Making Space to Listen
It's here! This first week of full-time private practice feels unexpectedly familiar to me. After 11 years of working in residential treatment centers, with several of those years spent on call... All. The. Time., I had expected to go through more of a sense of...well...withdrawal. It turns out that regular practice has served me well, making change less traumatic. I continue to access guidance as I have all along; it's just the season of life that has changed once again.
It helps, of course, that I particularly enjoy this type of season. The closest thing to date was the season when I was raising children while writing and editing from home. Then, as now, I got my direction for the day not from the morning email but from taking the time to get centered. Though I certainly did that many (if not most) of the days I worked in treatment centers, there was very little sense of surprise. I knew the next step would be to get in the car and drive to work! And even now, appointments I have set up do give some sense of pre-ordained structure.
The difference is that now I have the luxury of leaving some more space to listen - to music, to traffic & birds, to myself, to you. And part of what I want to support you in doing is to make space to listen to yourself, both when you are with me and when you are away from me. I'm adding a link to an old but dear-to-me book I wrote. You can get it by following the link, or pick it up when you come to the office.