I sometimes wonder whether one of the most important questions in therapy is not:
"What is wrong?"
But:
"What shape has your life taken?"
Over time, we are all shaped by our experiences.
The environments we grow up in. The relationships we have. The losses we endure. The expectations placed upon us. The ways we learn to belong.
Slowly, often without realising it, we adapt.
Some people become strong.
Some become helpful.
Some become invisible.
Some become independent.
Some become endlessly capable.
Some become experts at understanding everyone around them while remaining strangers to themselves.
These ways of being can become so familiar that we mistake them for who we are.
Yet I am not sure they are who we are.
I think they are the shapes we take.
The shape that learned not to need anyone.
The shape that keeps everybody happy.
The shape that never stops striving.
The shape that turns feelings into thoughts.
The shape that stays busy.
The shape that stays guarded.
The shape that disappears.
The shape itself is not the problem.
In fact, it often deserves our respect.
Most of these shapes emerged for good reasons.
They helped us survive.
They helped us belong.
They helped us continue when life asked difficult things of us.
The difficulty comes when a shape that was once protective becomes the only way we know how to be.
When the strong one can no longer ask for help.
When the capable one can no longer rest.
When the caring one can no longer recognise their own needs.
When the guarded one longs for connection but cannot risk being seen.
This is one of the reasons I find therapy so fascinating.
Beneath the anxiety, self-criticism, relationship struggles and feelings of being stuck, there is often a quieter question waiting to be explored:
What became necessary here?
What happened that made this shape so important?
What has it been protecting?
What has it been carrying?
Because underneath very different stories we often find the same deeply human experiences.
The wish to belong.
The fear of loss.
The need to feel loved.
The pain of rejection.
The longing to be seen and understood.
Therapy, as I understand it, is not about getting rid of these shapes.
They are part of our history.
Part of our ingenuity.
Part of how we made it through.
Instead, therapy offers an opportunity to become curious about them.
To understand them.
To loosen them, perhaps.
And to discover whether there might be other ways of being available to us.
Not because who we are is wrong.
But because we may be larger than the shape we once needed to take.
