What the Things We’re Drawn to Can Tell Us About Ourselves

Long before I became a therapist, I was drawn to design.

I loved seeing the way people decorated their homes and the stories those spaces could tell. The books on a shelf, the art someone chose, the things they collected, the objects they kept around them. They could reveal something about a person's interests, their hobbies, what they found beautiful, interesting, or exciting. It always felt like a tiny window into who someone was.

That curiosity eventually led me to pursue a career in design. I worked as a set decorator, a home stager, an interior designer, and later, a professional organizer.

I have always loved creating spaces that feel good to be in.

Organizing, in particular, has always come naturally to me. I genuinely love it. Even now, I am constantly creating little systems and methods for our home because having things feel organized and intentional makes me feel better.

I also love the idea of curating. Choosing what we want to surround ourselves with and deciding what feels meaningful enough to keep.

I think our surroundings can tell us something about ourselves. What are we repeatedly drawn to? What do we choose to hold onto? What makes a space feel like ours?

But eventually, I realized that what interested me most wasn't really the space itself. It was the person inside of it.

I wanted to understand people more deeply.

There were parts of design that I loved, but over time I found myself wanting more connection with people than the work was giving me.

Therapy gave me a way to follow that curiosity somewhere deeper.

Instead of learning about someone through the home they create or the things they surround themselves with, I get to know them through their relationships, experiences, patterns, questions, contradictions, and all of the different parts of who they are.

And unlike design, there is no finished room.

There will always be more to understand about another person. There will always be another perspective I haven't considered, something new to learn, or a different way of looking at an experience. That ongoing learning is one of the things I value most about being a therapist.

I used to think changing careers meant leaving one part of my life behind and beginning something completely different.

Now I see much more of a connection between the two.

I've always been curious about what makes something feel distinctly our own. I used to explore that through the spaces people created around themselves. Now I get to explore it through the lives people are creating for themselves.

And I think I've always been interested in the same thing: understanding what makes someone who they are.