Hope is the Cure

Fear keeps us stuck in situations in which we are unhappy; fear that things can even change, or fear of what that change might look like. Perhaps we are struggling with depression or anxiety, and we don't believe that things can get better. Maybe we are unhappy in our relationship, but we don't address it for fear of what may happen. Many people feel stuck in jobs in which they are unhappy, but fear of loss of income prevents us from looking for a better way. Many of the people I work with struggle with gender identity issues but are, understandably, fearful of what making changes will bring.

In all of these situations, we lack the hope that things can get better. Change is hard. We are afraid of what that change will look like. What if things do change but nothing gets better? We may not be aware of it, but fear clouds hope for so many people. Let me give an example from my own life in which fear kept me stuck without hope that things can get better.

Before I was doing my private practice full time I had a job, but was very unhappy. I was working for an agency as a psychologist, but my work wasn't fulfilling and there were a number of issues that I felt powerless to change. I knew that I wanted to have a private practice, but I didn't know how to make that happen. I had significant financial responsibilities, and didn't think I had the financial resources to consider making changes. I had bills to pay, and making sure I was able to do that kept me stuck in unhappiness.

Then I unexpectedly lost my job. I immediately started looking for another job, because I thought that was my only good option. I was fearful of financial consequences and didn't have the hope that I could make private practice work. I did start building my private practice (at the time it was already established but was very small) in order to have some income, but my focus was on finding another job based on my belief that was the only way I would have financial security.

I never did find another job in the way I thought I needed. During the time I was looking, my private practice was building, and shockingly I was able to pay all of my bills. Yes, my finances were very tight, but everything got paid.

There wasn't a single moment when I realized that private practice was all I needed. No ah-ha moment, no instant where suddenly I knew it would work. However, over time my fear of financial insecurity was replaced by the hope that I could really do this. I was working from home so that I wouldn't have all of the financial obligations associated with maintaining an office elsewhere. Even when I started to realize that the private practice was really working, I still thought working from home was a temporary thing until I could afford a "real" office. It's now a year and a half later, and I'm still working from my home office. I am as financially secure as I was when I was working for someone else. I'm also amazingly more happy than I was when I had a boss and a paycheck every two weeks.

I didn't have the confidence that I could do it on my own. This fear of failure kept me stuck. In my case it wasn't by choice that I depended on my private practice, it was by necessity when I suddenly found myself without a "real" job. I can now say that losing my job was the best thing that could have happened. I wouldn't have attempted to go out on my own - fear made me believe I couldn't do it. But somewhere in there hope took root and Hiestand Psychological Services is all I need. Having a home office is fairly unusual, but I realized it really works. So many of my clients comment that they love the home setting an opposed to a commercial office. And having my pets around also significantly adds to the work I do in ways I couldn't have even imagined.

What are you afraid of? Where in your life is hope clouded by fear? Know that change can happen, even if we aren't sure what that change will look like. I wouldn't have a job if people or situations couldn't change. When we find that hope, even if it is just a spark, we can go on to make significant changes in our lives for the better. Fear is a disease; hope is its only cure.

Emotions: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...

Emotions. Some of us are all in tune with our emotions while others avoid emotions like the plague. Sometimes in therapy we focus on them while other times we focus on other things. When we think about emotions, we know there are lots of them...

Lots of times one of the things people want when they go to therapy is to stop feeling certain emotions. Frequently clients tell me they don't want to feel sad, anxious, depressed, angry, lonely, or scared. But is it a good goal to want to eradicate these feelings from our lives?

Most of the time, emotions serve a useful purpose (note I didn't say a pleasant purpose). Negative emotions alert us that there is something in our environment we need to attend to. Anxiety tells us there is something we need to attend to, to fix. If we are anxious about money, we need to take steps to improve our financial situations. When we are frustrated, perhaps we need to work something out with our spouse, co-workers, or friends, to alleviate the frustration. Fear lets us respond to keep ourselves safe. Sadness is a normal response to loss in our lives.

There are certainly times that emotions are too extreme. People may experience anxiety that is bad enough that it actually prevents them from responding. Depression may be so crippling that it is almost impossible to function. When emotions are this extreme, it is certainly reasonable to want them to go away, because in these cases they aren't being helpful.

None of us likes to feel bad, but emotions - the good, the bad, and the ugly - normally do serve a purpose. Therapy can help us reduce the extreme emotions, and it can help us learn to cope with emotions so that we can work through them. As nice as it might be to never experience the negative stuff, they are important and we need to learn from them and react in appropriate ways. When we actively address them, we can learn and grow, and that's a pretty great goal.