The Brink

The more I work with therapists, the more I feel like they are silently stretched to the point of exhaustion. They are not just burned out…give they a moment of nothingness and they just might collapse from the inside out.

Because we can be a self-critical bunch, we sometimes mistake exhaustion for laziness.

The demands on therapists around the world push a frantic rhythm that the heart pales to follow.
When I talk about making time for development or deliberate practice, many therapists are sympathetic to this ideal, but shrug their shoulders and are swallowed back into the mechanical wheel of the therapy factory.

Who doesn’t want to get grow?

The truth is, many of us are just waiting. Waiting for the right time, the right job, the right situation, the right person to help them return and invest on ourselves. Waiting to return to what we value about our humanity. Waiting to return to what we preach to our clients about self-care. Waiting to return to what brought us into the helping profession in the first place.

We need to care for each other. The therapy enterprise is too lonesome for far too many. Carers need caring for. Writer Anne Lamott goes so far as to say that “radical self-care” is needed, and this is, after all, a feminist issue. In contrast, the “masculine” movement pushes a toxic belief that makes one thinks he or she can see 8-9 clients in a day, back to back, and still be ok (and effective). This is further compounded when the therapist thinks, “I see so many clients in a day because I like my work.”

We need to move in the direction of healing our addiction to busyness.

I’m not spared from this. The more I try to do “faster and better,” the more time moves faster and I’m in a much worse state of mind. I hear my rationale mind play this particular wildcard that tricks me from time to time. This wildcard reads, “It’s ok. After all, I am doing good for others.”

The late poet, theologian and philosopher John O’Donahue says,

“Stress is a perverted relationship to time.”

What are we to do?

White spaces. {  }

Implement white spaces into your schedule. Scatter bits of white spaces across your work-week.

Disconnect.

In periods of white spaces, untether yourself from vices that disguise as connection devices.

It’s hard to be soft with the unfolding of difficult emotions in therapy when we have become so hard on ourselves. Go gently; no need to “work hard, and play hard.” Life needn’t be this hard. Respect the rhythms of the heart before the beat stops drumming for you. (Note to self).

There is no development when we are on the brink of falling into pieces. Let’s help each other pick up the pieces and return to our original vocation.