Intentional Therapist: Putting You In Your Schedule

While we give ourselves permission for a break over the summer months (and we hope you are doing the same!), we thought it was a great time to revisit this early podcast episode.  How we think about time really is the foundation for building more effective and sustainable self-care practices. ---------- Ever feel like there’s just never enough time in the day? You’re juggling client sessions, fami...

How often have you actually taken the time to think about and plan your self-care?  If you’re like most therapists this likely hasn’t been a regularly occurring event and, in fact, may have never even crossed your mind.  Yet doing this is such an important component of ensuring that our self-care is matching our current realities.  Especially when our responsibilities, energy, and capacity often s...

Leaders often shape the culture of self-care in their workplaces — whether intentionally or not. And sometimes the most compassionate, competent clinicians are also the ones unintentionally modelling overwork, over-responsibility, and depletion as normal. Today we are closing out our discernment series with a bonus episode, where we’re exploring the hidden leadership beliefs that can inadvertently...

What if the stress you’re carrying at work isn’t a sign of something you are doing wrong, but a sign that something around you isn’t healthy?  Many therapists are quick to assume burnout, frustration, or dread must be a personal failing:  poor boundaries, weak coping, not enough self-care.  But sometimes the problem isn’t you. Sometimes the workplace itself is the problem. In today’s episode, we e...

Have you ever had a point in your career where it felt as though something shifted for you, and not in a good sense?  Maybe it was a general sense of feeling more drained or perhaps noticing a shift in your ability to keep up with the myriad of tasks and responsibilities related to your professional role.  If so, you’re definitely not alone.   And, unfortunately, when those things set in it’s easy...

Have you ever been good at something (like your work), and still felt drained by it?  It might sound strange, but it is not unusual to be competent and even excellent at what we do, and still feel that something about our work feels heavy, or off.  And that is often the moment that we start to assume something is wrong with us.  But what if that isn’t actually true? What if the issue has nothing t...

If you’re anything like us you probably remember times in graduate school where you told yourself something like “This won’t last forever, once I graduate I’ll have more time for myself.” And, at the time, it made sense, you truly believed it, and it worked, because, these kinds of thoughts helped us say “no” to things that would take us away from our studies and say “yes” to things that ensured o...

Pop quiz:  How many of these beliefs resonate for you? If I’m not exhausted, I must not be working hard enough. My schedule reflects my value. My clients’ outcomes are my responsibility. Nice therapists don’t rock the boat. If I charge more, I’m exploiting people. If I don’t know the answer, I’m failing. If you said all of them, congratulations, you are a typical hardworking and dedicated female t...

If you’re like most therapists, there have undoubtedly been times in your career when you’ve found yourself struggling with work and trying to figure out why.  Figuring out the “why” to our struggles can be a great step towards finding ways to reduce our struggles.  Yet, at the same time, it’s not always easy to identify the source and, in fact, we believe it can be easy to get it wrong.  And when...

If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “Why does self-care feel harder right now, even though I’m doing all the right things?” , you’re not alone. For many therapists, the struggle isn’t a lack of discipline or commitment, but a mismatch between what we’re asking of ourselves and the season we’re actually in. Our energy, capacity, and needs aren’t fixed—they shift over time, just like the seasons...

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you think, “Wait, didn’t I already do this yesterday?  And all the days before?”  Same alarm.  Same email inbox.  Same clients with eerily familiar struggles.  Same promises to yourself that next week will be different.  If that resonates, you’re not alone — and you’re definitely not failing. Today, we’re taking inspiration from the movie Groundhog Day to...

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to talk about self-care with our clients, and how incredibly hard it can be to actually practice it in our own lives? As therapists, we can quote the research, share the strategies, name the patterns. And yet, when it comes time to recognize our own needs, something in us hesitates and our own needs quietly slip to the bottom. But what if self-care isn’t someth...

