In this video, psychologist and sex‑relationship coach Leah Spasova explains how to distinguish between merely coping and truly healing, and how to know when it’s appropriate to stop therapy, coaching, or mentorship. She begins by describing the typical client’s starting point – feeling exhausted and stuck, like a soldier on the ground – and outlines a three‑stage metaphor: (1) Awareness, where the client learns why they are “down there”; (2) Coping strategies, likened to moving from a wheelchair to crutches, where practical skills are taught to navigate daily life; and (3) Healing, where the client no longer relies on crutches or ramps and can walk up a staircase or even a mountain with confidence. Spasova contrasts the coping stage (still searching for support, second‑guessing, using learned frameworks) with the healing stage (self‑trust, confidence, no need for reminders of past lessons). She emphasizes that healing requires deep work, the right professional who can guide the client through the “deep” part, and perseverance when challenges arise. The video concludes with practical signs that indicate healing – no reliance on coping tools, no self‑doubt, and a consistent sense of confidence – and a call to return to therapy or coaching if those signs are absent.
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Hi there. I want to make a video to explain something that I find myself explaining more and more lately. That's the answer to the question that I get all the time now, as I said, when and how do I know I am completely like ready to move on from therapy, coaching, mentorship, and I'm healed. And for me to explain that, I will speak about how I practice. Obviously, I can't say what other professionals do and how they see it, but I will tell you how I see it, and I'll give you a really good and easy to understand metaphor. Unfortunately for most people, they've been waiting A very long time before they get to me. That may be like 2, 3, 5, 10, 20 years of experiencing the same issue and struggling with it before they arrive to me. They may have been through different courses of therapy or coaching or programs, whatever it is. Yet usually it's an old issue. And for a lot of people, they arrive to me— imagine that— emotionally they're on the ground and they're like a soldier just trying to make their way through life, and they're exhausted and they're struggling. So this is where a lot of people are when they get to me. What happens next? So for someone to heal, from my perspective as a psychologist specializing in sex and relationships, they need to understand why they're down there, what happened that got them in this position. So we build awareness about themselves, about the world, about the people in their world that may be an influencing factor as to why they are down there. Struggling for life. Awareness is the first step, but awareness doesn't fix anything. If it did, there'll be no smokers and nobody will be drinking alcohol either, because, right, it says it on the box, it will kill you. If awareness fixed things, everybody would be fine. I'll be out of a job. So it doesn't. So what's next? The next level is behavioral, like how do you actually navigate the world better? What do you need to survive the daily? And that may be that on— it is on the grand scheme of things, we're building skills. So this is where the coaching part comes in for me in my practice, where I'm teaching people how do you navigate that situation. We are building Coping strategies, different ways of responding, different ways of navigating, different ways of coping through the struggles and the world and with the people that you have in your life, right? And now imagine it from that position of like, I'm exhausted, I'm lost, I have no idea what's going on, to, okay, I'm in a wheelchair now. I can see, I know what's going on. And I can navigate better. And we can graduate from wheelchair coping strategy to, I don't know, crutches. And unfortunately, this is where most people leave therapy and coaching when they get the coping strategies, because they're thinking, I'm better now, I'm coping so much better. Um, You're not done yet. Not yet. Now you're operating still from a place of hurt, still from a place of pain, from a place of belief systems that hold you back, belief systems that send you into a spiral of self-doubt, self-neglect, self-abandonment, of people pleasing, or whatever it is. But maybe, maybe you're dealing better with it. Maybe you're better at maybe saying no or taking care of yourself, prioritizing yourself, but you're still dealing with those emotional struggles. You have the frameworks, you have the skills, but you still need to fight those feelings. As I said, this is the point where most people think, I'm good to go. Thanks, Leah. Bye. What does healing look like in contrast? So where a person with coping strategies, let's get them to crutches, can get to a staircase and in life as a challenge, right? And they'll be like, ah, is there a ramp? Is there a lift? Is there an escalator? Like, they will be looking around for a different way of managing this. So they're still looking for some support, some way of coping. They're not at a place where they can just take on the staircase, not to mention a mountain. And that's why I say time will test you. Time will put challenges in front of you. And then you need to observe yourself, how you're reacting. Are you still like anxious? Are you still trying to cope and leaning on to coping strategies and alternatives or avoiding it altogether? Whatever it is, what are you doing when time brings you those challenges? Because if you're still reliant on coping strategies, you're looking around and trying to figure something else out. If you're healed, you arrive to that staircase and you just go through. You can even go conquer a mountain. The emotions that are still holding you hostage when you haven't worked through them at coping strategy level are dealt with when you are healed. So there is no doubt. Doubt. Inside of you. You're not self-abandoning, you're not questioning yourself, you're trusting yourself instead. You feel confident. You don't have to give yourself a pep talk, I can do it! No, you move through the world with confidence. Nobody even thinks that you are ever anything but confident. You don't feel like— Any connection to that person you were before that struggled with that thing, whatever that thing is. I'm giving the example of confidence, but it could be like a million things. When you're healed, the challenges of yesterday with the coping strategies are nothing today. You go through life in a completely different state of mind and spirit and body and so forth. This is when you're healed. Is it possible? Yeah, but you need to find the right professional for you. You need to find someone who moves you, someone who gets through the deep with you and can get you to the other side where you heal, where you do not look around for your crutches. Where you're not looking around for a ramp or anything in the first challenge, where you just feel different and navigate life differently. So this is my best and quickest answer that I can give you as to when do you know you're healed. When you don't need the coping strategies. When you're not second-guessing, when you're not holding back, when you're not trying to remember what did I learn in session or from that self-help book or whatever it is, because you're just a different you, a confident you, a self-trusting you, a you that is not held back by pain, by sorrow, By self-doubt, by hurt, full stop. So if you're still finding yourself reaching for the coping strategies and you find yourself repeating patterns and slipping more and more, then I would definitely say go back to coaching, therapy, whatever you had. And, um, keep going because healing is ahead. You just need to persevere. And it's the hardest and it's the deepest work, but once done, you'd not be able to recognize that self of the past that even needed the crutches, and even less so the part that was trying to survive. Yeah. Your personality is not a personality that's unchangeable. It's a set of coping strategies and behaviors and systems of thinking that have been developed as a result of what has been happening to you in life, from yay high to this high. It's ever-changing. So I hope this has been useful, and I hope it takes you where you need to be so that you can really heal. Take care, and I will see you when I see you. Thank you.
