You Can Do a Lot on Your Own

If therapy doesn’t feel like the right fit for you right now, there's also a lot you can do on your own to support your healing and growth. Here are a few essential directions I see as valuable:

• Notice your thoughts. When you're experiencing emotional distress, there are always thoughts and beliefs running in the background—even if they’re not immediately obvious. These thoughts and beliefs can be difficult to detect at first, but becoming aware of them is the first step in loosening their hold. Try to catch as many as you can—especially the ones that repeat or carry strong emotional charge.

• Bring mindful attention to the thought and gently examine its essence. Ask yourself: Is this thought inherently true? What conditions—internal or external—may have given rise to it in this moment? What is the nature of this thought, beyond its content? Rather than identifying with or reacting automatically to it, practice observing the thought with curiosity and non-judgment. From this place of awareness, the thought often begins to lose its grip, allowing more space, clarity, and a greater sense of inner freedom.

• Tune into your emotions—and your body. Emotions are not just mental; they show up in the body as physical sensations. The more awareness you bring to your somatic experience, the more you can begin to shift your relationship to your emotions.

• Pay attention to the thoughts about your emotions. This is a powerful area to explore. Often, the distress we feel isn’t just from the emotion itself—but from the thoughts that judge, resist, or try to push it away. Seeing those thoughts clearly can dramatically reduce the suffering they cause.

• Emotions that aren’t resisted don’t cause suffering. As Joseph Campbell said, “Every feeling fully felt is bliss.” The goal isn’t to get rid of emotions, but to build a relationship with them—to meet fear, sadness, and anger like we would a hurting child, with compassion and presence. Over time, you’ll even find yourself welcoming and enjoying your emotions instead of fearing them.

• Take time to really get to know the emotion—how it feels in your body, where you've felt it before, and what memories or associations it brings up. Gently ask the emotion: What do you want? What do you truly need? See if a natural sense of compassion or care arises in response. When it does, allow that part of you to meet the emotion’s needs with kindness and presence.

• Befriending Tension in the Body
  Bring gentle awareness to areas of physical tension—scan through the head, neck, shoulders, torso, and hips. Many of us carry chronic muscular tension linked to emotions we’ve unconsciously resisted or suppressed, often because they didn’t feel safe to experience at the time. These tensions can mask unresolved emotional material and are often part of the body’s ongoing vigilance—a reflection of our discomfort with certain emotional states. By noticing and softening around these patterns with curiosity and care, we begin to shift our relationship to both the body and the emotions it holds.

• As resistance fades, something deeper emerges. You may begin to notice that beneath all the struggle, our natural state is one of ease, peace, even joy and love. It’s not something you have to create—it’s already there, waiting to be uncovered.