It signifies the unknown but also the letter “U” kinda giving you the finger.
So. I woke up the other day and had a multi-part epiphany, as is the custom among my overthinkish people.
The first part is that I don’t just enjoy giving readings to clients; I adore giving readings to clients. I mean, when I know I have readings coming up, I feel energized, excited, hopeful, happy. Part two of my epiphany is recognizing that I want to make it my main work, and do the muggle shrink stuff on the side. That was a major revelation to me, and I had to laugh at the fact that I’d never really given it serious consideration before.
I can only assume I never thought seriously about it because becoming a clinical psychologist is a long process. I’ve put a good amount of front-end work into my professional life. Four years of college, then eight hundred years of gradual school, followed by internship, post-doctoral training, and then licensure. Then of course there’s continuing education, supervision of trainees, workshops, and actually assessing and treating patients and writing reports and whatnot. And let’s not even talk about on-call.
I’ve been involved with psychology in some fashion (mostly voluminous floral print dresses and white tights back in the day oh goddess why why did I bring this up) since 1988 when I took Psychology 101 in college. And even before that, I was always fascinated by the workings of the brain and mind, and bought my own garage-sale copy of Freud’s classic, The Interpretation of Dreams, at age 12. Yeah. Total psych nerd, and proudly so.
What initially motivated me? Pure curiosity. I wanted to understand how this squishy Jello-lookin’ thing that only weighed a few pounds could possibly function without benefit of gears or pulleys. I wanted to get to the whys and wherefores of human existence. A tad lofty for a 12 year-old, but whatev.
Fast forward to today. What motivates me now isn’t the same thing. After many years of being privileged to serve others as a psychologist, I now want to serve in a different way.
Make no mistake; I paid some dues over the years. My right foot and left ankle are kinda blown from standing around on concrete floors. I’ve seen a lot of life’s underbelly. I’ve dented a lot of wristwatches by clanging them against rebarred concrete walls and steel doors. My working environments haven’t exactly been suited for the dainty, or, arguably, the sane. But I chose them deliberately. I made a few serious attempts at working “on the outs” in posh practices and such, but invariably I eventually drifted into feeling unchallenged, disinterested, and stifled, and once more unto the breach I’d return.
I even opened my own psychotherapy practice here. But I still had half my ass in the broom closet and wasn’t really paying attention. I wanted to somehow keep my weird ugly psychic secret on the DL so that no one noticed or made fun of me in professional circles. I reflexively cared about what some fictive “others” in my head thought of me, to the exclusion of my own deepest desires.
I get to have desires? What?
But as I’ve said before - a life lived in fear, is a life half-lived. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
And those of us who have decided on a life of service share a common trait; putting ourselves last. I’m not the only one. Just ask any nurse if they’ve peed within recent memory. Ask a law enforcement professional how well they sleep. Ask a teacher if they use their planning time for its intended purpose. Women are taught to do this, regardless of profession. Irish Catholic women like whut raised me are TOLD to do this. And it’s bollocks. You can’t be effective if you’re tired all the time, a kind of tired sleep won’t fix. You can’t be really present to your loved ones if you’re running around like a goddamned chicken trying to heal the world. I know this. I knew this. I have known this a long damn time.
But I didn’t feel it really, not deep down in my bones. It was kind of a nice idea that I would sometimes try to heed by scheduling massages or scheduling time with friends. But after awhile, the work would seem to take over, like a tide rolling in, pulling me back out to into the demands of whatever work I was doing. Teaching, committee work, clinical work, supervision, consulting, you name it - in the last few years it’s been all of the above.
I think one of the toughest things during the last year or so has been letting go. I think the Buddhists would saying I’m trying let go of illusion and see things as they simply are. I’m used to pushing, planning, charging, climbing, strategizing, striving, molding, shaping, challenging, trying, doing, analyzing, thinking, goal-setting, accomplishing, yadda yadda. And the long and the short of it is that anymore I don’t want do this like I’ve been doing it.
In the coming months I’ll be adding a lot more readings and subtracting a lot of clinical stuff, and also continuing to finish my various writing projects as I apply this course-correction. Pulling up this 1988 vintage anchor isn’t easy. But I have my heading now, and for once it’s not against the wind. Christ, did this just devolve into a Bob Seger lyric?
Anycuteboatshoes, I’m changing up the website. Be sure to look for some newsletter-type bullshit on a landing page, and for my eBooks when I decide they can be born into the world. I might make a few videos of myself pontificating and then I’ll realize that videos aren’t my thing and then someone will point out that hey, maybe pontificatey videos are totally my thing after all and then I’ll change my mind and you’ll still be stuck with the pontificating. Chagrin ensues, but you put up with it because I’m on a goddamned sailboat and there’s nothing you can do about it.
This song has been stuck in my head for the last several weeks.
