Once, some friends and I were in the church kitchen washing dishes after a potluck. They started sharing their therapy experiences. All of them saw some benefit yet believed they should feel better than they did. When they asked for my thoughts, I replied, “Most of us already have what we need to get through rough patches in life; we just don’t make good use of it. Therapy is more like an Ace bandage that helps heal in the short term, but we shouldn’t keep wearing it.”
Professional treatment can help, yet recent articles by practitioners like Clay Routledge, Camille Bromley, and Daniel Duane raise good questions about our culture’s over-reliance on expensive, protracted interventions and medications just to get through normal life circumstances. As every sniffle or ache doesn’t mean a trip to the doctor, many bumps in life’s road often just need some intentional action on our part and some friendly support from people around us.
Physical health matters. Good diet, exercise, and regular sleep contribute to emotional wellness. Be careful about relying on substances or influencers. Get out and about, especially for productive activities that help others. I admire how women’s sewing groups or men’s work crews do more than make stuff. Conversations and relationships in such groups help many people through tough times…