SOUL CARE FOR THERAPISTS WITH JANE CARTER: SOUL CARE SERIES PART 3 OF 4 | EP 34

Do you feel like an impostor? Are you struggling with vulnerability in the therapy room? How can you create a safe space for soul care?

In this podcast episode, Dawn Gabriel speaks with Jane Carter about soul care for therapists.  We discuss how you can open yourself up to your clients, manage your vulnerability by establishing boundaries, and develop a positive outlook.

MEET JANE CARTER

 

As both a business coach and a psychotherapist, Jane loves helping people navigate the path to achieving their goals for a meaningful life. She applies these principles in her own life in the mountains of Asheville, NC, where she’s an outdoorswoman, world-traveler, dog-mama, food-and-wine lover, and coffee-shop connoisseur. 

Jane has a degree in Counseling from Vanderbilt University, a degree in History from Colorado College, and a habit of buying books faster than she can possibly read them all.

Visit Jane Carter’s website and connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.

FREEBIE: Jane offers free “Q&A Café” zoom Coaching Sessions listeners can attend.      

IN THIS PODCAST:

  • Doing the deeper work as a therapist
  • Vulnerability in learning how to receive
  • Foreboding joy
  • Soul care

Doing the deeper work as a therapist

There are going to be factors that are out of your control, there are going to be feelings that come up… It’s very easy to get derailed. (Jane Carter)

When starting or running a business, therapists run into all sorts of mental roadblocks:

  • Worthiness when it comes to what you’re charging
  • Impostor syndrome
  • Fear of being seen
  • Believing that the journey has to involve suffering

I want you to start modeling your clients that it’s okay to enjoy your life and to receive good things. And that you can both do that and have empathy and care for other people. Those two don’t cancel each other out. (Jane Carter)

Vulnerability in learning how to receive

There is so much caution in the Bible about receiving a lot and not giving. Therapists have ended up in this role where our safe space is to be the helper. Being in this role has a lot of power and can make you feel safe.

But you’re not always called to be safe all the time. We need to start putting up very clear boundaries around our time. Clients need to show up on time for their sessions, and we need to be open to receiving really good money for the work we do with our clients.

For someone who is comfortable being the helper or the martyr, it can feel really vulnerable to receive something from our clients.

If we’re too comfortable, we may not necessarily be growing. And the thing we think of as discomfort might actually be our comfort zones. (Jane Carter)

Foreboding joy

It’s that thing we do where when things get too good, we start to get really scared. (Jane Carter)

Our brain is programmed to seek out negativity because it feels safer to rehearse the worst-case scenario. This is an illusion of control and in so many ways, control is the opposite of faith. It robs you of the joy of the moment.

When you are experiencing foreboding joy, the most important thing you can do is to notice it happening and come back to the present – don’t ruin the present with the fear of the future.

Soul care

I need to go somewhere where I can fall apart and be a mess and not be pouring out all the time. (Jane Carter)

It’s vitally important that you have a space outside of work where you can just let down your guard and just be you, not the helper or the therapist, but just you. In order to do this, you need to set very clear boundaries.

Soul care is having people that you can receive from and be as messy as you need to be.

Connect with me

Resources Mentioned And Useful Links: