You Can't Go Over It. You Can't Go Under It. You Have to Go Through It.

There's a children's song that many of us probably know.

We're going on a bear hunt…

I've got my binoculars…

I'm not scared…

And off they go, looking for a bear.

But along the way, they keep running into obstacles.

Tall grass.

A river.

Thick, sticky mud.

And every time, they realize:

We can't go over it.

We can't go under it.

We're just going to have to go through it.

So they do.

They swish through the grass.

They splash through the water.

They squish through the mud.

Until eventually, after going through all of these uncomfortable places, they finally find exactly what they've been looking for:

The bear.

And then?

They completely freak out.

They turn around, race back through everything they just came through, run home, jump into bed, pull the covers over their heads, and decide they are never going on a bear hunt again.

It's a silly children's song.

But recently, I realized how much it reminds me of therapy.

Because so many of us come to therapy because we are searching for something, too.

We want healing.

We want peace.

We want to understand why we keep reacting the way we do.

We want to stop repeating the same patterns.

We want to feel differently in our relationships.

We want to stop carrying around pain that has followed us for years.

We want to get to the other side.

We just don't necessarily want to have to go through anything to get there.

We want to go over it.

We want to understand it intellectually. Analyze it. Explain it. Read about it. Figure out exactly why we are the way we are.

Or we want to go under it.

Avoid it. Minimize it. Stay busy. Push it down. Convince ourselves that it wasn't really that bad, that we've moved on, that it shouldn't still affect us.

But healing has an annoying way of saying:

You can't go over it.

You can't go under it.

You're going to have to go through it.

And going through it isn't always pretty.

Sometimes it's muddy.

Sometimes it's sticky.

Sometimes it's uncomfortable and exhausting.

Sometimes you discover grief you didn't realize you were carrying.

Sometimes you meet anger you've spent years trying not to feel.

Sometimes you have to acknowledge that something hurt you more than you wanted to admit.

Sometimes you begin to see patterns in yourself that are painful to recognize.

And sometimes, after walking through all of that, you finally arrive at the thing you have unknowingly been searching for.

Your bear.

A truth about yourself.

A wound you've been protecting.

A fear underneath all the other fears.

A need you've spent your life pretending you don't have.

A part of yourself you've worked very hard not to see.

And suddenly, there it is.

The very thing you've been searching for.

And your first instinct may be:

RUN.

Because sometimes finding what we are looking for is scarier than not knowing it was there.

There is a strange moment that can happen in therapy when someone begins to see something clearly that they weren't able—or ready—to see before.

And clarity doesn't always feel peaceful.

Sometimes clarity feels terrifying.

Because once we see something, we can't completely unsee it.

Now we have a choice.

Do I stay here and get curious?

Do I allow myself to feel what this brings up?

Do I begin to understand this part of myself with compassion instead of judgment?

Or do I run all the way back home, climb into bed, pull the covers over my head and declare:

I'm never going on a bear hunt again.

This is one of the reasons I believe therapy isn't about a therapist "fixing" someone.

My job isn't to drag my clients through the mud.

And it isn't to stand safely on the other side shouting instructions about how to get across.

I think of my role very differently.

In many ways, I am walking beside them.

Holding their hand—metaphorically—as we move through the places they have spent years trying to go around.

Helping them slow down when something feels overwhelming.

Helping them stay grounded when they want to run.

Helping them understand what they're finding instead of judging themselves for it.

And perhaps most importantly, helping them discover that they don't have to be afraid of what they find there.

Because the goal of therapy isn't to emerge on the other side perfectly healed, perfectly calm, perfectly confident, and finally fixed.

Maybe the goal is to discover that you don't have to run from yourself anymore.

That you can walk into the places inside of you that you've spent years avoiding—and stay.

You can feel the grief without drowning in it.

You can face a painful truth without it defining you.

You can meet the scared, angry, hurting, needy, messy parts of yourself without trying to silence them, fix them, or leave them behind.

And you don't have to do it alone.

That's what I hope to offer my clients in the therapy room.

Not a shortcut around the mud.

Not a bridge over the river.

Not a way to avoid the scary things waiting inside.

But someone who will walk beside them and remind them, when every part of them wants to turn around:

We can't go over it.

We can't go under it.

We're going to have to go through it.

And maybe that's what healing really is.

Not getting to the other side untouched.

But walking through the places you were once terrified to enter—and realizing that you can survive being there.

That you can stay with yourself there.

That there are parts of you waiting there that deserve to finally be understood.

And that sometimes, the thing we've spent our whole lives running from is the very place we need to go.

Not because the pain is the destination.

But because the way home to ourselves goes through it.