Megan Swan, PhD

For me, therapy is an opportunity for self discovery. It’s a process of understanding your narrative and life experiences and it’s not linear path. As we journey, we encounter necessary and important steps. One is awareness. It’s difficult to examine ourselves and our lives if we are not aware of our thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions. Otherwise, we tend to live on auto-pilot and experience life at a habitual, reactive, and shallow level. Another step is increased understanding. We must start to understand the origins of our beliefs, thoughts, actions and relationships, beyond the cognitive and at a symbolic level. Our sense of Self is because it is always larger than the context of any given moment. We might call this our mental or psychic landscape – beginning to know more where we are, where we have been, and where we want to go, at an integrative level, may guide us towards a more soul connected and congruent life. We can learn to be less reactive and more responsive with ourselves and others when we have a deep understanding our self and our histories. Another step is self-acceptance. I believe it is only through accepting ourselves and our history with compassion can we conscientiously make the changes in our lives that resonate at the deep and soulful level of the Self.