hope for the future self, future relationships, and future life.
6. Learning Skills for Life and Reducing Stress
A counsellor can teach you methods of calming your body and mind, which might include techniques such as deep breathing, guided visualisation or progressive muscle relaxation. Therapists can also help problem-solve the sources of your stress and teach you stress-reduction techniques. There is an infinite amount of skills that you can learn through therapy that will be useful in everyday life. These may range from problem-solving and conflict resolution skills to communication and interpersonal skills. Counselling provides a safe environment to learn, practice, and experiment with these skills before applying them to real situations outside of sessions. These ultimately lead to better overall well-being of your body, mind, and spirit.
Bottom Line: Therapy can make you feel happier.
Talking over your past, present, and future with a therapist can lead to greater self-understanding. Substantial self-compassion helps you handle the bumps in the road that inevitably happen in life without getting stuck on negativity. Therapists, especially person-centred therapists, often emphasise self-acceptance and self-compassion and talk you through techniques that can help increase both. Benefits of self-compassion may include more health-promoting behaviours, nurturing your well-being, and an increased empathy, which provides a healthy buffer against anxiety.
Do you feel like therapy could benefit you?
We’re here to help find the right therapist or counsellor for you. At Correlate Connections our participants are active in the counselling process at every stage. Our therapists work with children, young people, adults, couples, families and groups. Counselling may be short term, long term, or over a lifetime, according to clients’ needs.
Get in touch today to find the best solution for you.
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Contact us to receive more information about your options for support and funding also OUTSIDE the NDIS in the Campbelltown area, Sydney NSW.
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Read about the 6 Benefits of NDIS Support Coordination.
