The Work That Actually Heals

By Derek Colvin, LPC-S, CGT - The Giant Therapist

Real. Raw. Unfiltered Reflections on trust, darkness, and the kind of therapy that changes lives.

The Therapy Most People Never Experience

There’s a difference between talking about your feelings and being known. Real therapy isn’t about worksheets and homework, it’s about stepping into the places you’ve avoided and staying there long enough to understand what they’re trying to say. Most people never get that far. They go a few times, get a couple of coping skills, maybe a breathing exercise or a journal prompt, and walk away thinking therapy “doesn’t work.” What they’ve actually experienced isn’t deep work; it’s symptom management. And sometimes, if we’re honest, it’s the therapist’s fear disguised as professionalism. Handing you a worksheet is a lot safer than sitting quietly in your pain and letting it move both of us. That’s part of why I still go to therapy myself. If I’m going to walk with you into your darkness, I have to keep facing my own. Otherwise, I’ll be tempted to keep things “light,” stay in advice mode, and never get close to what actually hurts. And that kind of distance might look like therapy from the outside, but it doesn’t heal much on the inside.

Sitting on the Ledge

One of the best things a supervisor ever told me is that most people stand in the doorway yelling to the person on the ledge, “Come back inside!” But real therapy is walking out onto the ledge and asking, “Why does this ledge make the most sense right now?”

That image has stuck with me for years because it names what deep work really is. You’re not broken because you ended up on the ledge, there’s a reason it feels safer out there than coming back inside. Maybe it’s the only place you’ve ever felt in control. Maybe it’s where nobody can disappoint you. Maybe it’s the one place you’re honest about how bad it really is. You don’t figure that out by shouting advice from the doorway. You figure it out by being willing to stand in the wind with somebody and let the story come out slowly. And that’s where the disconnect happens for a lot of men. They think therapy is about someone dragging them off the ledge. But the good stuff doesn’t start with movement, it starts with company. And that company, the relationship itself, isn’t an extra. It is the work.

The Relationship Is the Work

Every study we have points to the same simple truth: it’s not the method that heals the most, it’s the relationship. You can have the right model, the right treatment plan, the right language, and still miss the person sitting in front of you. If there’s no real connection, there’s no real change. That’s also why therapy can’t just be “comfortable.” Comfort isn’t the goal; safety is. There’s a difference between “I’m never challenged” and “I’m held while I’m challenged.” The relationship is what lets you open the box you swore you’d never touch again. Without that trust, the deeper stories stay sealed. And here’s where it gets messy: a lot of people have never had a relationship where opening that box was actually safe. So when therapy is good, it’s often the first place someone gets to tell the truth without losing the relationship. That’s not just a nice experience, that’s corrective. That’s rewiring what you believe is possible in connection. And the moment you feel that is usually the moment another old belief gets exposed: “If the past is in the past, why do I need to go back to it at all?”

The Past Isn’t Gone, It’s Buried

Most of us are taught some version of “leave it in the past” and “just be positive.” On paper, it sounds healthy. In reality, it usually means, “Don’t look too closely at what hurt you.” But the past doesn’t disappear just because you’ve decided not to talk about it. It gets buried. It leaks. It shows up in the way you overreact to your kids, the way you shut down with your partner, the way your chest tightens every time you feel like you’re disappointing someone. You can tape the box shut, shove it into the attic of your mind, and pretend you’re fine, but your body and your relationships have a different opinion.

So when we talk about “going backward to move forward,” that’s what we’re doing. We’re not going back to relive everything; we’re going back to reclaim the parts of you that got stuck there. And the moment you start seeing how those old rules still run your life now, something important happens: blame starts to give way to understanding. That’s where compassion and grief start to enter the picture. And that’s where you finally get a chance to make peace with the younger versions of you that carried more than they ever should have.

Making Peace With the Past

One of my favorite moments in therapy is when a man realizes he isn’t broken, he’s just been following survival rules that made sense in a different life. Maybe anger kept him safe growing up. Maybe shutting down was the only way to stay out of the line of fire. Maybe being “the strong one” was how he earned love in a house where vulnerability wasn’t allowed. Those patterns didn’t come from nowhere. The problem is, we drag those same rules into adulthood and try to use them in marriages, parenting, friendships, workplaces, and faith communities that need something very different from us. The coping style that kept you alive at 12 can quietly destroy your marriage at 42. And if you don’t understand where it came from, it just feels like failure. This is where compassion becomes non-negotiable. Not the fluffy kind that lets you avoid responsibility, but the grounded kind that says, “Of course you did that. Of course you coped that way. You were trying to survive.” You stop judging your 16-year-old self with 40-something-year-old eyes. You stop expecting teenage you to have the wisdom you have now. And as you soften toward him, something shifts—you start feeling less like a broken man trying to fix his life and more like a grown man finally turning around to help his younger self lay some of that weight down. That inner shift is brutal and tender at the same time. And it’s exactly why calling therapy “soft” misses the entire point.

