So, I’ve been on a much needed sabbatical. From just about everything…..the usual stressors of life that is. I am regaining my strength and believe I will be a much better therapist having done this. I am excited about the future….and look forward to getting back to WORK soon. I will check in with you later!
If the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” then I am insane. 12 hour days should not be in the vocabulary of a helping professional at least not regularly. It is insane to think that you can continue at this rate and not expect to burn out. Even if you take really good care of yourself. What I have found is if I work myself insane during my normal hours, then my days off are spent trying to recover instead of doing things that feed the soul (like spending time with family and friends, and doing fun things); instead I am relaxing in bed or on the coach, until time to do it all over again. Insanity…..who’s ready for a change?
I made it!! At the time I started this blog, I didn’t know just how busy May would be. I knew that I wouldn’t be posting everyday, but I didn’t think it would take me a month either. It has been tough….there are so many changes going on in the social service/counseling field and absolutely no one has gone untouched. So yes, I have been super busy with work but I am PLEASED to say that I have held on and it is a lazy Saturday morning….oops afternoon now. As busy as May was, let me tell you that I had an AWESOME time. Life is good……Amidst all the work, I have kept my work weeks relatively short. It makes for jammed packed work hours but I have been successful in not taking work home and emotionally leaving it there. Here’s how….I worked hard because I knew I would be playing hard. Oh yeah…My husband and I visited Cairo and Luxor, Egypt from May 11-19. Talk about getting away! It was magical, spiritual, humbling, HOT, challenging…..you name it and I absolutely loved it. The pyramids, the valley of the kings and queens, and temple of karnack were the best. The food was delicious! Prior to the trip, I surprised my out of town girlfriend on her birthday and just showed up at her house, that same day I helped my sister and mother move. My husband and I also committed to helping a local women and children’s shelter by purchasing supplies for them. I think that in this line of work it is necessary to maintain connections with family, friends, and strangers on a personal level as much as possible because we do so much to help our clients or whomever we work for that it is easy to lose site of the fact that we get paid for it. At the end of the day, it is a job…a career…..a business….not our LIFE. Our family, friends, and the “giving” we do from our personal place of being a human being is what our life consists of. Now I have plenty of moments when I say “I would do this work even if I didn’t get paid for it.” And I have neglected family, friends and self plenty of time…for work or because I was so emotionally exhausted from work. Shame on me! Remember that this blog is about saving self so that we can be around to do the work that we love. So if it seems a bit radical to separate the two this way……this is my work, this is my life…then it is. I have found it to be critical to my own self care plan. It may not work for all. It is a cognitive shift that has allowed me to separate the two just enough to enjoy my life and my work. For those who easily place their work as only a part of life and enjoy both, HOORAY! But if you are anything like me…..a recovering workaholic and codependent…..give this site a chance to change your LIFE too. Okay, so I am rambling now…..before I go though I want to give a shout out to Dr. Jayne Mahboubi and future MSW Dru Barber. Another exciting thing I did in May was have brunch with them. I love those women…..Jayne is the social worker I want to become and Dru is the most natural social worker I know who has finally stopped fighting it and chose to get the degree. They keep me grounded and laughing…..which is another prescription for self care. Let’s see what June will bring!
I am an energetic and enthusiastic change agent who has spent the past 18 years practicing the art of social work in a variety of settings. The last 12 of those years have found me at home in a clinical social work settings specifically in the field of chemical addiction. I received my Bachelors in Social Work from Clark Atlanta University in 1993 and later my Masters in Social Work from the University of Georgia in 1997. I became licensed in the state of Georgia as a clinical social worker in 2002 and in the same year became a master addiction counselor as recognized by NAADAC. I have worked religiously at my craft since then often times managing several “gigs” at one time until about two years ago when I realized that I was not practicing what I was preaching to a group of professional counseling students I taught practicum seminar. At that time, I looked up and realized I had no time for me and I was in a constant state of chasing my tail. Fortunately for me, I know the value of therapy and immediately made an appointment to see my own to sort out what was happening to me. It gave me an opportunity to breathe, sit in the moment and realize that I was causing irreparable damage to my own mental health for the sake of my clients, students, and organizations I had committed to. I then realized that what I was doing to myself was unethical practice…I wholeheartedly believe in the ethics of self care. I has become my mission to encourage others like me to take responsibility for taking care of self in order to be available to do the work that we love doing in the first place. This blog has been created as a means for me to communicate my passion for self care and prevent the increasingly more common compassion fatigue and burn out. We deserve it!
Yes, hello world it is. I am back….well you didn’t know that I had left did you? Okay, so the first line of business is that I think that I have a GREAT sense of humor and very few others agree with me but that’s okay. My humor is what keeps me sane sometimes so I will use it at all costs. Back to where I have been…..many years ago, about 16 to be exact, I created and pitched an idea to my small town weekly newspaper The Lincoln Journal. They agreed to publish my brand new advice column called “Take It From Me.” It wasn’t as successful as I had hoped and eventually turned into more of an editorial, then fizzled out over the course of about a year but it has always been in the back of mind and yearning to return one day. Today is that day! Many things have happened over the past 16 years and I have grown from a small town social worker wanting to get my liberal and sometimes radical points across to a sophisticated urban therapist who have experienced enough to know that in order to survive a profession of taking on others problems, self care is like daily hygiene, a MUST! So take it from me…..we need to practice what we preach. This blog is designed to be just that, a way to honor ourselves and honor what we do, while honoring our clients. Talk to you later…
