When You Can’t Make It to Therapy: Let the Ocean Hold the Work

There are days when life pulls you in a hundred directions.

Maybe you missed your therapy session. Maybe it wasn’t the right time. Or maybe you're just trying to keep your head above water right now—and therapy feels a little too far out of reach.

If that’s where you are, I want you to know: you haven’t lost the thread. The work we do together doesn’t vanish between sessions.

In fact, it flows through you like the ocean. Steady, alive, always moving—sometimes visible, sometimes quiet—but always present.

And when you can’t sit with me, you can still sit with that.

The Ocean as Therapist

I often think of the ocean as a co-therapist. There’s something about it—its rhythm, its depth, its refusal to rush—that mirrors the work of healing.

When you can't be in the therapy room, maybe you can get to the water. Or even just imagine it. Close your eyes and remember the last time you stood at the shore.

The ocean doesn’t ask you to be fixed. It doesn’t tell you to hurry. It meets you exactly where you are.

So do I.

1. Let the Waves Teach You How to Be With Yourself

The ocean doesn’t fight its waves—it lets them come and go. When you feel something rising—grief, fear, self-doubt—try saying:

“This is a wave. I don’t have to become it. I can let it move through me.”

You don’t need to solve everything today. You just need to stay present with yourself, like sitting beside the sea and letting it do what it does: ebb and flow.

2. Write Like We’re Sitting at the Shore Together

Take out a notebook or open your notes app. Imagine we’re sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean, and I just asked,

“What’s been pulling at you lately?”

Write without judgment. Let the words come in like waves—messy, uncertain, honest.

Therapy doesn’t have to be eloquent. It just has to be yours.

3. Talk Back to the Tides of Shame or Fear

Sometimes the tide pulls in voices that sound like:
“You’re too much.” “You’re behind.” “You’re never going to get this right.”

If those voices show up, you don’t have to fight them. Just name them. Sit with them like driftwood on the beach:

“Ah, Perfectionism again. You’re back. But I’m not walking with you today.”

Naming a problem is one way of loosening its grip. It’s something we practice often in our work together. And you can do it outside the room, too.

4. Let Small Rituals Be the Shore You Return To

Therapy isn’t only in big breakthroughs. Sometimes it’s in how you make your morning coffee. Or how you step outside and feel the sun. Or how you pause at the edge of the day and take one deep breath.

When you can’t talk to me, talk to the ocean. Talk to the version of yourself who’s healing—who remembers that this isn’t about perfection, but presence.

5. Let the Ocean Remind You: You Are Not Starting Over

If you feel far from the work right now, let me gently remind you:
You are not starting from scratch.

Even when you lose sight of your progress, it’s still there. Like the tide going out—just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean the water has disappeared. It’s shifting, integrating, resting.

You are still doing the work. In quiet ways. In ways no one sees. In ways that matter.

I’ll Be Here When You Come Back to Shore

When you're ready to return, I’ll be here. No need to explain or apologize. We’ll pick up the thread together—gently, curiously, just like we always do.

And in the meantime, let the ocean hold what you can’t. Let it remind you that healing isn’t a straight line—it’s a tide. And you’re allowed to move with it.

Warmly,

Abbey Vince, AMFT