What Gets in the Way Is the Way

Most people come to therapy with something specific in mind: a relationship that isn't working, a pattern they want to understand, a feeling they can't shake, or something they want to change or finally put to rest. What they don't always anticipate is what happens when they start moving toward it.

Sometimes it shows up as suddenly having nothing to say or feeling inexplicably fine right before a session after a difficult week. It can also look like circling around something for days, getting right to the edge of it in a session, and then pulling back.

This isn't avoidance, this isn't failure, and this isn't a sign that therapy isn't working. The nervous system is doing exactly what it learned to do, organizing itself around something that feels dangerous to approach.

This doesn't arrive randomly. It shows up precisely when you start moving toward the thing you came in for, which means it isn't getting in the way, it is marking the spot.

The parts of your experience that are hardest to approach are usually the parts that were hardest to have in the first place. Somewhere along the way, something made it necessary to keep a certain feeling, memory, or part of yourself at a distance, and that protection made sense then. In the therapy room, the same protection shows up again, doing the same job it always has.

This is why I don’t try to push past it or dissolve it. I try to understand it with you, to sit with it long enough that it begins to make sense. The path forward is usually found in what feels tender, what needs protecting, and what deserves to be met with care.

Before we can move toward the thing, we have to be with what is keeping us from it. That is not a detour. That is the work.