The Hardest Work You’ll Ever Do

There is nothing easy about facing the truth of your own story. It’s one thing to admit you’re tired. It’s another to admit you’ve considered not being here. It’s one thing to say, “We’ve been arguing a lot.” It’s another to own, “We almost split up, and part of that is on me.”

I’ve had to do that work too. There were times I wanted to die. There were seasons in my marriage where we were seriously considering calling it quits. If we had, we wouldn’t have the twins. My life as a dad, the story I have with my wife and kids, none of that would exist if younger me had followed through on the most desperate thoughts or if my wife and I had walked away at our lowest point. So when I say therapy doesn’t make you soft, I’m not doing branding. I’m speaking from experience. This work will ask you to tell the truth about the hurt you caused and the hurt you received. It will ask you to grieve the love you never got from your parents and confront the ways you tried to squeeze that love out of your kids or your spouse. None of that is soft. That’s heavy lifting. That’s soul reconstruction.

And ironically, the more honest you get about your weakness, the stronger you actually become.

A Different Kind of Strength

If we’re going to redefine strength, we can’t do it by pretending weakness doesn’t exist. Real strength is the ability to face reality as it is, not as you wish it was, not as you’re performing it online, but as it actually is in your gut. Sometimes reality is, “I can’t do this by myself.”Sometimes it’s, “My marriage won’t survive if I keep living like this.”Sometimes it’s, “I’m not okay, and I haven’t been okay for a long time.” Owning that doesn’t make you less of a man. It gives you back your choices. You can’t change what you’re still lying to yourself about. And there’s a strange, quiet power in saying, “I need help,” and letting that be true. That’s not weakness, that’s alignment. Strength, the kind I’m interested in, is both tenderness and power sitting side by side. It’s the guy in the room who could blow everything up but chooses to stay grounded instead. It’s the man who can cry about his past and still show up for his family. It’s the dad who admits to his kids, “I was wrong,” and means it. That’s the kind of strength therapy helps build - steady, honest, and deeply human.

If You’re Still Wondering If Therapy Makes You Soft

If you’ve read this far, something in you is already wrestling with the question. Maybe you’re the guy scrolling late at night, thinking about calling someone but not quite ready to take the leap. Maybe you’ve tried therapy before and ended up with a therapist who felt more like a polite friend than someone who could hold your story. Here’s what I’d say to you:The fear you feel about starting is real, but it’s not the whole story. You’re already living with the weight you’re afraid to face. You’re already paying the cost, sleepless nights, short fuse, distance in your marriage, feeling like you’re failing the people you love the most. The work might be hard, but so is carrying all of that alone. Therapy doesn’t make you soft. It makes you solid.It helps you understand the story that built you so it stops quietly controlling you.That isn’t weakness. That’s freedom. If this landed with you, don’t keep it to yourself. Share it with a friend who’s been wondering if therapy is worth it.

For more real, raw, unfiltered conversations on manhood, marriage, and mental health, follow @themajopodcast on all social platforms and on YouTube, Spotify, and other podcast platforms so you don’t miss a Wednesday episode.

And if you want more reflections like this in between shows, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at @thegiant_therapist, and on Facebook at @thetherapygiant.

When You’re Ready To Do This Work For Real

If something in this stirred something awake in you — if you felt that pull in your chest like, “Damn… I think it’s time for me to actually talk to someone” — I’d be honored to sit with you. I work with men, women, and couples who are tired of carrying old stories alone… people who are ready to understand themselves, repair what’s been broken, and build relationships they don’t have to perform in. If you want to explore what therapy could look like with me, or you just need a safe place to start the deeper work, you can book a consult call to see if we would be a good fit here: https://www.thegianttherapist.com/booking-calendar/initial-phone-consultation?referral=service_list_widget

You’re not soft for wanting to heal. You’re just finally tired of carrying it alone.