In therapy but not getting better? Read this.

I’ve heard this one too many times: I’m going to therapy, and coaching with you, and now I’m looking into all these other healing modalities as well. But I’m just not getting better. Nothing is working!

As a professional life coach constantly striving to heal the world, it’s humbling to hear that. Of course, I can’t fix the whole world through the work I do, but I like to believe it’s possible!

And from one human to the other, I empathize.

Because this frustration and stuck feeling is all too familiar. I’ve been there too. I’ve invested thousands of dollars and countless hours in healing my mind and yet there have been times when the more I tried, the worse I felt.

So, I’m here to offer some perspective for those that maybe wandering the would wide web, looking for answers. May these conversations help move the needle for you, just like they did for me and my clients.

Why isn’t therapy or coaching helping me?!

Let me start by saying, it maybe worthwhile to consider a different type of therapy or coaching. If, so far, you’ve largely been focused on talk therapy, CBT or mindset work, maybe it’s time to explore the wisdom stored in your body (somatic work).

Somatic work goes beyond words or thoughts. It’s about slowing down and listening to the wisdom stored in your body to heal trauma. And no, you do NOT need to have any prior experience whatsoever. Your practitioner will have the ability to guide you through this. The only nuance is, work with a trauma-informed practitioner so that you are not “retraumatized”.

It’s pretty neat. Profound, if I dare say.

After my training in somatic coaching, I quickly noticed a stark difference in how rapidly clients started experiencing transformation. Consistent feedback became, “I healed a lot more in a few sessions with you than I did in years of talk therapy”.

This isn’t to speak against talk therapy or other mindset-based modalities. They have limitations, and so does somatic work (which I’ll focus on in the rest of this article).

But I do want to show you that there’s a whole other level of healing available to you, if you haven’t been acquainted yet.

I’m happy to be your guide for this deeper work, or you may look into other professionals in this field.

Here’s the caveat, though.

If you are already working on yourself using modalities such as Somatic Work, EMDR or parts work, and you are not feeling better, you don’t have to invest in more programs and services for mental health.

If anything, this is likely the time to focus on your chemical health.

Why?

Here are 5 reasons.

#1 – Medications cannot replace therapy/counselling. Likewise, therapy and counselling cannot replace medication. They often go hand in hand.

#2 – In severe cases, medications are actually used as the first line of treatment. And THEN therapies are brought onboard many, many months later.

#3 – If you are struggling to function in daily life, medications are most likely non-negotiable. Please speak to your GP and get the right prescriptions so that you can bring life back to baseline.

#4 – If you’re looking to go from baseline to good/great, it may still be worthwhile to talk about bloodwork and supplements with your GP. A lot of times, the deepest healing work will not “stick” if our chemicals are off.

#5 – I’ve also noticed that when chemicals are off, our “low points” can be much darker and longer than if the body were in better biological condition.

Also, Maybe It’s Time to Do Less Therapy or Coaching (For Now)

Yup, you heard me. Sometimes, the healing can make things worse. I spoke to this challenge in great detail during my training on shadow work, and here’s a clip:

So, how can you focus on healing your chemical health instead?

#1 – It could mean bloodwork through your GP. Or exploring services such as naturopathy, Ayurveda and Chinese medicine that take a look at the deeper stuff we might miss during allopathic treatments. For instance, working with a naturopath helped me understand my mood was fluctuating because of low Vitamin D levels, something that was never considered during GP rounds. A few weeks of supervised boosting my levels, and I was significantly better! It may not always be in plain sight like that, but many “stuck” clients report seeing more progress once chemicals start balancing.

#2 – Common observations (NOT medical advice here, obviously not qualified to give any either): people having low levels of iron, B12, D3 etc are also more likely to feel low despite all the deeper work. Please work with your care team to determine what maybe happening underneath the surface.

#3 – In some cases, I’ve noticed that there are other unaddressed hormonal problems such as diabetes, reproductive imbalances, or mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, that can make healing seem harder.

#4 – Even undiagnosed neurodivergence can make us think there’s something “wrong” with us for not healing like everyone else, whereas what maybe needed is a style adapted to support our unique mental landscape. As an example, there’s a reason we traditionally spoke about 4 learning styles – it helped us understand that learning and healing can be done through reading, hearing, watching and kinesthetics. Neurodivergence helps us consider much richer ways to grow.

#5 – Last but not the least, sometimes healing IS happening but just not at our pace or at the level with which our nervous system is benefiting. Here’s an article exploring this point in lots of detail, if you feel like you want to get into that interesting rabbit hole with me next!

Concluding Thoughts

Self-development work is hard. And it sucks when it can feel harder than necessary to make progress.

But at the end of the day, it’s not because we’re doing something wrong, rather that our care may need more nuance. We have a rich tapestry that holds us humans together, and it is an honour for us to know how to take care of ourselves.

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