who am I? (sung to the tune of the les miserables song "who am I"...)

 Hey blog friends,

I have a lot going on right now. We all seem to; the world is crumbling for one. 

My grandpa passed away last week and I took a last minute trip to New York to spend time with family. It was full of both love and drama and felt both generative and exhausting. There's a lot to say about all of this but I'm going to trail in an adjacent direction. 

(the below is an example of how I feel on my not so good days; I want to remind myself and tell whoever's reading this that on my good days, things don't feel so...this way...) 

Coming back from my trip, I felt so depleted. However, we live in capitalism so I had to go back to work immediately. The whole week I struggled to function. As a result, my old familiar mean guy voice stuck with me- especially at work. This mean guy voice looked out for proof of my failure as a therapist and latched onto any opportunity to prove this hypothesis. This followed by an old familiar spiral : I'm a failure at my job, so I'm a failure as a person, and I have no worth. It's a fast spiral...

Before I was a therapist, I was an actor. My sense of self worth and identify as an actor were intertwined, knotted up, enmeshed in every which way. If I didn't have an acting job I didn't know who I was or why I mattered. I told myself that when I started my therapist journey that I wouldn't fall into this trap. I told myself that my career doesn't get to be my whole identity. easier said than done...

I may proudly reject capitalism but this doesn't hurt capitalisms feelings; capitalism continues to come to my doorstep, invade my dreams, take over my thoughts, and control access to my basic needs. It's obsesssssed with me. It's obsessed with us all!!!! 

Anyway; here's the thing: I'm really enjoying being a therapist. I chose it as a path because it felt like a path where I could utilize my values, interests and strengths. I might even dare to say I have a passion for therapy; for the venture of  really being with another person in a room; for the requirement of present mindfulness; for the gift of hearing all about what people care about most; for witnessing the stories of others that make up their life narratives ; to reflect, read, write, learn about how to support, help heal, understand, what it is to be alive. It's a pretty cool thing!

 But why, no matter how hard I assert that we are all inherently worthy, must my sense of self worth sometimes rely so heavily on my job? 


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