Ever tried a DIY project, and with all of the videos watched, tools bought, and hours spent on it, it still doesn't turn out right? That's what happens when we don't use the right tools, and don't have the needed skillset. For mental health, therapists are both the tools and experts for healing. Why make yourself into a half-hearted DIY project? Hire the professionals for the important stuff.

When we seek out a therapist, we are wanting something in our lives to change. Yet, sometimes we hesitate and end up trying to avoid this process. This is because healing is creating change and change inherently creates grief. Here we talk about this grief, the search for meaning when we grieve, and how this applies to losses outside of death, even to losses of things we want gone from our lives.

Especially with Inside Out having introduced much of the world to the idea that we all have different parts inside of us operating our emotional world, Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy has skyrocketed in popularity. But what is IFS? How does it work? Here a therapist who has used IFS for years to help people gives a brief overview of how it works. Some of us have parts that just need to know!

Lawyers, teachers, doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers alike usually have a desire to make a difference in the world. Or at least they started that way. Many of them burnout and feel like their work is pointless. Here we step back to notice what makes this happen, and how to support those in these roles. This can be with big picture policies, or just ways to stave off the hardships.

Money stress often comes down to not feeling safe. If we don't have money, we don't have the basic necessities needed to enjoy life. With the way the world works, we are forced to jump through hoops to earn money, and we get stressed trying to keep our money. Here we look at ways to increase our feelings of safety in order to reduce that stress, playing into both our strengths and our supports.

When we feel worthless, we stop paying attention to our own comfort. When we go to therapy to improve our self-esteem, a key factor to changing that is actively stopping to notice our own comfort and actually respecting our own needs in the moment. Walk through this metaphor between using bubble wrap to protect our valuables and listening to our comfort in therapy to practice valuing ourselves.

Perfectionists, overachievers, and people-pleasers alike spend a lot of time crafting themselves into the perfect project to present to the world. Self-improvement isn’t necessarily bad, but the stress from trying get an “A+” in life is! Learn more about why you can’t relax, and what underlying feelings are keeping you stuck in a cycle that keeps you in a state of chronic anxiety and burnout.

Want a place to heal that isn’t as serious as therapy can be? Or maybe therapy is out of reach? Join a tabletop role-playing game! Here, a therapist shares how these RPGs actually provide a lot of the same conditions that play therapy provides, aiding you in processing your emotions in a way that feels easy. While it will never replace a therapist, this is fun and free!

When we think of tools to help us cope when we are overwhelmed and feeling anxious, we might think of things like breathing strategies, fidget toys, or weighted blankets, but something as simple as having a cup of boba can help! Here we delve into how exactly this treat can help us practice mindfulness and stay in touch with our senses.

Overextending ourselves in the workplace, running around overwhelmed and exhausted parenting, and never being able to relax are rooted in avoidance. We're avoiding a deeper feeling of worthlessness. In order to finally be able to enjoy life, we need to actually feel that we are worthy and "good enough", but it is hard to do this on our own. This is where therapy helps us heal our inner child.

When someone grows up with some sort of sensory issues around food, there are two ways they handle it: Sit and Deal, or Fight and Avoid It. Either way is traumatic though, because it is perceived as dangerous, as it causes the body discomfort. Stop and read more about what this feels like at a personal level and reflect on how it shows up as trauma outside of food, affecting all areas of life.

This post takes a moment to notice how often in therapy offices we will see art with positive affirmations on it. We usually have some sort of feelings about them, but why? Perhaps the art brings up our feelings about positive self-talk, maybe bringing up the shame we feel about nurturing ourselves, or needing support? Or maybe it just reminds us of times when we’ve received opposing messages?

Sometimes in therapy, we come in focused on “problem of the week”, kind of like how sci-fi tv shows have “monster of the week” episodes. These sessions help provide context and deepen the felt experience later on in healing. A therapist edits down all that you bring in so that you can see the bigger themes going on within you, allowing you to be the director in where you take your life next.

Just like real baggage, we love to avoid unpacking our emotional baggage. What was supposed to be letting yourself rest for one day, suddenly becomes many days, and you now have an inner suitcase ready to bust open because you haven’t taken the time to unpack your feelings, and you keep cramming in new baggage. This post shares some strategies to help you build up your motivation to finally unpack your emotional luggage, and actually sort through your feelings so it doesn’t keep weighing you down.

When we see calls to help others, it is easy to think of how much we are overworked, underpaid, and that we just don’t have anything left to give. This blog post reminds us about how when we volunteer, it often does double duty and helps us as well. So, if you are investing time into self-care and healing, consider how volunteer work may be a way to support yourself while also bettering the world.

Pigeons are so resilient! We put up spikes, and they find some place to relax nearby. If only it were that simple for people. Here we reflect on why we don’t tend to just move on to ledges without spikes, and notice how it’d help us to expand our options with an open mind. We don’t need to suffer. We can move on, settling somewhere else that suits us better.

People are harder than picking up a packet of seeds to grow. We are like random mystery seeds! We have no instructions, no label, no idea of what we are aiming to turn out looking like. This post looks at how trying to find the right conditions for growth within us is difficult because we are a bunch of mystery seeds. Through this metaphor we highlight how therapy works, and why hiring a therapist can be helpful.

Viewing handmade art can sometimes be triggering, because how we feel about it brings up our own feelings about being imperfect. When we retire our inner perfectionist, we begin to truly love the courage and human touch that handmade art embodies. We can begin to love the perfectly imperfect human artist, and in turn we feel that love towards ourselves. We begin valuing honesty, authenticity, and bravery in the world around us.

When a teen we care about is struggling, we often don’t know what to do. Here we explore options about getting therapy for a teen, therapy for yourself, or family therapy for your parent-child relationship, reflecting on how exactly each of these actually help when it is the teen most suffering. Kids grow up so quickly, and actually enjoying these years of your life together is something you can’t ever get back. Your family is worth it. Your child is worth it. YOU are worth it.

High achievers, workaholic, former gifted kids, top performers… we all are great at climbing the ladder, but do we ever stop to ask why? Therapy is a great space to slow down and make sure we are actually going in the direction we want to go in, but are we actually aiming to reach the top of the ladder? In this article, we stop for a moment to consider how the state of flow interacts with the climb towards the top, and where we’ll find happiness.