Navigating Confusion through Therapy: Illuminating Paths to Clarity

Often, we focus on things like anxiety, depression, relationship issues, and trauma in therapy. We work to change thoughts and behaviors to improve a sense of self-worth and to change our lives for the better. While addressing these issues in therapy, one interesting issue that comes up frequently is confusion. It is the tight, uncomfortable feeling in our stomachs and hearts when a decision is difficult to make, even the smallest of decisions. 

While it can seem like something small and insignificant, something to just get through, it really can be a persistent, ongoing annoyance that impacts our daily lives. When something small, like a fly buzzing in our ear, is constantly annoying us, we may learn to ignore it, trying to bat it away, but over time, it can have a significant impact on our lives. When we try to bat away confusion, using whatever unconscious coping mechanisms we have to deal with it, we can make decisions in ways that are less than ideal for our personal growth. 

Therapy provides essential tools and support to help individuals navigate confusion and gain clarity in their lives.I’d like to share some thoughts and ideas about confusion from a personal and professional perspective. 

Understanding Confusion

Confusion is a bit tricky to define, actually. As with so many words that attempt to describe human experience, it can be a bit different for each individual. A therapist of mine once described confusion as two things seeming true at once. For example, we could experience confusion when we know that we want to buy something and that it may be very convenient and helpful for us, yet we do not have enough money in the bank to pay for it. We may also experience confusion with much bigger decisions. For example, we may want to have children, but we do not want to give up our freedom to watch netflix all night. 

Confusion can become a habit even, giving us an out from making conscious decisions. When we are afraid of outcomes, we may want to create a scenario that feels like we didn’t make a decision. For example, when we feel confusion about what we want to eat for dinner, we may ask our friend to decide so we can opt out of knowing what is going on for us. This is a relatively innocuous example and all of us deal with this from time to time. In fact, it is possible to just be unsure about things. 

However, a pattern of confusion around life decisions can become a bigger issue. With the example above, we would probably want to avoid allowing someone else to make the decision for us as to whether or not we will have children. As painful as it may be to face the emotions and experiences that impact this desire (or lack thereof), it can create a sense of empowerment to make these decisions in our lives with our eyes wide open, even if they don’t turn out the way we wanted. 

While my understanding of confusion is an ongoing exploration, I have discovered that confusion is often rooted in genuine discomfort and trouble identifying and processing emotions that come up surrounding experiences from our past. Confusion can also be related to deeply held beliefs from these experiences, such as “everything goes bad,” “the other shoe always drops,” etc. 

It is also important to recognize that confusion can be based in the very real knowing that we cannot control everything. This can broadcast our fears into the future. This can be based on catastrophizing the future (imagining the worst case scenario), but can also be based on very real things in life. It may even be a combination of these. For example, those who have and continue to experience persistent discrimination may know that there is a high likelihood that certain decisions will have negative consequences for them. It is important to develop compassion and understanding around our fears, not to dismiss them. 

How Therapy Can Help

In therapy, we have an opportunity to explore confusion. Often it can provide us with insights into the richness of our human experience. A therapist can help hold space for you to be curious about your confusion and let it lead you to know yourself better. A therapist can help you to learn to hold this space for yourself–knowing that the confusion serves a purpose to help you pause, process, and move towards clarity. 

In hypnotherapy, we utilize the concept of a wise adult part to help us with issues of confusion. The wise adult part of us is the part that can see truth and all our options, that holds us in love and accountability. By practicing accessing this part of ourselves, we begin to not only understand the emotions and experiences that can be behind our confusion, we also begin to understand the true desire in our hearts for our present and future selves. Our wise adult part can begin to work with us to see a path forward, through all the confusion, untangling it as we go. We learn that confusion may simply be a sign to us to slow down, that there is much to be learned in that moment. 

I find that the process of working through confusion takes great courage. It can also be incredibly fulfilling, leading us to know a version of ourselves we may not have known existed before.

I hope you’ll reach out to learn more about how therapy can help guide us through confusion into an even deeper understanding of ourselves.