What if the strongest form of self-care isn’t what you do by yourself… but who you allow in? As therapists, we spend our days holding space for others. We encourage our clients to lean into support, to reach out, to know they don’t have to carry it all alone. And yet — how often do we allow the same for ourselves? In this final episode of our Upgrade your self-care belief system mini-series, we’re...

How often do you intentionally sit down to reflect on your self-care?  If you are like most of us, probably not very often!  Even if you are a regular listener of this podcast, and hopefully check in with your self-care more often than not, you are also human!  The reality is that it takes energy and awareness to make our self-care a priority.  And we can do this, but it won’t happen automatically...

How many of you remember the ‘set it and forget it’ rotisserie oven infomercials from the 1990’s?  Even if that doesn’t ring a bell, the fact is that as humans we love the idea of only having to do something once, and then not having to think about it again.   In this episode, we’re talking about how this allure creates a sneaky but very common belief: that self-care is also something you can just...

When you think about why self-care is hard, what comes to mind? Maybe not enough time, or feeling guilty, or just forgetting until you’re completely burned out. The dominant story says: if you can’t manage your self-care, you’re not disciplined enough. You’re not resilient enough. Maybe you’re just not cut out for this work. But here’s the twist: what if these struggles aren’t actually personal fa...

How many times have you said — or thought — ‘I’d love to take better care of myself, but I just don’t have the time’? Or, ‘I’m way too tired.’ Or maybe, ‘I can’t afford it right now.’  These are probably the three biggest roadblocks therapists and other caring professionals name when it comes to self-care: time, energy, and money.   And we get it — those are real constraints.  But here’s the thing...

Here’s something that might surprise you:  some of the best self-care doesn’t feel good in the moment.  Think about it — how many times have you dreaded going for a run, having that hard conversation, or finally making the dentist appointment you’ve been putting off… only to feel so much lighter, clearer, and better afterward? We often expect self-care to look easy and comforting, like bubble bath...

When was the last time you said ‘no’ to someone? And we don’t mean a playful no, or a no with an apology attached, but a real, solid, unapologetic ‘no.’ If you’re anything like most therapists — especially women in our field — that question might make you squirm a little. Because somewhere along the way, we got the message that taking care of ourselves means we’re taking something away from someon...

If you’re a therapist who feels like self-care always comes last, you’re not alone. Most of us were trained—implicitly or explicitly—to treat our own needs as optional, something to squeeze in after clients, paperwork, and family demands. But what if that belief is exactly what’s draining your energy, your clarity, and even your ability to show up fully for the people you serve? In today’s episode...

What if your to-do list isn’t the problem — but rather a quiet signal that one of your self-care pillars is out of balance? As therapists, we’re trained to notice these signs in others, but we often overlook the gentle nudges from within:  things like a creeping sense of resentment, a loss of joy, or a growing disconnection from the parts of ourselves that used to feel vibrant. As we kick off a ne...

What if the real secret to sustainable self-care isn’t about working harder—or even trying to be “better”—but simply about noticing, connecting, and giving yourself permission to take small, imperfect steps? In today’s episode, we’re taking a second look at the many self-care experiments we’ve shared throughout the year to reveal a refreshingly doable framework that can support you, not just in th...

Have you ever looked at your schedule and wondered why everyone else’s needs made the cut—but yours didn’t?  In this podcast episode, we’re exploring a question we hear all the time: Why can’t I actually put myself in my schedule?!  If you resonate with this question, know that you are not alone, and, that you are not doing anything wrong.   Please stick around as we explore what contributes to th...

What does your typical day look like?  Does it include regularly occurring breaks or do you often find yourself constantly on the go?  If you’re like most of the female mental health therapists we’ve spoken with, most of your days probably feel like you’re going non-stop, both at work and at home.  And while there can admittedly be some sense of accomplishment that comes with fitting as many thing...

Have your sessions with clients ever incorporated the topic of assertiveness and its related benefits?  If so, then you’re likely familiar with the “Personal Bill of Rights” and how eye opening this resource can be to clients, particularly those who’ve regularly either ignored their needs or put them well below those of others. The Personal Bill of Rights can offer our clients a different way of t...