It’s 9 pm and my client day just ended. I needed to pick up my daughter right after and on the way I found myself sifting through moments from my day.
What I experienced was a sense of reverence for what people share with me. For how brave they are. For the work itself.
I was thinking about that fine balance line between feeling self-important, essential to them, and being responsible for an outcome etc…. and what I landed on is that;
I don’t feel responsible for my clients, I feel responsible to them.
I feel so grateful for what this works gives to me, and such a respect for it and them, that I want to be constantly raising the bar on self-love, support, acceptance, and my own accountability.
This work makes me want to be a better person. Their strength and courage fuels me. I know what it takes to come to that first appointment. The sweating, the indecisiveness, the anxiety, and the cold hard fear. It’s the same as if we were looking in the mirror under fluorescent lighting.
I never see the way I do Client work as me being the gas station and them being the car. The way I do work I don’t burn out because it’s a beautiful reciprocity. Where I have true respect to my core for the experiences of each and every individual.
Listen I am by no means perfect. My mind can wander. Some people’s demons rattle the cages of mine easier than others. I make plenty of mistakes. I am a human. But I’m always interested passionately in their experience as a human being, down to the most mundane interaction they are describing. Because there are always clues to be had about their worldview or value systems.
I can do something with anything. And being given a challenge to push through my discomforts and self-defeating barriers, makes me feel alive!
Client work makes me feel alive.
It is important. To be allowed to process our thoughts and feelings in an arena that provides acceptance and safety is important.
I get energized by holding this special place in the world.
It is an honor.
I wish I could get out more complete ideas, or do an update like I have been wanting to. But this honor also leaves me spent at the end of the day. In the best of ways my brain is scrambled eggs. I think of my youth and that silly commercial this is your brain on drugs. Except in this case it’s this is your brain on Clients.
Except I could never keep a story that I am drained by it. I don’t need that to feel validated about how much I give or how important I am. It’s ok for me to be energized by my work, without the story.
When I’m exhausted these days it’s such a satisfied exhausted. After a days long hard work.
Which speaking of I did have a thought I want to look further into…. I wonder how many calories I burn being a therapist. So much emotional energy my heart is often high during sessions, but I’m animated and engaged. Tonight when I ate, I ate as if I had worked out for hours. I wonder how much using our mental energy burns in terms of calories etc. I wonder what other therapists out there are the same.
I often joke that some of my therapy days are so deep it’s as if I ran a 20k.
I’m curious exhausted. I’m happy exhausted. I’m fulfilled exhausted. I can feel great and tired and that’s such a cool thing to wrap my brain around. The only template I had about exhaustion before was to make a problem or make myself wrong.
I’ve thought things such as what if Client work is killing me physically. When in actuality my not loving and accepting myself fully is the root of all of my ailments. Never someone’s energy being harmful to mine. That’s such a dangerous belief system, and it makes the problem outside of us rather than inside.
Anyway my last shreds of bandwidth are rapidly deteriorating. Perhaps I’ll be able to follow up tomorrow morning.
Warmly, Universally, Cosmically,
your companion on this journey we call living…