Holistic Therapy vs. Regular Therapy: your Healing Journey
You can often hear me talking about your healing journey concerning therapy and your mental health. So I wanted to write a post clarifying what I mean by saying “healing journey.” I’ll tell you why I use it and why I’m even talking about this.
Redefining Therapy
Most people assume that therapy is to help you work through a specific block or trauma and that you will be shown the tools to “fix” your problems. In reality, therapy is nothing like that! There’s no manual that therapists hold to the secret of life.
Our work in therapy is much more complex, and it’s rarely linear. Sometimes, you’ll feel worse before you start to feel better. Sometimes you have to navigate and uncover things that we never realized were there.
That’s the work you’ll do when you start working with a therapist. It’s never as simple as “therapy + x resource = eternal happiness.”
This is what I mean when I say the Journey.
Why It’s called a Healing Journey
Simply put, our whole life is a journey.
Your healing journey isn’t about fixing what’s broken but uncovering the authentic person underneath all your experiences. It’s not about going in, then coming out and being fixed. Taking the step to help yourself with any kind of therapy or self-growth work means committing to learning and growing no matter what it looks like.
Starting your healing journey, i.e. therapy, opens a door that leads to transforming the way you see and the way that you live your life.
I share this from experience. Starting therapy began my own healing journey, and now I witness other people's healing journeys in my work as a therapist. Once I opened the door to learning more about myself, I learned that it's not just about how I treat myself or talk to myself, it's also about what's going on underneath the surface.
My Own Healing Journey
You can talk all day long about how you feel and think and how that impacts you. You're not going to see any foundational changes without action. You're not serving your mind and body.
If all you're doing is talking, there isn't much practice or implementation.
I was in therapy for almost a decade before realizing there could be more. I’m not saying that therapy isn’t worth it. I am a therapist and love it! If you read my last post on lessons from therapy , you know that it saved my life.
I just want to reiterate there’s more to the work you need to do than just talking about it. Gaining a deeper understanding of how your mind and body work together and how to treat it will change how you live.
Integrating your Nervous System with your Healing Journey
When I was only going to talk therapy, I gained awareness of how I talked to myself, and treated myself, and I learned a lot about boundaries with myself and others.
But once I started learning about how our environment affects our minds and bodies, how our beliefs and thoughts are just energy surging through our bodies, and incorporated practices such as somatic movement, I felt a change come from within me.
Once I started taking action aligned with all the talking I’d done in therapy, I felt an immediate shift within me. I was no longer assuming what I should be doing, thinking, or feeling based on what I’d heard and what others did around me.
The way you spend your time, the way you move your body, the food you eat, the people you spend time with, the content you consume, and the way you think, feel and see will all change. From the start of my healing journey to when I learned how to pay attention to my mind and body, I noticed a true transformation at my core.
I'm not saying I'm this enlightened, zen, healthy person all the time. I still struggle, have hard times, and experience pain, grief and sadness. The difference is that I know to my core that whatever I go through, I'll be able to get through. My healing journey has given me the knowledge and skills to help myself.
And I’m still on that journey, I am always learning by applying what I’ve learned.
How Holistic Therapy is Different from Regular Therapy
Regulating your nervous system work is more than learning about your behavior patterns and the experiences you’ve had that have shaped you.
Your healing journey is more than that. It’s understanding how, on a foundational level, your mind, body, and nervous system hold so much wisdom. We have so many answers within us, but we're just not always paying attention to them.
Holistic means understanding all the components that make up the whole.
How your mind affects your body, how your body affects your mind, how your environment and people around you affects you, and vice versa. I know this can sound like a lot but remember that this is a journey. You don’t need to understand it all at once. I’m 17 years into my healing journey and still learning constantly.
There is so much beauty to embarking on your healing journey. So much wisdom, joy and empowerment along the path. I’m writing to you to let you know that you don’t have to do it alone and that you can take it at whatever pace you want and start somewhere.
What’s Next
If you’re ready to commit to your health and want to start understanding your nervous system on a deeper level, I want to invite you to the Own Your Mental Health self-paced course. This course has 8 modules that will take you through understanding your nervous system, integrating your internal paths and show you the practices to start your healing journey.
Right now, you’ll unlock all 8 modules immediately upon purchase. Start your journey for only $247 today.
If you’d like one on one support, schedule a no cost intro call with me to figure out what’s right for you.
