That's great! What did you learn?

Therapy has helped me identify meaning in my life. I'm an extremely driven person, typically very goal-oriented, but sometimes therapy uncovers things that are deeper than the meanings I have given myself.

A couple of times an insight in therapy has kind of struck me out of nowhere. When I was in college, I would talk to my T about some volunteer teaching I did with local high school students, which I really loved. I'd talk about other things related to kids, too. One day, he said, "It really strikes me how much you want to do right by kids." It was something that I just hadn't thought about in such a straightforward way -- but it's true, I did and still do, and being a positive influence in the lives of the children I interact with became a more explicit source of meaning in my life. It was there before, but I didn't appreciate it as well, nor did I allow myself to appreciate that it was a positive trait of mine.

I do think that therapy is about learning and admitting truths about oneself, and that meaning can be derived from those truths.