Episode #22 It’s Time for a Break

Hi, this is Welcome to Self ™ Caring for the Human in the Therapist Chair, and I’m your host, Dr. Hayley D Quinn, fellow human, clinical psychologist, supervisor and trainer. Welcome to Self ™ is a place where you can come and learn ways to elevate your own care and compassion. A place to rest, be soothed, and at times maybe gently challenged to think about yourself and your practice. A place to remember that you are human first, choose the helping profession is just one of the roles in your life. My aim is that this is a place of soothing, comfort, nourishment, growth and nurture. A place where you can also welcome your self.

 

Hi and welcome to another episode. The final episode for Season Two. I can’t believe we are at the end of season two already!! It’s been such a pleasure chatting with everyone and hearing your feedback on the episodes and now it’s time for a break. Time for me to switch off from this for a little while and come back refreshed for Season Three.

 

I really want to say a big thank you to all of you who have been listening. You’re tuning in from 33 different countries. That just blows my mind! There’s been over 7000 downloads to date which I find very humbling, and it brings me joy knowing that you are listening, taking time for yourself and finding it helpful.

 

This season I’ve been fortunate enough to chat with Deirdre Fay about Becoming Safely Embodied and Robyn Walser about Moral Injury. Diana Hill and I spoke about healthy striving and thriving. Russell Kolts talked with us about managing anger inside and outside the session, Angelo Contarino so openly spoke about the challenges of being a helping professional living with chronic illness and Elaine Beaumont was my final guest for the season where we chatted about cultivating kindness for ourselves as well as others. I threw in some solo episodes along the way, including how it’s not always easy showing up for ourselves as helpers and things we can do when the client sessions get tricky. If you’ve missed any of the episodes, I highly recommend you going back and having a listen.

 

I’ve spoken about taking breaks several times over the two seasons. I think it’s so important that we take breaks to assist in avoiding burnout and to allow for longevity of practice. For me, I find that planning ahead prevents going lengthy periods of time without a break. Personally, I do my planning at the end of the year and pre-book all my breaks into my diary. Every eight weeks I book two weeks off and then have a longer break over our summer holiday, which here in Australia is at the end of the year.

 

I do this knowing I can have flexibility with it in the upcoming year if I need to, but knowing I have those dates booked feels good. It gives me something to look forward to and it prevents me getting stuck with a full diary and no space to take a break. I often hear supervisees say that they need a break but that their diary is completely booked out for months ahead. When we plan ahead, we can avoid this from happening.

 

Now, I certainly recognise my own privilege in being able to take this amount of time off. If you aren’t in a position to take extended breaks or many full breaks during the year, I encourage you to think about how you can incorporate breaks into your day, into your sessions, into your year. It might be that you space your client sessions out so you’re not doing back-to-back sessions. It might be that you give yourself space to do a five-minute meditation before and/or after your client session. It might be something small like visiting the bathroom between sessions or popping to the kitchen to make yourself a drink, remember staying hydrated is really important too.

 

It might be that during the session you take some time with your client to do some soothing rhythm breathing or to stand up and move your body, some gentle stretching or mindful walking in the room or outside if that feels appropriate.

 

You might want to spend some time thinking about how you can manage to have more frequent breaks in your week, or what you might have to change so you can take more time off during the year.

 

Another thing that has been on my mind lately and something I’ve been chatting with others about is the need to look at how we are living our lives after the changes we had to make for Covid. Prior to Covid you likely lived life differently to how you do know, especially if you’ve been in lockdown for lengthy periods of time. I know I took on extra projects over this period to keep myself engaged, entertained, and distracted. I couldn’t spend my non-clinical days catching up with people like I did pre-Covid, so my days got busier at home. Now we are coming out the other end of the pandemic, it can be important to rethink routines and look at what is working and what isn’t. For me, I have chosen to step back from some projects so I can re-engage in social connections, and I’ve have put more blank space back in my diary. These blank spaces are planned ahead, dedicated times that allow me to relax and restore, no appointments to be at, nothing to be achieved, just time for me. Do you have any times like this in your diary? What would it be like if you did?

 

When thinking about your days, weeks, months, year, think about what brings you joy. Think about what brings you a sense of accomplishment. Think about what brings you peace. Think about what it is you really enjoy doing. How can you bring more of these into your day, your week, your life? Let your mind wander with this and get creative.

 

It is so important that you take care of yourself as a helping professional, you matter, your needs matter. The challenges you face as a practitioner are not purely subjective and solely your personal responsibility but also contextual and dependent on various organisational and governmental policies, unfortunately many of the systems you work within do not consider your needs nor are they going to set up a self-care plan for you. It’s something important you will have to do for yourself. It’s important you focus on what you can control and what actions you can take in order to enhance and protect your own well-being.

 

Think about the internal resources you have that can be helpful to you, think about the external resources you can access that would be helpful. Reach out to colleagues, friends, a supervisor, a therapist when you also need support. Remember the three flows of compassion. Compassion to others, compassion to self and compassion from others. They are all important. And remember to keep taking nice soothing breaths as you go about your day. Take care of your nervous system.

 

You’re doing important and challenging work, you’ve worked really hard to get to this point and I want you to have a long and sustainable career, one that feels good and satisfying, one where you can work well with your clients whilst also taking good care of yourself. You deserve that.

 

So, as we come to the end of season two, what I would love to know is what would you like to hear about on the podcast? What topics matter most to you as a helping professional? Who would you like to hear from? Are there any particular people you’d enjoy listening to? Perhaps any past guests you’d like me to invite back?

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts so please DM me or email at hello@drhayleydquinn.com

 

Before you go, I also want to let you know about a 2 day in person, yes in-person how lovely, CFT for Trauma training that I will be presenting with my friend and colleague Dr Lisa McLean. It will be at the Sunshine Coast here in Queensland on 17 & 18 November. Not only will we be teaching how to use CFT with clients who’ve experienced trauma, we will also be talking about how we can take care of ourselves as helping professionals whilst doing this challenging and heartfelt work. Tickets are already on sale, and I’ll put a link in the show notes. We hope to see you there.

 

In the meantime, go well and go gently with yourself and I’ll see you after my break in Season Three.

 

Thank you for sharing this time with me today. I hope your time here was helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you have found helpful, I invite you to share it with another person you think might benefit. I’d also love it if you’d like to leave a review wherever you tune in. Reviews really helped to increase awareness of podcasts, meaning I can spread helpful information more widely. All reviews are welcome and much appreciated. As I know they take time out of your day. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join my mailing list. Music and editing by Nyssa Ray. Thanks Nyssa. I wish you all well in your relationship with yourself. And may you go well and go gently.

 

 

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Disclaimer
This transcript may not be an exact representation of the audio