You’re high functioning but you have struggles like everyone else.
You are the person others turn to when they need support, help, or guidance.
Yet it can get hard to maintain the emotional energy you need to be there for everyone in your life and all your roles, especially if you’re not finding time to recharge yourself.
Because as a therapist, you’re experiencing and hearing things differently than most people due to your specialized training and how you interact with the world. Whether it’s in your business or personal life, you can’t shut that part of yourself off.
You can’t unsee and unhear all the stories that you’ve heard, seen, and held space for.
And that impacts how you view the world and relationships.
Sometimes, it’s too much.
You don’t need to struggle alone.
You’re human and your job can be demanding. You’re juggling lots of responsibilities, running a business, and dealing with your everyday life.
Yet, as therapists, we often expect ourselves to appear like we always have it all together.
But internally, we struggle with emotions and difficult situations just like everyone else, including:
- Self doubts
- Business problems
- Anxiety
- Imposter syndrome
- Fear of failure
- The roller coaster of entrepreneurship
Over time, you may start to feel drained or feel like maintaining your solo or group practice is spilling over into your personal life — leaving you vulnerable to resentment or even burnout.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
You can feel rejuvenated and deepen connections by holding space for yourself and your spiritual journey.
Several years ago, I found myself at a crossroads. I had reached a point in my life and career where I was burned out.
After years of being a therapist and running a successful group practice, I’d end my work days feeling drained, like I had nothing left for my family and my life.
As feelings of resentment toward my practice grew, I went to therapy. I explored additional coping skills, EMDR, and more. Growing up Christian, I even tried prayer.
But nothing touched me deeply enough to help.
Until I discovered the practice of soul care — this sent me on my own journey of spiritual formation with a spiritual director and soul care days.
How the 4 Pillars of Soul Care for Therapists can help you prevent burnout.
As I explored my own spiritual journey, I started to notice core elements, or pillars, that helped me create a deeper and more authentic connection with God.
These pillars helped me hold space for myself and my faith journey — allowing me to incorporate all aspects of myself into my daily life and business.
As a result, I developed a more meaningful and authentic connection to God. Ultimately, this led to deeper spiritual levels of self-care, renewal, and values that I could incorporate into my group practice — allowing me to thrive.
Professionally, I continue to run a successful group practice in Colorado and work as a consultant informed with spiritual direction.
Personally, I enjoy the balance that my soul care and spiritual journey have brought me. I spend time with my husband, two boys, family, and friends. Plus, make time for activities I enjoy, including hiking and sharing deep conversations over chai or wine.
I hope you will also find a deeper and more authentic connection with God or your spirituality as you explore the Pillars of Soul Care for Therapists.
The 4 Pillars of Soul Care for Therapists are:
Spiritual Formation
This is the inner work, and for most, it’s the piece that’s been missing. You’ve likely felt it: something’s off, something’s asking for attention, but you haven’t had a way to get there. That’s because it’s not something you can think your way into. This is experiential: soul care, spiritual direction, and Ignatian exercises that slow you down long enough to actually notice what’s happening in your own sacred story, not just your clients’. It’s space where being tended to by God stops being something you believe and starts being something you feel.
Community
You weren’t meant to carry this work alone, but most therapists do. This pillar is about being known, really known, by people who get exactly what you’re carrying without you having to explain it. It’s the relief of sitting with peers who understand the weight and the beauty of this profession.
Emobodied Nature
This pillar gets you out of your head and into the natural world on purpose, whether that’s a mountain trail or the edge of the ocean, because the beauty of creation speaks to people differently and it should. Movement, breath, and the ground under your feet become pathways to healing, not afterthoughts.
Purpose & Practice
Somewhere along the way it’s easy to lose the why. This pillar is about reconnecting to it: who you are as a practitioner, what you actually value, and what it looks like to build a practice around that instead of around burnout. Consulting, classes, workshops, and webinars, tailored to exactly where you are, are some of the ways this clarity gets translated into how you actually run and grow your practice. It’s clarity, not just credentials, but clarity that goes somewhere.
I honor and Respect What You Believe.
Faith, spirituality, and God can have different meanings depending on your personal beliefs and life experiences.
While I hold Christian beliefs and views, you do not need to be Christian to benefit from incorporating the 5 Pillars of Soul Care for Therapists into your life and business.
All faiths are welcome.
Your spiritual journey is specific to you. I respect and honor your beliefs, and I am not here to change how you believe. I’m simply here for you to aid you in your journey as you incorporate your faith and beliefs more fully into all aspects of your life.
I promise to create a safe, nonjudgmental space and to hold a gracious and big space for wherever you find yourself in your faith journey.
For example, you may be curious or deconstructing or reconstructing your beliefs as I, too, have done.
Ultimately, I meet you where you are with your faith and beliefs to help you integrate your personal spirituality into your business so you and your practice can thrive.
However, there may be times that I use terms like “God,” “He,” and even “She.” I may use stories of Jesus during guided meditations because I believe He truly brings the compassionate and human side of the Trinity to life.
Please talk to me if these are of concern or if certain religious terms are triggering.
Ready to grow a spiritually-centered solo or group practice that doesn’t take over your life.
For over 10 years, I’ve been working with faith-based group practice owners and solo practitioners to help them create, redefine, or grow a sustainable mental health practice that they love.
Contact me today, and let’s see how I can help you.