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A little over five years ago, I began seeing a Christian counselor. It was a scary, but defining moment for me. I’d always been told that “Counseling was for crazy people,” but my friends encouraged me. I wasn’t crazy, and I could benefit from these weekly sessions.
Since my first session, I’ve grown a lot. Counseling has helped me understand myself better and how God created my body, mind, and soul to function. While there are still many skeptics when it comes to Christians receiving mental health treatment, I’m here to share my experience. In particular, the top three lessons I’ve learned from my therapist over the last few years.
1. Mental Health Recovery is a Life-Long Journey, Not a Destination
When I first started counseling, I was petrified. I had no idea who this stranger was, what kind of advice they’d give me, and how they would react to what I would share. How could I trust them? After giving it a try, however, I began to settle in and trust the process. I trusted that God had led me to this particular counselor and that He would work through him.
About two weeks into our sessions, I asked my counselor how long he thought I might need to come to weekly sessions. You see, I was very busy and had a lot of things to do, so I wanted to communicate that well. His response has never left me:
“Your mental health recovery is a life-long journey, not a destination. I can’t tell you how long you’ll be in counseling because it just depends. But I suppose as long as it takes.”
He was right. Healing, mental health, trauma, and tragedy take time. And we can’t rush the process. Just as physical wounds take time to heal, repressed memories, emotions, and pain we’ve experienced will take time, too. Healing our mental health takes time. It’s a long, tedious process of unpacking what we see and feel, and how that impacts us and the world around us.
Once I learned that counseling was going to be a “as long as it takes,” process, I was able to invest in it better. I wasn’t approaching every session with as much stress and pressure because I was giving myself room and space to heal. It didn’t matter if I needed to talk about the same fears week after week, because in therapy, talking is healing.
The quicker we learn to view healing our mental health and counseling as life-long pursuits and not destinations, the greater progress and healing we’ll be able to achieve.
