Toss Out Your Old Slippers: A Step Toward Growth

I often sense the “growing pains” emerge a few sessions into working with new clients. We have built rapport and are introducing new perspectives, ideas, and ways of approaching life’s current challenges.

It is the moment a therapist feels most proud — excited even — at the possibility of “change” and the client being the conductor of their own orchestra.

Right as we reach the point of trying on the “new slippers” — be it this new attitude, new outlook, what have you…the “old slippers” make a reappearance. Oftentimes, these old slippers like to sit right by the door.

Look, I’m human and I get it. We all have that pair of cozy, broken-in, seen-better-days slippers. These are the old reliables, the ones we are sentimentally attached to because we got them that one Christmas when everyone got along for once. And yet, here they are now — still serving you by covering those toes up and keeping them warm…despite having no arch support or really any fuzz left to write home about — and they stay. And stay. And stay. Even when we have gotten a brand NEW pair of slippers. The new ones just sit in the box. Untouched. But why?

It’s quite simple, really. We know deep down that those new slippers will someday come to tell a tale quite like the old ones. We will wear them, enjoy them, get used to them, and most likely destroy them. So the cycle goes.

In grasping onto a new prospect, perspective, or insight — are we not so quick to tarnish it via our incessant questioning, our doubt, and unfounded theories on how to do, to be, to live?

Yes. Yes, we are. We like to wear our thoughts in, no matter how good they are. Grasping for comfort, an understanding, a familiar place.

I’m not saying that the old slippers cannot live in the same home as the new slippers. They absolutely can. The choice is yours for which one to reach for, to wear in, to enjoy, and to love — as thoroughly and fiercely as one can. For one day the new will become old, and it will happen again and again. Such is life, such is growth.

Here’s to always keeping your feet warm.