Oftentimes, when I am sitting across from a client for the first time, I can feel a sense of urgency. A desire for things to change, and to change quickly. A frustration arises when asked to slow down and feel instead of plowing through every major detail and big event of their life. Wanting relief from the suffering and pain is only natural, especially when the pain is often intense and chronic. As humans, we just want to feel better, more connected, more at peace in our lives.
At Root & Rise, we meet many people at this exact moment, when something feels unbearable, and the longing for change is strong. When someone is ready for change, it’s natural to want it to happen immediately. Why wouldn’t we want to achieve that as quickly as possible?
In my own therapy, I have definitely been in the position of just wanting to be healed already so I can move on with my life and actually enjoy it. But as a therapist, I know that real, sustainable change is a slow and almost imperceptible process. I could jump into the fascinating neuroscience of why slow is not only good, but necessary (and maybe I’ll get to that a little later), but for now, I’d like to turn our attention to the lessons of our world, specifically the lessons of the tectonic plates.
Did you know that Hawaii is on the fastest moving tectonic plate and moves Northwest at the rate of 4 inches per year? That’s about 25 feet over the average lifespan of 76 years. The change is so subtle no one notices the migration even as it adds up to substantial distances. But, if we widen the timeframe and look back at how this slow grind of tectonic plates has literally shaped and reshaped the world, we can see the change is profound.
In fact, the supercontinent of pangea would be unrecognizable to any human alive today. This relative stability and imperceptible change has allowed us to build empires, build homes, and live with a relative sense of predictability. We are largely indifferent to the changing and shifting of tectonic plates unless the change is dramatic and sudden, leading to earthquakes or tsunamis. I suspect the tectonic plates have no preference for if they shift slowly or quickly, but as humans, we certainly have the preference for a sense of solid, dependable ground beneath our feet.
This idea of small, steady shifts creating meaningful transformation over time is central to how myself and many of the clinician team at Root & Rise approach therapy and healing.
Similarly, when it comes to rewiring the brain and nervous system (because that is ultimately what we are doing in therapy), it takes time. Your nervous system, emotions, reactions, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors were intelligently developed to help you navigate your environment. It took years of repeated exposure and reactions for your brain to develop the way it did, and it developed with survival as the main goal.
But what often happens, is the habits you formed as a child (e.g. people-pleasing) stop being helpful and start causing more suffering when used in your adult life and adult relationships. What once brought you a sense of safety and belonging now leads to disconnection and feeling unseen and resentful in your relationships. Or maybe you are tired of past traumas wrecking your current relationships and are finally ready to process them and move forward.
If any of this feels familiar, you’re not alone, and it’s often a sign that your system is ready for a different kind of support than what worked in the past.
Whatever the motivation is for you to seek out therapy, it can be frustrating and confusing when your therapists has you slow down. You’re finally ready for the work, so why do you have to go slow? It all comes back to the nervous system. Whether you have experienced major trauma or not, your nervous system is designed to protect you, and if you dive into your deepest wounds before you have the resources necessary to feel safe and resourced, you may leave the session feeling retraumatized and even more stuck in the pain. Therapy then becomes about managing the fallout rather than building new and healthy ways of relating to yourself and others.
To return to our tectonic plate metaphor: jumping in too quickly without building safety is a lot like a devastating earthquake that destroys a city. Even if the city was dysfunctional before an earthquake, it was still possible to make gradual improvements while life continued to function. People might be inconvenienced by construction and rerouted traffic, but things are still moving forward, even if at a slower pace. After an earthquake, cleaning up the rubble takes precedent over functionality. Forward movement stops and survival becomes the goal.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t share the significant details and big events in the first session! In fact, I have found that it provides a lot of context for where we will likely be heading in therapy. It just also means you might be asked to slow down in future sessions so we can build safety together so your nervous system is in better shape to handle the stress of actually feeling and processing your trauma. It may be frustrating, but just remember, it is way better to be an island that moves 25 feet in a lifetime than one that moves 25 feet in a single day.
If you’re curious what this kind of paced, trauma-informed work could look like for you, I invite you to reach out and start a conversation. You can connect with us here.
Root & Rise Collective is a trauma-informed therapy practice serving adults, couples, teens, and children. Our therapists combine somatic and talk therapy approaches to help clients feel grounded, supported, and empowered. We offer in-person sessions in Fort Collins and Telehealth counseling throughout Colorado.
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