Moving From Abuse to Empowerment

Something therapy focuses on is increasing one’s sense of agency - or one’s ability to take ownership over what they can do with their life and actually doing it. Why? James Russell Lowell describes it well: "Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle." To feel empowered is to wield the knife of your own life. When you don’t feel in control of your life, you might feel like everything you do ends up hurting you. Especially when we are younger and literally don’t have control over many aspects of our lives, or when we are stuck in an abusive relationship with a romantic partner or with a toxic workplace, overtime, this trains you to stop trying to take control over your life. You end up with a sense of learned helplessness. What therapy does is helping retrain your brain to see that you do have some control over your life, and that it is worth the risk to actually try. We heal you from those past hurts to help you feel capable of trying again.

"Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle."

~ James Russell Lowell