Why it makes perfect sense to spend a fortune on therapy !

Strangled in the sharp shackles of grief being bit by it each second of the day, combined with post partum depression and an added responsibility of taking care of a new born, my Best friend did not know any better than to align me with a mental health specialist.

Her criteria for choosing her was basically that a) She was a middle aged woman located in the US, Indian national who b) Promised to not give any medicines to me.

But boy was she expensive ! She did charge a bomb and more so after hearing about it in dollars it seemed like 10 times of what we could imagine, but we decided to go for it.

We started with a half an hour introductory demo session where I told her about what I was feeling, it was a big relief for me, only because I knew I did not have to think about what the therapist was thinking because guess what she was paid for it.

And thats how i started feeling comfortable about being overly myself on the calls she scheduled.

Initially we talked about grief and how it was totally unfair how god snatched my father from me. For a no. of sessions she would weave the story of my life from god’s perspective for me. She would meticulously pick up the loose ends of the story i shared and weave it further for me.

I started feeling comfortable being myself and being validated for my feelings every time for an hour, which felt like a luxury, considering how i had no one in the family or friends with whom I could be this open about how I felt.

She gave me challenges as simple as bathing in the morning, meditating in the night which I did not do for a very long time. I was a tough client but we did continue our talking journey.

I had no hesitation in sharing with her how I wanted to connect with psychic mediums to help connect me with my father and she didnt make fun of it.

She infact let me research about good ones. She was actually giving me confidence about my own self and my wishes. This was my first learning. Lack of self love is the cause of most our problems in this life.

She kept reminding me about which stage of grief I was in from time to time. As much as I disliked the fact that she called it a phase and still do, yet, now I know why she called of it as a phase.

Gradually, I started sharing with her how external factors were disturbing me, which was followed by my second big learning.

I literally did not have boundaries — It was then that I understood that the only right or wrong in life I should be thinking about is, what I considered to be right or wrong.

The concept of having boundaries complemented the concept of self love. You cannot have one without the other. To make my boundaries strong she kept re-inforcing the idea that “It is not what you say, it is how you say it that makes all the difference”.

I gained confidence in myself. I just did not love myself too much at that time. She ignited the fire of self love in me, I was so oblivious to it.

It is amazing how self love could be ignited by means of a story. A story she would weave for me, I was the centre of that story. And she made me look at my own self through god’s eyes as his loved child. I did try to be on the path she had paved way for, but I would stumble down many a times because I would lose faith in world or worldly pleasures, but she would lend a listenful ear to me at those times.

In that 1 hour things seemed to be so exquisite.It felt as if I was seriously a tiny dot in the universe. Third and most game changing learning for me was

I wasn’t grateful for so much that I had. As she gave me a task to write 3 things I was grateful for each day, it became a habit and everything around me literally started to seem a lot beautiful and it seemed that my eyes had been closed for such a long time.

With gratitude also came other learnings, Learning no.4

How people treated me was more a reflection of who they were and what complex they are carrying. All this did sound hackneyed but when I applied it to my own circumstances, I was so surprised that how I used to think that everything was about me. I never really understood or even tried to understand the dynamics behind someone’s words.

I became more aware of myself and others than before. It is amazing how I started recognizing patterns, the starting points of conflict and what they were stemming from.

As technical as therapy is about, you would be surprised to know that it also rests on faith, signs, god and the universe. And that was my learning no.5

There were sessions where I would need to join in between meetings, rushing as the session would be within my work timings which prompted her to ask me “Why I didn’t tell her that the timings dont work for me” or alternatively “why I didn’t reduce my work load”. Weak boundaries again !

I did tell her how toxic behaviour at work impacted my mental health and confidence too. As a response from her I would usually get a bold actionable to diffuse the situation. As undoable as it had then sounded to me, it actually helps me now as it made me aware about the extreme action I could take and the impact thereof.

It tremendously helps when someone consciously notices your behaviour or your feelings. The most astounding observation she had of me was that I had “anger” and not just anger, I had a lot of it. I kept feeling that I had always been a nice little girl to her and that what made her feel that I was an angry person. Surprising yet in all honest opinions , this has been the only critical feedback I have always got from close friends and family.

To which my justification was that people were unjust, unfair or liars or doing unnecessary actions that were uncalled for. It was her who slowly dissected a few instances for me one by one only to make me realise that I was trying to control other people’s actions.

I felt superior and hence entitled to my anger and that right there was the statement which convinced me to acknowledge my anger. She emphasized how the brains of everyone around us is wired differently and that no one brain is perfect so when I get angry I am essentially saying that my brain is better than yours which equals to me being insecure of my own intelligence.

She did not have to turn mountains for me to be a calmer person. She just made me realize about my own insecurities. And this when combined with the meditation I had started practising within due course did wonders to my growing self esteem.

It was not just about the discussion that we had, there used to be fun assignments too (which were not fun at that time) e.g Writing gratitude journal, forgiving 1 person and communicating it to him/her, calling the most confident person I have met in my life, re-connecting with my friends.

When I did not have anything to discuss, we would talk about a concept e.g compassion or self love.

It was like she had been weaving a web all this while which all came together towards the end. I am not perfect, but I am a more aware person. Situations and people do not trigger me unless I choose to be triggered by it.

Recommendation: Dr Unnatti Jain