Therapy Can Be Messy, So Is Life - And That’s Okay.
Embracing the Mess: Why Therapy Isn’t Meant to Be Tidy
If you’ve ever watched a child play, you’ve probably witnessed a full-blown, unapologetic mess. Finger paint splattered across the table, a room overtaken by toys, a mud puddle turned into a personal science experiment—kids don’t hesitate to dive in, make a mess, and explore. It’s how they learn, process emotions, and understand the world around them.
Somewhere along the way, though, we start believing that messes are bad. We associate them with mistakes, failure, or a lack of control. We work hard to keep our lives orderly, our emotions in check, and our relationships running smoothly. And while structure has its place, therapy reminds us that making a mess—emotionally, mentally, even literally—is often the best way to truly grow.
The Beauty of a Productive Mess
When we talk about making a mess in therapy, we don’t mean chaos for the sake of chaos. A productive mess isn’t about venting endlessly or letting emotions take over without direction. Instead, it’s about allowing the tangled, complicated, sometimes contradictory parts of yourself to come to the surface so they can be explored and understood.
A productive mess might look like:
Speaking out loud the emotions you usually keep locked away
Sitting with uncertainty instead of rushing to fix it
Revisiting old wounds and seeing them with fresh eyes
Expressing feelings through art, writing, or movement
Letting yourself feel uncomfortable, knowing it’s part of healing
Many of us enter therapy hoping for clarity, answers, or solutions. But the truth is, real progress often starts when things feel the least tidy—when we’re willing to wade through the emotional clutter, rather than sweep it under the rug.
The Role of the Therapist in the Mess
Let’s be honest: facing our emotions head-on can feel overwhelming. That’s why the therapeutic relationship is so important. A good therapist doesn’t just watch from the sidelines as you unravel; they help contain the mess, ensuring that even the hardest emotions are explored in a way that feels safe and supported.
Think of it like this: if you were a child playing with finger paint, your therapist wouldn’t scold you for making a mess. They’d hand you more colors, ask what you see in the swirls and splatters, and help you notice patterns you hadn’t seen before.
Therapists guide us through the emotional chaos, helping us turn an unproductive mess (one that keeps us stuck) into a productive one (one that leads to insight and change). They create the space for self-exploration, ensuring that no matter how tangled your thoughts and feelings become, you’re not navigating them alone.
Art, Expression, and the Power of Getting Hands-On
For some, mess-making in therapy is literal. Creative therapies—like painting, sculpture, or even movement—can be powerful ways to express emotions that are too complex for words.
Imagine someone struggling with grief. Instead of trying to articulate their pain neatly, they might take a blank canvas and throw paint at it, watching the colors blend and collide. Through this process, they give shape to their inner world, uncovering emotions they might not have even realized they were holding onto.
Art therapy, writing exercises, or even freeform journaling can serve as a bridge between the conscious and unconscious mind, allowing emotions to surface in a raw, unfiltered way. And sometimes, making a literal mess—spilling paint, tearing paper, scribbling furiously—can be just as cathartic as untangling thoughts in conversation.
Sitting with Discomfort Instead of Fixing It
One of the hardest things about therapy is resisting the urge to clean up emotional messes too quickly. We live in a culture that values efficiency and solutions, but emotions don’t work like math equations.
Take someone experiencing deep grief. They might feel sadness one moment, anger the next, even relief or guilt—all emotions that seem to contradict each other. Rather than forcing themselves to “make sense” of it right away, therapy encourages them to sit with these feelings, to acknowledge that complexity is normal, and to allow the mess to exist without rushing to tidy it up.
This process is uncomfortable, but it’s also where real healing happens. Instead of suppressing or smoothing over difficult emotions, therapy teaches us to engage with them fully, to make space for conflicting feelings, and to understand that not everything needs to be resolved immediately.
Revisiting the Past to Change the Present
Sometimes, making a mess in therapy means revisiting old emotional wounds—the ones we’ve worked hard to ignore or minimize. Maybe fears of abandonment in relationships stem from early childhood experiences. Maybe patterns of self-doubt trace back to critical messages received growing up. By bringing these past experiences into the present, therapy allows us to reexamine them with new understanding and compassion.
This kind of exploration can feel messy because it disrupts long-held beliefs and forces us to reconsider narratives we’ve built about ourselves. But by untangling the knots of the past, we create space for different, healthier ways of relating to ourselves and others in the present.
Growth Isn’t Tidy—And That’s Okay
At its core, therapy isn’t about keeping things neat and controlled. It’s about stepping into the mess, exploring it, and learning from it. Healing isn’t a straight line, and growth isn’t about always having the “right” answers—it’s about embracing uncertainty, making space for complexity, and allowing yourself to be fully human.
So, the next time you feel like your emotions, thoughts, or relationships are a little messy, know that it’s okay. Maybe, just maybe, that mess is exactly where the real work—and the real transformation—begins.
About the author
Jackie Ponomariov, MSW, RSW, is the founder of Me Again Collective. She loves to help young adults quiet the chaos, feel less anxiety, build confidence, and feel more control over their own lives and specializes in EMDR, Somatic Therapy, IFS, DBT, Hypnosis, & more.
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