Listening Inward: Learn to Trust What You Already Know
Many people come into therapy carrying a quiet tension: the longing for support alongside a fear of taking up too much space. Concerns about being a burden or “trauma dumping” often lead to self-silencing, even when something inside is asking to be witnessed. Beneath these worries is an important and often overlooked skill: learning how to stay in relationship with your inner world while discerning when, how, and with whom to share. Strengthening this capacity allows support to be sought with intention, care, and respect for both your inner life and the relationships that hold it.
I invite you to try on these practices and see what arises, changes, and feels more certain in your system:
Strengthen your inner knowing
Take a moment to centre into yourself. A breath, a stillness, anything that allows you to better listen to what is happening inside of you. What is your truth? What do you know about the situation, even if this means minimizing your scope of truth? What wisdom is discerned from this? What questions is your intuition guiding you towards understanding?
Embody your Wisdom
Record what you’ve found. This can mean creating a video/audio recording, journaling, opening a chat server (discord), engaging in symbolic movement, or creating a collage.
Allow this to be the embodiment being sought out though verbal processing with peers.
Discern who you seek out
Access who in your circle of care is gifted in what you seek, in topic and/or in care. This step facilitates critical thinking and discernment as well as reciprocal, relational witnessing. Taking the time to determine what kind of support is needed about which part of the concern can help both you and your support build mutual understanding and clarity. Naming your support’s gift, your connection to and alignment with them, and the meaning they have brought into your life to seek out this specific support.
Honour the privacy of your inner world. This isn’t practicing inauthenticity, secret keeping, or shame. This is standing firm in what is sacred and belongs to you, in discerning the care and knowing that is needed to witness this part of you, as well as pulling back the abstract and collective information to strengthen and clarify your intuition.
Ask permission, express gratitude
Asking permission for support or guidance shows respect for boundaries, agency, and autonomy. It allows for a moment to practice pause, self-awareness, and mutual care. A support may express the state of their capacity and how they can and want to show up in this moment. Honouring their truth with gratitude allows the relationship to be grounded in honesty, trust, and acceptance.
“It is also not a good idea to make a ritual out of talking … to explain yourself to people. Talking tends to put the whole experience back on an abstract level. It gets contaminated with your desire to present yourself in the best light. Instead of a vivid, private experience, you wind up with an amorphous collective chat. The best rituals are physical, solitary, and silent: These are the ones that register most deeply with the unconscious.”
