Speaker A: Welcome to the Therapist burnout podcast, episode 51. Well, happy holidays. I’m recording this just a day before holiday week here. So for my folks who are celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah, happy holidays to you, as well as any other holidays.
Boxing Day in Canada. I’m looking at my calendar to try to grab all the holidays.
I just remember go over the year celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah. And so I really love all the traditions from both holidays. And, yeah, so I’m.
I saw a meme on Instagram or something, and the meme was, all I want for Christmas is some rest. Some effing rest.
I still don’t know if you guys like cussing on the podcast. We’ll. We shall see. Although I’m gonna do a little bit today because I’m finishing up the series that we have been on in the month of December of the reasons why it’s hard for you to make.
And I know December is not a month where we typically put changes in place because we’re really just grasping for straws, right? We’re trying to get through the holidays. Everyone is stressed out if you’re a therapist, and cancellations are all over the place.
This last week was really chaotic for me, and so I was feeling all of that. I just got all of my wrapping done for my children for Christmas, and so I’m a little bit over in a reflective place.
And I think a lot of us, in December, when things just do slow down, some of us have a little bit of time to kind of think about, okay, this is the end of a year.
It is a marker for many of us. I always thought, when I was a therapist of those markers in our lives, whether it be starting things in the fall. We always think about starting school.
You know, for my kids now, I think about the start of a year when a school year starts. But for many years, I have four degrees in psychology. I was starting school.
And so I think it’s just primed in our brains to think of starting new things in September, in January, and also thinking about what didn’t go so well.
So I think the theme of this episode is, what was the story of 2024 for you? And I think pausing to take some time to think about what your story was over the course of this year is what I’d like to do today.
And I think one of the reasons it’s gonna highlight that it’s hard for us to change is because we can be an utter ******* to ourselves.
So I find that my Job as a coach with therapists is to help you stop being an *******. I should add the caveat at the top of this episode, I’m gonna do a little cussing.
So if you have little ones around, pop in your earbuds, because the word just drives it home. I can’t use any other word. And when I say it on the calls with my clients, they smile.
They get it. Because we have human brains that want to just tell us the worst things possible about ourselves and about our situations.
So I’d like to think through, what are the stories you’re telling yourself over the course of this year? There were lots of things this year that went really well for me, so I started podcasting more regularly.
I think before, I don’t know, June, I started podcasting regularly.
I really was kind of like, I don’t know who is listening to this. Podcasting is weird, y’all. It’s like you’re talking. I’m sitting here at my desk. I’m talking into a microphone.
Often it feels like you’re talking to the void. And so I think the story my brain wants to make around that is that no one’s listening. It’s not important. And I just felt like I want to build the habit of podcasting weekly.
No matter what is going on in my life, I want to show up that way, and I did that. There was only one week that I took off when my poor puppy passed away.
And I feel fine about that. I feel fine to let myself to give him permission to take that week off. I think part of me was scared that I would, quote, unquote, break my streak, you know, that I broke my streak.
And what does that even mean? Am I gonna stop doing it? And I think that story kind of leads me into push. And so just thinking of. Of. Of that for yourself.
The second one is that I made over a hundred thousand dollars for the first time ever this year when we did my taxes over. So that was over the course of 2023.
And that was with contract work and the work that I do with the therapist Burn up podcast.
And so that was huge, right? That was huge. That I made that change for my family, for myself. And I think that was the catalyst for that, was kind of sitting with the income needs that we needed to just do crazy things.
Retirement, like, fix our house, like, the stuff that breaks down on it. And yeah, I think the story that we have a lot of times for not making more money is there’s so many for therapists, right?
And just a shout out to Rachel Rogers and her books and podcast. She calls these broke *** stories, right? They’re, they’re the dysfunctional thoughts that we have about money. But I think sometimes the non therapists and the non psychologists really have a way of breaking down thought work, or they call it thought work with cbt, y’all.
They think they have recreated the wheel and coaching and this amazing thing they’ve invented. It’s called thoughtwork. It is cbt, but they own it. And I feel like sometimes I’m like, wow, I really like the way they put that.
And it really makes it sticky. But she talks about, she, she coaches on money, right? So she talks about broke *** stories. And what is the brokerage story that you’re telling yourself that’s keeping you at the current level of income that you are at currently?
Such as all the things I told myself, right, that I can’t have a full fee practice. I could, I could have made that work if I wasn’t so burned out, honestly.
So for therapists that are thinking about launching into private practice, if you can fix your broke *** stories, you could do it. And it’s a great business model. It does require marketing.
So I was on a console call this week and someone was like, I just do not want to do marketing. I don’t want to put myself out there. And a lot of therapists don’t.
They just feel like it’s something they, they cannot do. Their nervous system is not prepared for that. Then don’t do it. That’s not for you. Okay, maybe it’s, maybe it is working a job.
I actually like marketing now, but I didn’t before because I was scared to put myself out there. I’ve gotten over that after three years of podcasting. That’s all it took, three years, you know, of putting myself out there.
Okay, so I talked in this year, in the summer, I had a whole money series.
So that start with episode 21, 24, specifically episode 22. On the podcast, I talked about therapist money scripts and how we can move away from money shame.
And I think, you know, partly inspired as well by Rachel Rogers Broke *** stories. I think some of the broke *** stories that I have around coaching is that, you know, people aren’t going to see the value.
Therapists don’t have money. How are they going to want to pay for coaching? And so I really had to sell myself on the work that I do.
And this is important for you, therapist, because I think a lot of times we undervalue our services.
What is the value of the service you’re providing.
It is infinite. I cannot place a value on when I was a therapist helping someone overcome horrific trauma and no longer feel distress in their body. I was an EMDR therapist.
And the, you know, it’s just so easy to remember the toughest sessions, the sessions where you feel like you’re failing, that you don’t know what you’re doing. We forget the ones where our clients tell us, you’ve changed my life.
I don’t know how I would have gotten over this without you. I will always remember you. There is no value we could place on that in someone’s life. And I know that I’ve had that impact in therapy for my clients and I know that I’ve had that impact on my coaching clients.
Now I know the value of that.
And so sometimes you have to sell yourself on the value of what you’re providing. While there is a cost that we need to think about. Right. It’s an infinite. Like we can’t really put a value on it.
But we have to feel like, okay, like what is market value? What does the market dictate of how much we can charge there, There is a limit on that. So it’s not like I’m gonna charge a million dollars or I think I can charge $300 for therapy.
I don’t think most therapists can charge that. I just don’t. I think therapists can at least charge 150 per session. Yes, I can.
And upwards of that. If you have a really specific niche. Yeah, you could totally do that. I think that, you know, I hate charge your worth. I just, it’s so cringey.
Charge your worth. You are worth so much and we see that a lot in the marketing space. Your worth is infinite. Our client’s worth is infinite no matter how much money they have.
And for you therapist, if you can’t see me for one to one coaching, your worth is infinite. And, and I don’t think any difference about that about people. So I think really digging in to the broke *** stories.
What, what are the things you’re telling yourself about money? Because every therapist I work with there is an element of money that comes up. So listen back to that series.
I think I will re record, not re record. I’m going to have like a money series again in 2025 just because it’s so important. It’s one of the issues that I just have to work on with therapists and I also money guide.
So I’m going to drop that link in the show. Notes. So if you have no idea what to do next and no idea how to make more money and you can’t do therapy, that is the focus of this guide.
It’s not on multiple strings of income how you can do launch your own coaching business. I don’t do that. This is about like I need more money cuz I can’t do more therapy.
This is the that guide. And then I curated my episodes that you’ll get little emails from me that kind of will kind of walk you on the journey of things you need to think about.
So took a lot of time put that together for y’all, y’all. And it’s free. 100% free. So take that, take that up. My gift to you. You know, one of the biggest things that the therapists tell me is that they have no idea what else they can do besides one to one therapy.
They are searching for the thing. What is going to be the thing that’s going to like rescue me or where’s my escape hatch? Is there, you know, is it one?
Is it charging full fees? Is it finding job that can work?
Is it finding a bridge job? I talk a lot about getting a bridge job. I’m just going to do a whole episode when I redo my career series also that’s coming 2020.
I hope to have a guest on that is maybe a career. I, I am a certified career coach, but also someone who maybe has that more by their training and maybe has pivoted.
The only people I have on my podcast are people with a burnout story. So anyone listening to this, I get so many pitches for people wanting to come on the podcast and I’m like, I love that you have all this expertise and ifs and lmnop and this and that and the third.
But you have to have a burnout story to come on this podcast that is that it’s the number one qualification and it’s actually more work for me to do interviews.
I, I re. I just can turn on the mic really easily and hopefully you like hearing my, my babbling because that’s what’s easiest for me to do. So yeah. So I think this, this, this question that you’re asking yourself or asking the universe or asking all the people in your life, what else can I do besides one to one, I can’t do this anymore.
