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Eight affirmations for starting therapy — for the first appointment, the awkward silences, and the courage it took to book at all.
Booking therapy is often harder than attending it. There is the finding, the emailing, the waiting list, and behind all of it the quiet question of whether your problems are big enough to take up someone's hour.
These ten affirmations are for the person who has just booked, or is about to. They say the two things people most need at that point: you are ready, and being ready is not the same as being certain.
Say one line on the way. You do not need a prepared summary of your life — the first session is largely the therapist working out where to start, and "I don't really know where to begin" is a completely acceptable opening.
Expect the first few sessions to feel strange rather than transformative. Therapy works through accumulation, and the affirmations about being ready are there for the stretch before it has obviously helped.
1. “I am ready to heal.”
2. “I am ready to heal and grow.”
3. “I am open to healing and growth.”
4. “I wholeheartedly commit to my healing process.”
5. “I am worthy of healing and recovery.”
6. “I am open to new ways of healing.”
7. “I am brave enough to be vulnerable with my loved ones.”
8. “I choose to heal.”
Mostly questions and orientation — history, what brought you, what you want to be different. You are not expected to arrive with an agenda or to cry on cue.
That question is one of the most common reasons people delay, and it is the wrong test. Therapy is not reserved for crises; plenty of useful work happens on things that look small from outside.
No. They are a daily practice; therapy is a relationship with someone trained to see what you cannot. They work well side by side, and one is not a substitute for the other.
Change therapist. Fit is one of the strongest predictors of whether therapy helps, and leaving a poor match is a reasonable decision rather than a failure to commit.
