Being honest with yourself in therapy: why it's scary, and why it's worth it
This blog post came about after conversations with clients and a therapy session of my own. I wanted to explore and reflect on how being honest with yourself (and your therapist) is both scary and ultimately helpful.
Being honest with yourself can suck. It’s hard. It’s often pretty uncomfortable (otherwise we’d all do more of it, right?). But I wonder if it’s also why we go to therapy? There is often a part of us that is half-ready and wants to be more honest, both with ourselves and with someone who hears, sees, or witnesses us.
Having someone else there to receive our ramblings, our inner thoughts and feelings can help us to make sense of it all. It can also help catch us when the protective part of ourselves isn’t being totally honest. The part is still stuck in defensive mechanisms that is packaging things to be more acceptable. More palatable. The things we don’t want to confront, acknowledge or accept just yet.
Ouch. That stings. But perhaps having someone there to hold our hand. To gently nudge us. To reassure you that you are capable of managing your own truth is key.
Not in a way that is forced, or moving you faster than feels comfortable, but gently noticing when what you’re saying doesn’t feel aligned with your body, or the feeling in the room. Or when it feels contradictory – just nudging you to notice the things you are saying, so that you can check in with yourself.
How does therapy help you to be more honest?
Therapy can be the space where you move beyond distracting yourself. Avoiding the painful conversation you don’t want to have with yourself. It becomes the space to start bringing these things out into the open. To shine a light on them and pull them apart. To stand somewhere with a different view and look down on your experiences and gain new perspectives. With someone else sitting beside you, looking with you.
Sometimes, in my trying to understand things that clients are telling me, I will paraphrase and check my understanding, and in my clumsy attempts to figure out if I’ve heard and interpreted their story correctly – it is then that they have the lightbulb moments of ‘Yes! That’s it – I’d never put it like that, but that’s exactly it ’-which is often surprising, but fabulous to see them putting the pieces together. Like a puzzle from memory without the picture on the lid.
The more pieces you put together, the easier it is to move towards putting more of it together, rebuilding the picture the way you want it, instead of hiding the pieces away. Sometimes I think as you share more, and continue to build your picture, you also build tolerance for sitting with those uncomfortable feelings. Tools to handle those hurdles in life, so with each session, and over time, you are quicker to get the pieces out and make sense of them.
Barriers to honesty?
Outside of therapy, you might have ways of avoiding being honest with yourself – not necessarily conscious or intentional, but we all have ways we avoid discomfort! Some of those things might look like:
- Not having difficult conversations, or rationalising things that make you feel awkward, uncomfortable or bad in some way.
- Sticking to your comfort zone – it’s predictable, safe and secure.
- Reassuring yourself that it’s fine, it’ll get better, without confronting the thing that is worrying you – like not opening a credit card bill, or worrying about your budget later in the month instead of assessing it and taking action!
- Working harder and keeping busy when relationships have friction – if we can keep busy, we can avoid the connection, or disconnection!
- Focusing on fitness and hobbies instead of emotional issues that feel difficult to deal with.
- Pay attention to a problem that feels easier to manage, instead of the problem we don’t want to confront.
There are lots of different ways that we distract or deflect from things, and this list isn’t exhaustive, but it hopefully demonstrates some of the ways that people often move away from things. Sometimes, this is a really useful skill, and it helps us to be able to function in everyday life. It can become a problem when we avoid things to our own detriment, and that’s often when we reach the point of deciding to take a different course of action – like going to therapy!
Being honest with your therapist specifically
So you get to therapy – now what? Are you just meant to spill the beans? EEK! That’s not happening. I get it. Walking into a room, or showing up on a video session and just being super honest right from the get-go would feel really daunting. And it can, and does feel hard for a lot of people. Obviously, I’d recommend trying to be as honest as you can, but I think expecting it to take a little time is realistic. Building that relationship, figuring out what feels comfortable for you, finding your own pace and rhythm as you feel able to share.
As a therapist, getting to know my clients and how comfortable they feel gives me a sense of where it’s appropriate to challenge, to push back – and how far to push. Everyone is different, and some of my clients will say to me – I need you to challenge me, others will let me know that they’re really nervous, and it might take a little more time.
Sharing your feelings and your comfort levels can help you and your therapist manage expectations and pace. If something feels too much – that can also be really helpful – the relationship is new for both of you. That’s the beauty of it all.
What happens with all this honesty?
Honestly? A bit like Shrek, you peel back layers like an onion! The thing that stands out to me as I write this up is that I start to see clients feel more sure of themselves. They come in and start to share about how things went when they didn’t feel like they had to hide at work. When they had the difficult conversation, and it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be. I think that can be quite joyful, quite freeing.
Another shift that I notice is that over time, with increased honesty comes increased self-awareness. That can often lead to the landscape of life changing a little – the things that had been prioritised sometimes change, as clarity is gained over what you value, and you start to move those things front and centre in your life. I suppose that is often how happiness starts to take shape a little more.
If you’ve felt like you’ve been sitting on the edge, wanting to jump into therapy but not really been sure, perhaps reading this can give you some reassurance that when you do feel ready – that you can go at your own pace. That there is a safe space waiting for you. That you can move from sitting on the edge of the pool to grabbing a float and that I’ll bob around in the water with you, looking for answers together.
If you want to explore with me – I offer a free introductory call ahead of in-person sessions in Rayleigh or Southend in Essex, or online with clients from all over the UK. You can book one here: