A long time away
I cannot believe that it is nearly five years since I last posted anything on this blog. In fact today I was trying to create a new blog but somehow I kept getting sent back to this site and so, I guess I am going to just carry on using it although possibly in a slightly different way.
Since I last wrote anything, I have retired from work and moved with my partner to a different part of the country.
The word 'retired' makes me sound so old and even though I am going to be 60 next month, I don't consider that to be old at all.
If I am being honest, my enthusiasm for my work had started to ebb which in turn, caused me to worry that I was no longer being a effective or for that matter empathic in what I was doing. I found myself wanting to find solutions for people's problems and as any therapist will tell you, that isn't what it's about at all. I wonder in part whether the need to do that was because I no longer felt capable of staying with people's pain. Anyway, my conscience told me that the best thing was to hang up my therapy hat and move on.
Not that I think for one minute that the skills, knowledge and wisdom will go unused for the rest of my life, rather that there's a new direction for me to go now.
Another aspect of having been a therapist I noticed was that I made a pretty rubbish friend. Partly because I was sort of emotionally satiated by the end of a working day and couldn't risk having to 'be there' for anyone else, but also- and I don't know if you agree with me on this one- friends tend to ask questions, offer sympathy, and are proactive in pursuing relationships. Therapists on the other hand, might ask questions, but also might wait until information is volunteered, are trained to avoid showing sympathy or offering advice and definitely don't go looking for clients........! At times, I found myself confusing the two.
So as I said, here I am retired, with more free time than I know what to do with at the moment; living in a new part of the country and occasionally wondering what the hell I have done?
Reading back through it doesn't look good does it?
Since I last wrote anything, I have retired from work and moved with my partner to a different part of the country.
The word 'retired' makes me sound so old and even though I am going to be 60 next month, I don't consider that to be old at all.
If I am being honest, my enthusiasm for my work had started to ebb which in turn, caused me to worry that I was no longer being a effective or for that matter empathic in what I was doing. I found myself wanting to find solutions for people's problems and as any therapist will tell you, that isn't what it's about at all. I wonder in part whether the need to do that was because I no longer felt capable of staying with people's pain. Anyway, my conscience told me that the best thing was to hang up my therapy hat and move on.
Not that I think for one minute that the skills, knowledge and wisdom will go unused for the rest of my life, rather that there's a new direction for me to go now.
Another aspect of having been a therapist I noticed was that I made a pretty rubbish friend. Partly because I was sort of emotionally satiated by the end of a working day and couldn't risk having to 'be there' for anyone else, but also- and I don't know if you agree with me on this one- friends tend to ask questions, offer sympathy, and are proactive in pursuing relationships. Therapists on the other hand, might ask questions, but also might wait until information is volunteered, are trained to avoid showing sympathy or offering advice and definitely don't go looking for clients........! At times, I found myself confusing the two.
So as I said, here I am retired, with more free time than I know what to do with at the moment; living in a new part of the country and occasionally wondering what the hell I have done?
Reading back through it doesn't look good does it?
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