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6 Lessons from Therapy People Don’t Take Seriously

I was listening to David Senra, creator and host of the Founders Podcast, a show dedicated to distilling timeless business lessons from the lives of legendary entrepreneurs, and one of his quotes really resonated with me: “Learning is not just memorizing information; learning is changing your behavior.” 

In the context of therapy, this idea is especially relevant. While therapy can illuminate patterns, foster self-awareness, and help people explore their inner world, these insights alone don’t constitute meaningful change. 

Without translating understanding into action, the work remains purely intellectual—a kind of lip service.

Therapy isn’t meant to be just a structured venting session. While it can feel good to articulate feelings in a safe space, simply talking about problems doesn’t create lasting change. 

True transformation requires "doing the work" — actively applying insights, practicing skills, and experimenting with new ways of being. In other words, the session is the laboratory, but life outside is the field experiment. 

Here are six areas where people often fail to put their learning into practice.

1. Insight ≠ Change

Many clients assume that once they’ve identified the “why” behind a behavior, the problem should simply disappear. Yet research shows that insight alone, without behavioral experiments, produces limited results (Beck, 2011). 

Understanding the “why” can provide important context and even foster self-compassion for the protective strategies you developed to survive difficult situations. But ultimately, people come to therapy because they want certain symptoms or behaviors to change, so understanding the cause is only the first step.

The next question is: Okay, now what are you going to do about it? Aristotle distinguished between theoria (knowledge) and praxis (action), noting that virtue, and change, require repeated practice, not just understanding. You can’t think your way into transformation; you must practice new responses in real situations, where discomfort is real.

Transformation happens when an epiphany or breakthrough changes the way you think, live, and operate.

What insight have you had lately that you can put into action?

2. Your Nervous System Learns Slower Than Your Mind

Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory highlights how the nervous system responds to perceived threat before cognition even kicks in. This explains why panic or shutdown can happen despite “knowing” you’re safe. But simply talking about safety in therapy won’t rewire this.

Experiencing safety in therapy can support this rewiring, but it cannot be the only context in which you practice vulnerability or challenging social skills. Likewise, it cannot be the only place you exercise emotion regulation or grounding techniques. 

Transformation happens when these somatic practices (grounding, paced breathing, exposure work, and co-regulation) are applied consistently in everyday life, retraining the nervous system through repeated, real-world experience. It can be a slow process; be kind and patient with creating safety in your body.

What somatic practice do you need to use the next time you’re triggered or dysregulated? 

3. Avoidance Is Practice Too

Every time you avoid social anxiety triggers, difficult conversations, or uncomfortable emotions, you reinforce neural pathways that link discomfort with danger (Barlow, 2002). 

Kierkegaard described avoidance as “despair disguised as safety,” framing it as a refusal to fully engage with life. Ouch.  

This doesn’t mean you need to confront every trigger, difficult conversation, or emotion, but you also can’t rely on therapy sessions alone and expect change.

Transformation happens when you notice a response you want to change, confront it deliberately, and then practice a new, healthier response.

What hard things have you been avoiding that you will confront today? 

4. Anger Isn’t the Enemy

Anger made the list because it is the emotion people seem to avoid the most. But anger is actually a vitality affect—an emotion that energizes and mobilizes. Which means, we need to feel it. It typically signals a boundary violation, injustice, or an unmet emotional need (Averill, 1982). 

Deb Shapiro, author of Your Body Speaks Your Mind, explains: “Thoughts have energy; emotions have energy. They make you do and say things and act in certain ways. When you cannot, or do not, express what is happening on an emotional or psychological level, that feeling becomes embodied until it manifests through the physical body. The emotion most often repressed is rage, as that is often the most inappropriate and difficult to express.”

Suppressing anger is linked to hypertension, immune dysfunction, anxiety, depression, and many other issues. 

Transformation occurs when you experiment with expressing anger constructively—through assertive communication, clear boundary-setting, safe physical release, creative expression, and intentional action that allows the energy of anger to serve a protective or corrective purpose rather than remaining trapped.

The next time anger surges, how will you let it be expressed? 

5. Your ‘Logical’ Self Is Sabotaging You

Intellectualization, turning feelings into abstractions or concepts, is a common way to avoid the rawness of emotions. Trying to “solve” grief, shame, or fear purely through thought is ineffective because these states require embodiment and processing. 

Analyzing may feel like “working through” emotions, but without integration, no real change occurs (Freud, 1926). Modern research on emotional processing confirms this: exposure to raw affect drives healing, not mere intellectual discussion (Foa & Kozak, 1986).

Transformation happens when you truly feel your emotions instead of talking about feeling them. This involves being vulnerable with yourself and others, and allowing the emotion to move through you—whether through crying, screaming, journaling, ritual, or movement. In other words, change occurs when insight becomes lived, embodied experience, not just cognitive understanding.

What feeling do you need to stop talking about and just feel today?

6. Repair Matters More Than Rupture

John Gottman’s decades of research in couples therapy demonstrate that the key predictor of relationship stability isn’t the absence of conflict, but the presence of repair attempts.

Maintaining healthy relationships requires actively addressing and mending relational damage after conflict, rather than avoiding disagreements or expecting issues to resolve on their own.

Transformation happens when you stop ignoring or minimizing conflict and prevent resentment from building. Notice tension and name it, moving from defensiveness to accountability by softening and admitting mistakes. Use deliberate gestures—such as a verbal apology, a small act of kindness, or an affectionate touch—to restore connection, even when the issue isn’t fully resolved. Understand that repair is an ongoing process, which may require follow-up, reflection, and consistent effort over time.

Who do you need to repair with this week?

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