To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.
  Rebecca Solnit

Welcome

If you are seeking therapy now, then perhaps you are choosing to try something completely new, with no guarantee of where exactly therapy will take you, and the step you are taking is a big one. Your personal story is complex, and it likely includes the experience of suffering. Psychotherapy is intended to support a deep understanding of what shapes us into the people we are now, and often includes what shaped us in childhood. With a lot of patience, we can find compassion for why we pressure ourselves to be perfect, to be all-knowing, to isolate our emotions, and to try to suppress our own distress or that of others, to relentlessly repeat old patterns of relating to ourselves and to others even when we do not wish to.

The past entangles with the present inside most of us, yet somehow we tend to shame ourselves for this human condition, hence our urgency to try to control the present or predict the future. Countless “21st-century” pressures and expectations add to this, as do ideas handed down to us. Often our behavior patterns are entangled with our family of origin, what we coped with when we were dependent upon our caregivers. Awareness of what happened to you in your childhood, adolescence, and previous relationships will help you understand the internal obstacles you may feel stuck with today and which perspectives are useful as you move forward.

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