“It’s not that simple…”: Getting Over the Self-Blame to Learn Something New

I’m using the term learning here because I believe therapy is learning. It’s learning about who we are, what we want, and what we need to do to get there. It’s a self-learning journey!

One of the biggest downfalls to learning? Thinking that the thing you’re learning is “simple” or “easy”.

I see this pitfall time and time again as both a therapist and a somatic coach. People will show up to their first session and think: “It’s just talking, how hard can it be?”.

Well, if you’ve been in therapy before, you know it can get real complicated, real fast!

When we go into a new situation with the self-talk that it should be “easy”, we’re setting ourselves up to fail. Because if this is “easy”, when it does get tough, we tend to blame ourselves.

“Everyone else is healing and drinking their water- why is this so hard for me?! I must be struggling so much because I’m not good enough. I’ll never learn.”

So, let’s challenge this belief that this Self Learning Journey should be easy.

If it was easy, therapists wouldn’t need years upon years of school, training, and ongoing education. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

And let’s be honest, there are a lot of people out there not doing it. Not taking this journey to learn more about themselves and heal. Example: Justin Timberlake losing his damn mind over Britney spilling the tea in her memoir.

It’s a straightforward (but not simple, eh!) mindset shift- shifting from “this should be easy” to “I’m curious what this will be like” or “I’m open to learning about this more”.

Instead of judging something as “easy or simple” on face value, this week try to drop the self-blame and approach it with open-ness. What can this new thing teach me about myself? Whether it’s “easy” or not.