The Slow Work of Therapy: On Time, Tending, and What Can’t Be Rushed

We live in a world that moves fast.
Appointments back-to-back. Notifications blinking.
Fix yourself, optimise your day, be better by morning.

Even healing has been folded into this rhythm.
Trackable, measurable, quick.
A podcast episode to end overthinking.
A new habit to rewire your brain by Friday.
A reel that promises relief in 30 seconds or less.

This is Chronos time — clock time. The time of tasks and deadlines.
And it has its place. We need structure. We need mornings and meetings and meals.
But therapy, at least the kind I offer, lives elsewhere.

Therapy unfolds in Kairos time.
A different tempo altogether.
Unhurried. Lived. Felt.
The kind of time where something meaningful ripens — not on schedule, but when it’s ready.

Kairos doesn’t care for calendars.
A shift might take months, or arrive quietly one Tuesday afternoon after sitting with something tender for weeks.
You might circle back. Pause. Let go of what you thought would fix you.

This isn’t failure.
It’s how deep change happens — not through willpower alone, but through presence. Through attention. Through allowing what’s been pushed down to slowly surface.

And yes, it can be uncomfortable.
Especially when the world around you is speeding ahead.
Especially when some part of you is whispering: Shouldn’t I be over this by now?

But I’ve found — in my own life and in the therapy room — that the slow work is often the truest work.
Not dramatic. Not instant.
Just quietly life-altering.

Therapy invites a different kind of time.
One that doesn’t demand that you perform wellness.
One that invites you to listen.
To stay with what’s murky or aching or unresolved.
To follow the rhythms of your nervous system, not the urgency of the world.

Quick fixes might soothe you for a while.
But this slower path — the path of curiosity, of courage, of patience —
that’s the path that shapes something lasting.

And the life that grows from here?
It won’t be measured by how quickly you heal.
But by how deeply you come to know yourself.
How fully you’re able to meet the world — with steadiness, with compassion, with truth.

If this resonates — if you’re tired of rushing and ready to go deeper —
you can reach out here.