do therapy

Action

Find a therapeutic modality you respond well to and do it. Your therapeutic modality of choice could be ACT, it could be EMDR, it could be regular yoga, it could be grounded in a religious context, it could be lifting weights, it could be fishin’.

Discussion

Almost everybody will improve their subjective experience of life if they engage with a therapeutic modality of some sort.

Quite a few people will improve their experience tremendously, and be able to avoid counter-productive and self-destructive behavior. (I attribute several hundred thousand dollars of needless expenses in my 20’s and 30’s to unresolved psychological issues that the right therapeutic modalities could have helped me avoid wasting, among other things).

If you have a psychologically induced compulsion to gamble irresponsibly, all of the frugality crowbaring and wise financial stewardship practices aren’t going to make a difference. They will be wiped out in your next gambling binge. If ‘shopping’ is more than a socially programmed habit, but rather a psychological survival mechanism for dealing with unresolved trauma, it is going to be difficult to adopt a voluntary simplicity lifestyle. If you are pathologically conflict avoidant, you are not going to be able to built a durable alternative lifestyle in the face of pressure from society and your family.

No amount of lifestyle adjustments are a solution to psychological wounds, baggage, and dysfunction. Some people travel in an attempt to escape their past. Some people cycle through lifestyle experimentation and identity reconstruction. In either case, if the underlying issues go unaddressed, then they will repeat in whatever location of lifestyle iteration is present.

Carving out a simpler and more autonomous lifestyle can help you catch enough of a break from the day to day logistics of 21st century living to devote attention to sorting out your inner issues. A simpler and more autonomous life in and of itself is not the solution to your inner issues.

Most people think of going to an office and talking to a professional for $x00/hr when they think of therapy. That is one style. There are many. Some cost a lot of money, some cost a little, some cost none.

• Talk therapy (ACT, CBT, etc)
• Somatic
• Gestalt
• EMDR
• Psycholytic
• Psychodelic
• Entheogenic
• Going to the library and reading all of the books yourself and following the exercises
• Various group therapies (e.g. 12 step)
• Spiritual practices like meditation, prayer, and yoga are more properly understand as a separate thing, but there is some overlap depending on how you construct your life, so they are worth mentioning.

Here’s one approach if your need for therapy is not an emergency:

1. Read a lot of books (and articles, and videos, etc) of various therapeutic modalities. Get a sense for what options exist. Do work ‘on yourself’. Take it seriously.
2. After a time of doing self-work, find a professional to work with. If its a good fit, the professional will be able to help you uncover blind spots, get through plateaus, suggest things you never would have thought of, and mirror things you’re not capable of seeing from within your self.
3. Work with that professional for a time, and then go back to doing self-work.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 in a cycle, at whatever tempo works for you.