WHAT THERAPY TAUGHT ME

How talking to a psychotherapist helped the author and multi-hyphenate superstar understand his past and better navigate the future.

- COMMON

MY PATH TO THERAPY started with a broken heart. I was so sad, so hurt, just floating through life, unable to be truly present because I was struggling to understand that life had changed and shifted.

I talked with my acting coach about what I was feeling, and she introduced me to Susan Shilling, a psychotherapist who counsels artists and creative people.

Susan asks a lot of questions about what my life has been like, what I've experienced, about the parts that I feel have worked really well for me, and the parts that have not worked so well.

We talked about what therapy can give to a person.

"As human beings, we have storylines of things that have happened to us, and those experiences have shaped how we see things," she said.

"Within all of us, there's an underground river that has all of the information. It's the primordial soup of when we came into consciousness." Through therapy, we can get to know what's underneath.

By examining my consciousness, I can work to keep my old experiences from creating a story in the present that isn't actually present and alive within a current relationship.

That's one of the fundamental benefits of therapy: You can get to know more about why you do what you do. You can see how your perceptions were shaped, and you can get tools to do something different. "If you have the will and the interest to do that work," said Susan, "there are gains that make you want to do more work. That's how we move as human beings." With a clearer perception, you can begin to make different choices instead of compulsively doing the same thing again and again, which just gets you to the same place over and over.