Online Personal Growth Counselling in British Columbia
Therapy is for more than support in time of a crisis, or something you access when you need help to feel better. Therapy can also be used to help you move towards goals, or facilitate personal growth in areas of your life where you are looking to expand or flourish. Sometimes the same things that we use to help us cope or for distraction from the problems of life can actually be the things that are limiting our growth. Learning and growth is fuelled by discomfort. The experience of not knowing, feeling like we’ve failed, or having a sense of inadequacy motivate us to dig in and practice, or expand our knowledge.
We live in an overstimulating time, and many of us use coping strategies to help ourselves feel more comfortable, or as distractions. While that can be useful for mitigating anxiety, these tools can also lead us to avoid the necessary discomfort that fuels change.
Counselling for personal growth is an opportunity to understand yourself better and gives you a chance to look at what you might be avoiding that is actually limiting you in your life. Seeing yourself try something new, and practice is a way to build confidence and self esteem and is part of creating meaningful change. This can be hard to do alone, and here is where having a therapist to support and encourage you as you stretch and learn can be incredibly helpful.
What Is Personal Growth Counselling?
Counselling for personal growth is something you access when you are seeking expansion in your life, it is not necessarily trying to solve a problem or navigate something that is causing you distress. A lot of folks will ask if their problems are even “serious enough for counselling”, and that is fair because there is still a myth that can exist that if you are going to therapy regularly you must have some serious issues you’re trying to work through. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. AEDP therapy (our shared approach at The Collective) actually uses a Flourishing Scale, and is focused not only on reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, but in supporting you with feeling good about yourself, increasing your confidence in yourself, and feelings of joyfulness, aliveness and calm. This type of therapy is most helpful when folks are feeling some sense of stability in their life and have some space to challenge themselves, with love towards themselves, to expand.
Is Personal Growth Counselling Right for Me?
Folks seek therapy for personal growth for many reasons. Some of them include:
Wanting to feel connected to yourself
Seeking a more embodied experience of your life
Increased ability to identify wants, needs, and desires
Increased self love and self confidence
A desire for a sense of internal calm
Being able to make decisions with clarity
A desire for more joy and vitality
Curiosity around what the next step might look like or where their life could expand
Wanting a space where they can be held accountable to the commitments they are making to themselves
Needing a space where they have someone to encourage them and support them to stretch out of their comfort zone
What Can Personal Growth Look Like?
Part of what is so great about counselling for personal growth is that it can look like anything. We are all unique, with different hopes and goals for our lives. Personal growth is a journey that we all need to take for ourselves and there is no prescribed roadmap. While having a lack of clear direction to start can feel intimidating, navigating all of that spaciousness is part of the journey. Allowing yourself to have the space to try something and have the potential to fail at it can bring incredible clarity to your future goals. As we learn to navigate this, it can also feel stressful, it is normal to feel some anxiety when trying something new and unfamiliar so this is part of why personal growth counselling isn’t so much about ‘fixing a problem’ or ‘feeling better’ but instead it is about feeling a sense of clarity around your own truth and strong connection to yourself, and celebrating anything that moves you in that direction.
What Can Get in the Way of Growth?
Sometimes growth can actually feel really scary! As much as the patterns we get stuck in are not healthy for us, they are familiar, and there is something comforting that comes from knowing what to expect. Navigating this fear and being able to move through it is part of growth. If you are expecting personal growth to stop feeling scary you could be stuck forever. Once we accept that growth is challenging, and it is normal to feel afraid, then we can start looking at what is getting in our way, and with gentle support move through those emotions to access the courage we need to try something new. From this perspective, discomfort, instead of something to be avoided, is often a clue that we are on the right track. It can be incredibly rewarding to see your tolerance for discomfort increase as you grow, opening you up to things that your past self might not have ever imagined were possible!
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Counsellors Who Support Personal Growth
We have some amazingly skilled folks on our team who would be honoured to support you on your journey.
You can access personal growth counselling from:
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How Therapy Can Support Your Growth
Part of why therapy works is that it is so much more than just giving advice. A therapist who is skilled at supporting your personal growth will help you tune into your own wisdom, helping you learn to listen and trust your gut instinct. They will collaborate with you to see what is possible and help you more through places where you are stuck or blocked. Through this process you will be celebrated as you develop more confidence in yourself, and get to know yourself better. We all need encouragement to step out of our comfort zones, and it is so helpful to have someone who believes in your ability to know what is best for you for yourself. As therapists, we are not invested in you doing things our way, instead we want you to find your own, the way that is right for you, and we are there to believe your ability to access that before you can feel it clearly for yourself. We can provide a gentle and consistent challenge to keep you pursuing what is outside of your comfort zone.
If you’ve been considering accessing therapy for personal growth, we hope you’ll reach out! Investing in your future self is something we truly believe you won’t regret, but we can regret the roads not taken. Committing to a journey of personal growth can help us have the most expansive, joyful life we can. We would love to chat with you and hear more about your hopes and dreams, and encourage you on your journey, even if you’re unsure of where to begin.
