Don’t Waste Your Courage: Make Sure Your Therapy Moves You Forward
Meet Sarah (*not her real name). For years, she buried her pain beneath people-pleasing, numbing distractions, and constant over-functioning. Finally, she found the courage to face her stuff: the triggers, the fears, the old wounds she’d long avoided. She started therapy with hope.
But weeks turned into months, and Sarah felt stuck. The sessions were intense but weekly. She left each appointment holding a swirl of raw emotions, only to sit alone with them for days, unsure how to process or make sense of it all. She found herself rehearsing what to say next time, overwhelmed by the weight of what she’d have to unpack again, and wondering if she could fit it all into an hour.
Sarah’s therapy wasn’t honoring the bravery it took for her to show up. It wasn’t providing the ongoing support she desperately needed. It was like lighting a small flame only to have it flicker and almost go out between sessions.
“Facer” or “Avoider”?
This experience is all too common. Healing isn’t easy. Becoming a “facer” instead of an avoider takes courage and emotional strength. And when you’re ready, your therapy needs to be like a steady flame protected from raging winds. It needs to feel safe, encouraging, and crucially, equipped with tools that bring real relief.
Many approaches to therapy stop short. They stay on the surface. They don’t help you build a real, authentic relationship with yourself. The kind where you learn how your feelings and thoughts interact, how to reparent your inner child, and how to transform everyday triggers into deep wells of insight.
Healing isn’t about quick fixes or shallow exercises. It’s about facing the uncomfortable feelings, naming them beyond “happy, sad, angry,” connecting them to unmet emotional needs, and tracing them back to those childhood moments where limiting beliefs formed. Beliefs like “I’m not worthy,” “I don’t matter,” or “I have to be perfect to be loved.”
Those beliefs kept you safe once, but now they keep you stuck. Your responses—people-pleasing, self-abandonment, over-giving—are your greatest strengths but they’re currently distorted by imbalance.
Real healing means making peace with those parts of you. Thanking that scared, lonely child for surviving. Then telling those limiting beliefs: “I appreciate you. And you no longer serve me. I let you go.”
Fire me as soon as possible
If your therapy isn’t helping you build that kind of relationship with yourself—one that you can carry forward independently, with confidence and clarity—then it’s missing the mark.
That’s why I tell every client from the start: my goal is for you to fire me as soon as possible. Not because I’m giving up on you or abandoning you, but because you’ve gained the skills, insights, and emotional strength to live fully and freely on your own (of course many achieve their goals and continue in regular therapy to work on other goals, or because their therapy helps ensure they get regular self-reflection time).
If your therapy isn’t doing that, you need more and better.
You deserve a path that honors your courage and leads to real transformation.
Ready for a different kind of support?
My messaging therapy offers real-time emotional strength training. Support that moves with you through your day, when triggers hit and when healing feels urgent. It’s about processing your feelings in the moment, building your emotional vocabulary, growing a deeper relationship with yourself, and overcoming deep limiting beliefs—experiencing transformation.
No more waiting days to unpack. No more cramming days of emotion into one session. Instead, consistent, manageable progress that fits your life.
Try a 3-day free trial. Cancel or pause anytime.
Lock in your spot and current pricing before rates increase next month.
DM me.
I want to help you get where you want to go.
I want to be there for you.
Will you let me?
-Zalman
Well said 👏 I second this message entirely.