Painfully Honest Mantras of a Therapist in Training

Counseling can be difficult. I speak for myself and my classmates when I say we are all truly starting to understand how listening to the struggles and traumas of other people can cause us to build up excess emotion and carry unnecessary burdens. Sometimes I feel like Zooey Deschanel in this video and am afraid that my emotions will explode while I'm at work, completely destroying any amount of professionalism I have worked to uphold. In the field of mental health, it's so easy to get weighed down by the struggles and the sadness.

So this week I'm going to lighten up my blog a little bit, bring in some ever popular self deprecating humor, and shed light onto what it's like to be a novice intern counselor. Here are the painfully honest yet not completely serious but kind of serious mantras I use to get through the day when I see myself getting all too serious and overwhelmed for my own good.

1) Fake it til you make it. Someday you will actually know what you're doing.

2) As long as your clients don't leave in worse condition than they came to you in, you're not a complete failure.

3) Remember to eat lunch and go to the bathroom every once in a while.

4) He can't read my poker face, p-p-poker face. (Aka you can freak out on the inside as long as you keep that soothing counselor face on.)

5) When all else fails, run to your supervisor and word vomit all over their sorry behind.

6) Relax and go with the flow, you crazy control freak. (This one is probably specific to just me but oh well.)

So what's the point of me sharing this? It's because one of the most important lessons I've learned from my experiences working with adolescents at the hospital is that I absolutely need to encourage and take care of myself in order to help other people. Quite honestly, if I'm a hot mess then other people are going to notice and I will be less competent to perform my duties. That fact alone is what motivates me. These teenagers all have such bright futures and if guiding them through that means I have to tell myself ridiculous sayings to loosen myself up and refocus my efforts, then that's what I'm going to do.

This all ties into the art of mindfulness. If we as humans are able to become more aware of what we are feeling and experiencing in the moment, we then have greater control over how we react to life's stresses, how we behave, and most importantly how we make other people feel. Today one of my patients told me "you can't give what you don't have." And little did she know how much this meant to me! As a novice counselor I must remain in a good place emotionally and spiritually in order to help others. But even more so, we should all take care of ourselves in order to give of ourselves to those we love. So start writing your encouraging personal mantras! They may not be as sarcastic or self deprecatingly humorous as mine but do what you gotta do, boo boo.