In this post, I’m describing some key takeaways from one of my most recent calls with my counselor.

By sharing this recent counseling experience with you, I have one of three hopes:

• If you are in counseling yourself, I hope to affirm your decision;
• If you are on the fence about receiving counseling, I hope to encourage you to seek out a counselor;
• If you are not in counseling, I simply want to share some important and applicable-to-everyone realizations I had in my most-recent sessions.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.

Background

A couple months ago, I started meeting biweekly with a virtual counselor. My personal life had taken a nosedive into Total Sh*tville (Population: Me), and despite my best efforts to dig myself out of the mental clusterf*ck I found myself in, I eventually admitted to myself that I was not successful in my endeavors and probably needed to speak with a professional.

Being (in the words of Severus Snape) an “insufferable know-it-all” at times most of the time, coming to terms that I couldn’t do something on my own was quite jarring. I’ve always prided myself on my ability to “figure sh*t out and get sh*t done” on my own. (While I called it “independence,” others called it “stubbornness.”) But for once, I had to put my pride aside (i.e. tell it to “shut the f*ck up”), get out of my own way, and do what I’d do if I had a shattered bone, for instance: Call a doctor.

Thus — enter counseling.

Therefore, since mid-April, I’ve blocked off just an hour every other Friday for a virtual session with “my gal,” as I fondly refer to her. With each session that goes by, I find myself clawing back more and more from the otherwise horrendous headspace I had been in back in February/March-ish.

In our most recent conversation, my counselor and I spent the entire session discussing internal causes of stress and anxiety and strategizes for self-managing these feelings.

So if you also find yourself frequently working through bouts of stress and anxiety, too, hopefully some of my gal’s insights from our most-recent conversation will be beneficial to you, too. 😊

Key Takeaways

Celebrate small wins everyday

Without question, I know two things about myself: I am a perfectionist, and I am competitive as hell. When these traits are check, they are excellent to have. When out of check, however, perfectionism and competitiveness make a dastardly combination.

Often, I find myself obsessing over achieving my “next big win” and my “next big milestone.” Of course, reaching big moments is exciting, but when you only live for big wins (and wanting greater, greater, greater) you’re bound to an endless cycle of disappointment because nothing you do ever feels good enough.

Instead of obsessing over what you can do next, it’s okay to feel happy with what you have now. Take time to celebrate your small wins each day — because small wins eventually snowball into those big milestones.

Growth mindset is healthy. Growth obsession is not.

Anticipating outcomes causes self-fulfilling prophecies

Predetermining an outcome in your head is a sure-fire way to either consciously or unconsciously work toward bringing that outcome to fruition — for better or for worse.

In other words:

• If you expect the worst, you’ll act as though the worst has already happened. As such, the worst will likely happen.
• If you expect the best, you’ll act as though the best has already happened. As such, the best will likely happen.

Especially when it comes to negative predeterminations, intentionality can go a long way. By training yourself to catch and then intentionally challenge negative expectations (“Do I have evidence of this, or am I creating scenarios?”), you’ll slowly but surely begin improving your ability to discern imagined reality from actual reality.

Change is uncomfortable — so plan and prepare for discomfort

That change is uncomfortable wasn’t a groundbreaking or new idea, but the reminder and affirmation never hurts.

No one likes change because change is uncomfortable, but you can use this commonly-accepted information to prepare for change ahead of time.

If you see change on the horizon, you proactively plan and prepare to mitigate the discomfort.

By preparing ahead of time, you can reclaim some of your power in these otherwise powerless feeling situations.

Beware of negative compounding

Negative compounding is when you start taking the negative impact of one situation and then begin applying that negative impact to other, unrelated situations.

For instance:

• If you feel betrayed by a friend, you may begin looking for betrayal in your partner.
• If you feel unappreciated by a family member, you may begin feeling unappreciated by a coworker.

As I’m sure you can imagine, this kind of misdirection can cause a whole host of problems, such as unnecessary arguments and misdirected emotions, just to name two. But by being mindful of your thoughts, you now have the opportunity to intentionally stop yourself from immediately spiraling into the rabbithole of self-pity.

Ask yourself, “Is there evidence of [X person treating me Y way], or am I compounding?”

If you determine that, “No, there is no evidence of [Y], and I am compounding,” you can stop the spiral before it ever happens.

And if you determine that, “I am not compounding, there is overwhelming evidence of [Y]“… well… feel free to take that trip into the Land of “Everyone is against me!”

There is power in journaling

For me at least, the physical act of turning intangible thoughts into concrete words on a page (or a screen) is so therapeutic. It’s almost as though physically writing things down makes them real — and understanding “real” things is so much easier than understanding abstract things.

To be honest, I started this blog because of my counseling. At my counselor’s suggestion, I first took up journaling, and eventually, journaling about my day-to-day turned into blogging about my day-to-day. So, thank you, counseling! Without you, I’d have no John Denn Blog.

(There’s tons of research to support the mental health benefits of journaling. For me, it really assisted with anxiety. If you’re interested to learn more about how journaling can help with anxiety, I’d recommend you check out this post by Why We Journal, which describes one particularly helpful journaling-to-alleviate-anxiety strategy.)

Calls with my Counselor – Summary

Seeking out counseling can feel terrifying at first. (Most people don’t go around revealing their deepest, darkest secrets to a complete strangers.) But know that it won’t feel terrifying for long.

Even as a virtual patient, I felt so awkward about the whole thing for those first couple sessions. In hindsight, I wish I would’ve never dragged my feet and started sooner. Now, I look forward to and enjoy our every-other-Friday calls from the couch, with my coffee in hand. After all, without counseling, I would have never come to the following conclusions on my own:

• Celebrate small wins everyday (growth mindset is healthy, growth obsession is not);
• Anticipating outcomes causes self-fulfilling prophecies;
• Change is uncomfortable — so plan and prepare for discomfort;
• Beware of negative compounding;
• There is power in journaling.

As I’ve learned through my counseling sessions, maintaining your mental health is just as important (if not more important) than maintaining your physical health. It’s crazy the mind games your own brain can and will play on you. So to wrap up this post, I’ll leave you with this:

• If you’re a patient in counseling right now, I affirm your decision;
• If you are on the fence about receiving counseling, I encourage you to seek out a counselor;
• If you are not in counseling, I hope you learned something new from my sessions.

So now, my fellow 30-somethings, I am wondering: If you’re in counseling (or were in counseling), what were some of your biggest a-ha! moments? Let me know in the comments.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.