Last week was about acknowleding things are heavy.  This week is about therapy, symptoms, and root causes. 

At this point in my therapy process, I’ve listed all the challenges I have going on in life.  From there, we talk about the negative impact this is having on me.  Being honest and vulnerable, I was participating in a lot of numbing/avoidance behaviors.  For me that looks like eating and drinking too much junk, doomscrolling, laying around vs moving my body, and binging on video games.  When I’m mentally healthy, I might partake in those behaviors in moderation and get joy from them.  During this time period, I was doing those things to escape instead of dealing with my issues.

It would have been easy to assume we should start going after those avoidance behaviors with things like, “Try to eat healthier,” but those were just the things on the surface.  We needed to find the root cause.  I had become so overwhelmed by things that I started telling myself a story that sounded like this, “All of this sucks.  It won’t ever get better.  I’m stuck and powerless.”  Have you ever felt this way?  After talking about this, I recognized this was the root of my problem.  I had convinced myself I was stuck and powerless, and that prevented me from dealing with these challenges.  I needed to address this feeling.

What does this have to do with anything?  Whether it’s therapy, marketing, or a business challenge, it’s EASY to see something on the surface and ASSUME that is what you need to solve for.  However, solving the surface level issue is often a temporary fix at best.  You can’t make meaningful progress, until you address the root of the issue.  In my case, the issue wasn’t necessarily that I was demonstrating avoiding behaviors .  The issue is that I started to believe I was stuck and powerless.  Addressing this and learning to let go of this has made all the difference.

The challenge: Will you address symptoms or root causes?

Have a jolly good day,