Or at least I can’t do it in the way. I need to cut down my hours drastically like in half or more. I think the quickest way to do that is to find a bridge job.
That’s just the quickest way to do it. That’s what I’ve seen from other therapists. And if you have ability. So I’ve worked with several people who. They really have the ability financially to take a break.
That is, like, my number one recommendation. You are burnout. You can’t do this work anymore. Take a break and give yourself the gift, the blessing of time to do it.
I’ve talked about this a number of times from the south originally, and I think of this woman in a store. You know, my mom was paying for something for me, and I was like, mom, don’t get that.
Come on. I’m 44, and this woman decided, don’t steal her blessing. So I want you to see, do I have support? Can I take a break? Then? Let’s do that.
If you don’t. I didn’t have that. That. I wish I could have taken a break, but I didn’t have that available to me. I needed to make some money.
It couldn’t just take time off. I’ve done that before, and I didn’t have the money to do it. But I did ask, actually. Yeah, I’ll go back to that. So when my son was born, my first child, he had heart surgery, and I was supposed to go back to my agency job.
And that wasn’t from burnout. That was really from a traumatic situation, a traumatic event that occurred, a traumatic birth experience. Right. And I was having a lot of mental health symptoms.
I had a postpartum anxiety, and I really struggled, and I couldn’t go back to work. I couldn’t leave my baby.
And so that’s what actually caused me to launch my practice. When I launched in 2013. Yeah, I launched my practice in 2013. So I was open about. Is that right?
2014. So, yeah, I launched it. Yeah, 10 years ago. That makes more sense. And I couldn’t go back to my agency job, so I started private practice. I think that’s why it was so hard, because I felt like I had postpartum anxiety.
I figured out how to launch a practice. It was messy, and I lost so much money, but I did it. And I’m so proud of. I’m so proud of myself.
I can see her now with so much love.
And so I think a lot of times we don’t think of our former selves with compassion. Like, we just kind of judge our choices. Why did I go into therapy?
Why did I launch this private practice? Why did I make the choices? I did. It’s. It’s ended up in burnout and depression and all these things. But also just like the resilience that it took to do some of the things that we’ve done is remarkable.
And I think we have to celebrate that. So if you can’t take a break, take a break. I took a break when that little heart baby was born. I think I.
So he was born in, in, in September and I went back to work probably the next March and I just saw clients like one day a week actually. I did, I did have some part time work teaching adjunct as well.
So I did have a little bit of money coming in. Not a lot. Yeah. So if you can take a break, take a break. If you can’t, that’s all right too.
So figure out your next steps. Whether that be replacing some of the income and y’all, please do some math.
Please just do the math. How much do you actually need to make? You will be shocked at the things that you can do, the different jobs. You can do a bridge job for six months to a year to give yourself a little space, a little breathing room so you can figure this out.
What I’d like to tell you is that career choices made from desperation are just not great. Speaking from personal experience and also from working with clients that I’ve worked with.
So we can give ourselves the benefit of time, if we can give ourselves the benefit of support, we’re going to be better for it. And I think that’s one of the stories that I have in 2024 is that I no longer feared my burnout.
So when I closed in 2023, actually I started two years ago in my contract job. So I’ve been there two years now and I had weeks where I just had to, you know, take a couple days where I just was, it was, it was burnout, end stage burnout.
I was, I needed burnout, recovery and I didn’t have the time to, to really recover. And so I was trying to figure out how to do psychological assessment again. I really had a lot of doubt and felt a lot of impostering coming up because I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing, but I did know what I was doing.
I was trained to do psychological assessment. I trained under a freaking neuropsychologist. These are the stories that we tell ourselves.
Right. I don’t know what I’m doing. And now I feel like I value my expertise. Yeah, I don’t have training as a school psychologist, but I work as one. I work as a school psychologist part time now and I really like working as one.
I really love teamwork. I also like that I’m a contractor and that I don’t have to be tied to a schedule. But I really value my training and my expertise because it is different.
I do risk assessments. I bring really good expertise to that. And all of my experience as a trauma therapist is informed in how I run a meeting. I think I was in a meeting over the past week where people were really dysregulated in this meeting, and I just held space.
Honestly, I was able to hold space and help people kind of get to a conclusion that I don’t think other people had skill to do. And so I really think through that level of skill that I have is inherent to our training, to the experiences that I have.
So for you, therapist, I’d like you to think through, like, all the skills you have. It can be applied to something else and you can even learn to love it and become passionate about it, even though there’s parts of, like, contract.
