You are there for your friends and family when they need help. You work extra hours for your employer, volunteer in the community, and on top of all that, keep up with your day to day responsibilities. It’s no wonder you could be feeling tired and burned out on life.
Through all your generosity and giving of yourself and your time to others, you may have forgotten to take care of you. This means you probably realize that you can't do your best work for others when you are not entirely healthy mentally, spiritually and physically.
It’s time now to start focusing on your needs. With individual therapy, you can work with a therapist to organize your needs, set and reach goals, and begin to feel happier. Learning self-care is one of the greatest benefits of individual therapy. Below, it is discussed in more detail, along with other benefits.
Learn Self-Care
It's easy to put others before yourself. We have been taught to do this throughout our lifetimes. However, what is not mentioned as much is that you cannot fully help someone else if you are not taking care of yourself.
Self-care means becoming mindful of your body and mind and tending to your needs promptly rather than waiting until it is too late. Self-care means implementing techniques to reduce stress, recognize ailments, and healing. It is something you deserve, not something you must earn after a great deal of suffering.
Working with an individual therapist helps you take care of your issues first. If you have an addiction, if you enable someone else’s addiction, if you need to learn how to forgive, or even if you need to decide whether to stay or leave a relationship, you don’t have to do this alone.
Taking care of yourself can help you reject the temptation to form relationships that may temporarily satisfy a need but aren't healthy long-term.
Forming Positive Relationships
Life is all about relationships. You form bonds with friends, family, co-workers, and even yourself. Relationship building is not something that comes naturally to everyone. There are specific skills you can develop with a therapist's help that will improve how you bond with others.
Skillset examples include setting boundaries, learning how to be assertive, and avoiding codependency.
Positive Thinking
What you think leads to how you feel and how you behave. If you have negative thoughts, other areas in your life will be negative. For example, if you continuously think your marriage is failing, the feelings and actions that follow will likely lead to problems in your marriage.
Just the opposite is true. When you have positive thoughts, you engage in positive feelings and behaviors that can enrich your marriage. A therapist can teach you how to replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
These techniques can help when you are trying to forgive and move on from family issues.
Deal With Family Issues
Every person in every family has issues. Some are struggling with addiction, while others are struggling with family members with addictions. Some are coping with grief and loss; others are trying to harm themselves.
It would help if you learned how to cope with them, whether they are getting help with their issues or not. The way you react to the problems held by your friends and family will influence the nature of your relationship.
Working with an individual therapist can help you recognize unhealthy family behaviors and develop a plan for how you respond. Your therapist can work with your family to create more harmony within the family.
Family Therapy
Sure, individual therapy is geared for the individual. However, the people with whom you are connected are just as important in your healing. Therefore, it's essential to include your family in some of your sessions to improve your overall family dynamic.
One of the most critical skills a family can learn together is how to communicate more effectively.
Communication Skills
Effective communication involves a lot more than just speaking verbally. It happens through body language, listening and reflecting, texting, writing, and many other ways, you can send a message. Communication involves choosing what type of message to send, positive or negative.
Each person you interact with daily requires a different form of communication. You may have days where you find you barely talk to the people you love. It is not because you don't have anything to say, but because you may be too tired or feel what you have to say is not essential.
Lack of communication in relationships can be just as damaging as negative communication. It can feel like neglect, which can be seen as abusive by some. Examples of non-communication include not responding to text messages or voice mails or being in the same room with another person but not speaking or acknowledging their existence.
If you find it easier to talk to a stranger online, rather than your partner, about your deepest wishes, passions, and dislikes, then you have a communication problem.
Working with an individual therapist, you can hone in on your communication abilities.
Self-Esteem
All of the benefits of individual therapy listed above can improve your self-esteem or the way you value yourself. Those with lower self-esteem often suffer from mental and physical health problems. For example, low self-esteem is correlated with depression, which can lead to getting involved with the wrong person, leading to poor decisions.
Building self-esteem happens in stages with individual therapy, starting with helping you recognize and utilize your talents and strengths. Discover your likes, what makes you laugh, and then how you can use those to help others.
Finding an Individual Therapist
If you are ready to receive individual therapy, search for a licensed professional in good standing within your State. Ask questions to make sure their processes and what they want to accomplish in treatment matches yours.
Finding a therapist is relatively simple today. You can search online and even start the therapeutic process virtually. With the right induvial therapist, you can start seeing positive results soon.