On rushing towards answers

Imagine the following situation.

A client comes to therapy because they are struggling with anxiety and a range of physical symptoms: heart palpitations, IBS, stomach pains, muscle tension. They want relief, understandably, and they are used to a solution-focused approach. They want answers. Quickly.

I notice something happening inside me.

I begin to feel rushed. Pulled towards their anxiety. I find myself wanting to offer strategies, solutions and goals. Before long, I can imagine the therapy session turning into something resembling a business meeting.

So I pause.

I take a breath and ask myself what I am experiencing.

I feel pushed. Rushed. Slightly anxious to provide answers.

Instead of following that impulse, I say:

“It seems you want me to give you more work on top of everything you’re already carrying. I wonder whether that’s exactly what’s contributing to your stress. What would it be like if we slowed down and focused on what you’re experiencing right now?”

We sit together in silence for a moment.

The client looks slightly confused.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”

The problem with always doing

That word, do, often tells us something important.

For many people, life has become organised around doing. Achieving. Solving. Producing. Staying busy. Most of us can probably recognise something of ourselves in this.

From an early age, we are often taught that our value lies in what we accomplish. We learn to perform well, succeed, help others, and meet expectations. In doing so, we may lose touch with a much more fundamental question: What am I actually experiencing?

Real recognition is not simply about achievement. It begins with having our inner experience noticed, understood and validated. Our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and emotional responses all deserve attention.

Coming back to ourselves

When life becomes dominated by doing, we gradually lose contact with our bodies and emotions. We become efficient, productive and capable, but we can also become disconnected from ourselves.

It’s easy to end up living like a performance machine, ticking off lists, meeting deadlines and responding to demands, while forgetting who we are, why we do what we do, and how we actually feel about it.

One of the aims of psychotherapy is to interrupt this cycle.

By slowing down and paying attention to our experience, we begin to understand what drives us. We become more aware of the beliefs, fears and patterns that shape our lives. From there, we can start to distinguish between the ways of being that genuinely serve us and those that no longer do.

Sometimes the most therapeutic thing we can do is stop trying to find the answer and simply notice what is happening in the moment. Often, that is where the real work begins.