The Brick Wall
Most people think they come to therapy because something is wrong with them.
I'm not sure that's always true.
Often, it feels more like they've lost sight of what was there all along.
Imagine a brick wall.
Not just any wall, your wall.
The foundations are built from the things that matter to you.
Family.
Friends.
Relationships.
Work.
Football.
Music.
Hobbies.
Values.
Experiences.
The things that help make you who you are.
Every person's wall looks different because every person's life is different.
The wall is held together by the everyday things that bring meaning to life.
Not necessarily the big moments.
The smaller ones.
The conversation that makes you laugh.
A walk with the dog.
Time with your children.
A match on a Saturday afternoon.
A favourite song on the radio.
The things that leave you feeling connected to yourself and the people around you.
Then life happens.
A brick appears.
A relationship problem.
A financial worry.
A difficult conversation.
Stress at work.
A loss.
A disappointment.
Most of the time, we deal with these bricks as they arrive.
We find a way through.
The brick falls away and the wall remains.
But sometimes life gets busy.
Sometimes we're exhausted.
Sometimes we're carrying too much already.
The bricks do not disappear.
They begin to stack up.
One becomes two.
Two becomes five.
Five becomes ten.
Over time they start to form another wall in front of the original one.
The mortar holding this new wall together is made from different things.
Stress.
Pressure.
Shame.
Guilt.
Resentment.
Disappointment.
The small frustrations and hurts that slowly accumulate over the years.
The difficulty is that eventually we stop seeing the original wall altogether.
We forget what sits behind it.
We can vaguely remember that there were good things there once.
Relationships.
Confidence.
Connection.
Hope.
A sense of who we are.
But they're hidden behind everything that has been piled on top.
This is often the point people arrive in therapy.
Not because the foundations have disappeared.
Not because they are broken.
But because they can no longer see what is underneath everything they have been carrying.
Therapy is not about knocking the whole wall down.
It is about becoming curious about the bricks.
Looking at them one by one.
Understanding where they came from.
Deciding which still belong there.
And gradually reconnecting with the foundations that were there long before the wall became difficult to see.
Most people are not starting from nothing.
More often, they are trying to find their way back to something that has been hidden for a very long time.
