Was your career choice made by flipping a coin?
It may come as no surprise that many people are quite confused about what they are in the therapy world for. On the one hand they want to heal people, on the other they want to earn money. And often those two instincts appear to be almost diametrically at odds with each other. Therapists may spend several years trying to run a business that is, quite honestly, unprofitable but something stops them asking for more money or more clients.
Why is that? This is what I’ve seen. I often realise on talking to colleagues new to the Open Mind way that a lot of our desire to heal others, is also to put right the wrongs of our own histories. On some level or another, often quite unconscious – despite the fact we are trained to access the subconscious minds of our clients – therapists are still striving to find equilibrium in themselves and to quieten their aching souls. Several supervisees have mentioned to me over the years that they feel like a fraud when they work with clients whose ‘stuff’ so closely resonates with their own. And these therapists are the lucky ones. They recognise the source of their own performance anxiety. Many have yet to get there.
Our healing comes, as we teach others how to heal themselves. Put another way, in order to help others out of their psychic impasses in their lives, we have to do it ourselves first. If therapists aren’t prepared to acknowledge that their own personal development is probably the most important investment they’ll ever make into their therapy practice, then I sometimes wonder what is the point trying to advertise and raise your reputation and profile. It becomes the paper tiger approach to therap-ing. The outside in approach. The ‘I-can-see-the-lights-are-on-but-there’s-no-one-at-home’ syndrome.
Some people call me or write to me to ask me what I can offer them, or why I might be different to anyone else. Some just call because they’ve seen my site and want to know a bit more about how I can help them in their practices. However, it seems to me that if a hypnotherapist isn’t prepared to look inside themselves to heal their own inner reality, then all the techniques or strategies in the world are rendered pretty ineffectual. So what do I offer? The opportunity to relate on a deeply human level. Supported by my Buddhist practice of nearly 30 years, the ethos of Open Mind is to reach into our own hearts and minds to heal and transform our reality. If we can do it for ourselves, then we know it is possible for others to do it too. It’s only when we’ve not yet done it for ourselves, do we suffer these performance anxieties that send us scampering to our colleagues to find safety in numbers.
Using our supervision and mentorship groups as a base to ‘come home to’ many of our Open Mind therapists are finding a deeper inner confidence and are learning to trust their own instincts and intuition. If you would like to join a group of us our next one will be on 15th June in the Millfield Arts Centre in Edmonton, North London. You can register for it on the home page. Meanwhile, give me a call on 07773 919071 or send me an email and tell me what it is in your practice you are looking for. If I hear what your particular unique issue is, then I’ll be able to better advise you on the route to take to improve your sense of wellbeing, your client numbers, and your profitability.
Spot on Jenny! That is one of the reasons I have stopped working with clients temporarily – there is just so much going on in my life and so much learning to be done about myself that the universe has only given me sufficient energy to do that. Clients have disappeared into the ether too……….. but I see the universe at work here and I know that if I am open to learning even more about myself, clients will reappear when I am sufficiently healed and ‘ready’ to receive them.
In the past, I have noticed that no sooner do I learn something about my issues with food than the universe sends me a client with the same issues! Initially I just thought this was spooky but now I realise that that this is the universe at work!