Over the years of being a therapist, I've had the privilege of sitting with people through some really difficult times.

People who are anxious and overwhelmed. People who have experienced trauma. People who are struggling with relationships, work, confidence or just life in general. People who aren't quite sure what they need, but know that something doesn't feel right.

I've heard stories that have stayed with me, and I've witnessed people trying to make sense of things that they never expected to have to deal with. And although I'm the therapist in the room, I've learned a lot from the people I've worked with too.

One of the biggest things I've learned is that you really don't know what someone is carrying. Someone can walk into a room looking like they have everything together and be struggling enormously underneath it. They might be going to work, looking after their children, keeping up with friends and getting on with everyday life, while inside they're exhausted, anxious or completely overwhelmed.

We don't always see what is going on for someone.

That has definitely made me more mindful about making assumptions about people.

People are often stronger than they realise

I don't mean strong in the way we sometimes talk about strength. I'm not a big fan of the idea that difficult experiences automatically make us stronger or that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes difficult things are just difficult.

What I mean is that I've seen people keep going through things they never thought they would have to face. Sometimes strength is getting out of bed when you really don't want to. Sometimes it's admitting that you're struggling. Sometimes it's finally asking for help. And sometimes it's simply getting through the day.

We can be very hard on ourselves about what we think we should be able to cope with, without recognising how much we're actually carrying.

People don't always need someone to fix things

I think this is something that has become even clearer to me the longer I've been a therapist. When someone we care about is struggling, our instinct is often to try and make things better. We offer advice, we suggest solutions, we tell them what we think they should do. And sometimes that's exactly what someone needs. But sometimes they don't need an answer, they just need somewhere they can talk, somewhere they don't have to worry about how their story sounds or whether they're being judged.

Somewhere they can say, "I don't know what to do," without someone immediately telling them what they should do.

That's one of the things I value about my role as a therapist. I don't need to have the answer for someone. I can sit with them while they work out what the answer might be for them.

Change isn't always obvious

I think we can sometimes have quite unrealistic ideas about what progress looks like. We might expect a big breakthrough, a moment where everything suddenly makes sense and life feels completely different. Sometimes that happens. More often, I think change is much quieter. It's noticing that you handled something differently, it's saying no when you would normally say yes, it's recognising that you've been people pleasing, it's realising that something isn't actually your responsibility, it's noticing that something which used to completely overwhelm you doesn't have quite the same hold over you anymore.

Those things might not seem huge from the outside.

But they can be huge to the person experiencing them.

I've also learned that everyone is different

There isn't one way to be anxious, there isn't one way to experience trauma, there isn't one way to grieve, and there certainly isn't one way to do therapy.

People have different experiences, personalities, backgrounds and ways of coping. What works really well for one person might not work at all for someone else. That's why I'm quite cautious about giving people a list of things they should  do to feel better.

I'm much more interested in understanding the person sitting in front of me, what has happened to them? What matters to them? What have they already tried? What do they need?

And perhaps most importantly, what do they want?

I've learned that people know themselves

Sometimes people have spent years being told who they are.

By family.

By partners.

By employers.

By society.

Sometimes they've been told they're too sensitive, too emotional, too difficult or not trying hard enough.

Over time, we can start to believe these things ourselves.

I think therapy can provide an opportunity to step back from some of those messages and work out what you actually think about yourself. Not what someone else has told you, not who you think you should be, but who you are and what you want.

And I'm still learning too

I think there can sometimes be an expectation that therapists have everything sorted out. We don't.

I'm a therapist, but I'm also a person, I have my own experiences, my own relationships, my own difficult days and things that I'm still learning about myself. Being a therapist doesn't mean that life doesn't affect me. It doesn't mean I never overthink something, get frustrated or have days where I don't quite know what I'm doing. If anything, the longer I do this work, the more aware I am that none of us really have everything figured out.

And perhaps that's okay.

I don't sit opposite a client thinking that I know their life better than they do.

I bring my training, experience and knowledge, but they are the expert in their own life.

My role is to listen, to be curious, to sometimes gently challenge, and to provide a space where they can work things through without having to have all the answers.

Why I still love this work

There are difficult parts to being a therapist. Of course there are. Listening to difficult experiences isn't always easy. Some stories stay with you, but there is also something incredibly rewarding about seeing someone begin to understand themselves differently. Seeing someone start to trust themselves. Watching someone realise that they are allowed to have boundaries. Seeing their confidence grow, or sometimes simply seeing someone become a little kinder to themselves.

I don't think therapy is about changing someone into a different person. For me, it's much more about helping someone understand themselves, make sense of what they've experienced and work out what they want moving forward. And I'm very aware that being invited into someone's life in that way is a privilege, I don't take that for granted. Perhaps that's one of the biggest things this work has taught me. We all have a story, we all have things other people don't see, and sometimes, having someone sit alongside us and really listen can make a bigger difference than we realise.