The Parts We Push Away

I wanted to share something I often say in therapy—and that I’ve had to remind myself of many times too:

Therapy isn’t about fixing you.

It’s about making space for the parts of you that got pushed aside just to survive.

We all have parts of ourselves we’d rather not look at. Maybe they feel too needy, too angry, too vulnerable, too unpredictable. So we exile them. We hide them away, sometimes so deeply that we forget they’re even there.

But here’s the thing:

Those parts don’t disappear. They just wait. And often, they find ways to leak out—through shame, irritation, overreactions, self-sabotage, or exhaustion. And then we judge ourselves for it, layering more shame on top of the pain we were already carrying.

In psychoanalytic work, we talk about this as splitting—dividing ourselves into “acceptable” and “unacceptable” parts. And while splitting can protect us in the short term, the long-term cost is steep:

We lose access to our wholeness.

To our spontaneity.

To parts of ourselves that hold creativity, truth, desire, and even joy.
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Therapy invites us to gently re-meet those split-off parts—not to get rid of them, but to understand why they went into hiding, and what they need now. Integration isn’t quick work, but it’s profoundly healing. It replaces shame with curiosity, fear with self-respect.
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So if you’ve ever caught yourself thinking, “Why am I like this?”

You’re not alone.

You’re not broken.

And you don’t have to push those parts away anymore.

Warmly,

Mirel
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P.S. If this resonates, I’d love to hear from you. What’s one part of you that you’re just beginning to make room for?
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