I don’t essentially, I don’t love writing a ton. But, you know, I’ve gotten to be a better writer through this, also through posting on LinkedIn. Let’s just go to that.
So, yeah, a lot of you have found me through my posts on LinkedIn. I think for a long time, I’ve always kind of held that belief that I’m not a great writer.
I just get by.
But a lot of people have commented on my writing on LinkedIn, specifically on my posts, and feel like it’s authentic that I really get how they’re feeling as therapists. So if you’re not on LinkedIn, you should be over there, because that’s where I post.
So I’m Dr. Jennifer Blanchette with two T’s and an E. And a lot of people I’ve talked to from consult calls have come from there. So I’ve had a lot of conversations with therapists, and there’s also stories there, right?
So I’ve had a lot of consult calls. I was trying to add them up to see how many consult calls I’ve had, but it’s been at least 30, 40 consult calls.
And part of me was salty about that. Part of when I first started, you know, doing coaching, a coaching business, I was like, consult calls. I also felt this way as a therapist to get on console calls because a lot of times people, you know, wouldn’t come on the console call or they would no show on me or they weren’t a great fit.
It’s also my time, right. I tend to see My time as money.
And so I really had to kind of get out of that habit of just showing up the same way for every call and really holding the space I needed to hold for the person on the console call as a gift.
Like, this is a service to you. This is a service to other therapists that I’m doing. And I know people have gotten a lot of. I have just the console call.
And so I see this as, like, good energy of putting into the world, but also understanding, like, your pain and what people are struggling with has been helpful to me as a future direction of where I want to go with this podcast and also just in the work that I want to do with my therapist clients.
So I want you to think for yourself what has been your story of 2024. Take some time to just reflect on that. I will have you think about that. Maybe pause the podcast if you’re driving.
Just kind of make a mental note to write something down about this. What’s your story been? I would encourage you to just really write it out, you know, beginning, middle to end.
What does that story really looked like for you? And then look at. Where are there some adjectives? Where.
Where are you talking about things that seem really sticky? Where do you need to dig in some more and understand what’s coming up around depletion, around burnout, about relationships, about work?
And I think taking that CBT mind frame of just the facts, can we just write the facts about this year, about what happened? Look at it from an observer perspective.
Hold it lightly. I think one of the coaches that I’ve heard over the years since I’ve been listening to podcasts and, you know, delving into coaching, you know, for that, for this time is you.
We have to go through neutral. So we have to neutralize our stories. And I think for you, you understand this. Working with clients who have a really hard time going to a positive cognition, looking at a balanced thought, sometimes there’s no way for them to get balanced.
So thinking about the next best thought, like, what is the next best thought that I can think about this year? How could it be a little. How could I see it a little more neutrally?
I think a lot of times just don’t allow ourselves the gift of writing pen to paper, of writing this stuff out, of seeing really where we are. I think we’re just kind of in the Groundhog Day of life, of sessions, of clients coming home, being tired, and then doing it all over again.
So if you can find some time to get into a reflective space, give Yourself, that gift. I know at the end of this month, I really felt like I was pushing again.
I felt like, you know, I wanted the podcast to be in a different place than it was.
Really had the mind frame when I started. I like that weekly podcasting that I need to learn how to become regular at podcasting, and I think other things will follow.
And also with my. My job, my contract work, sometimes I take on too much work, and then I get myself in a situation where I can’t do it and my body isn’t.
Is really talking back about that. I had a massage, like a sports massage, because I play tennis and all this computer work that I do. My massage therapist, you know, got into one of my.
She’s like, this is the tightest pec minor I’ve ever felt on a woman. And I’m like, okay. Holding tension.
So my body is really giving me information that I need to listen to. And so that is part of something that I’m attending to in this new year, that my body needs to have more attention, that I need to slow down in a lot of ways on the work.
I want you to think of. And this is cheesy, how you can be the hero of that story. We’ve written this story oftentimes because we have human minds that give us garbage.
There’s a lot of negative there, right? There’s a lot of negative ****. How do you find that part of yourself that can be the hero and really think through a differentiated hero who can really hold the nuance that you need them to?
So for me, I know I need to let some things glow. I need to ask for more help, for more support, get more support in my environment.
So I’d like to think through environmentally, what do you need? How can your environment set you up better to make the changes that you need to make in your life?
I talked a little bit about this on the podcast last week when I talked about being tired. Af when we’re tired, we really don’t make great choices for ourselves. So I really just start to think about the environment.
How can I make that better for myself? You know, for me, I’ve tried to do less of the housework around here. I’ve kind. I’ve leaned into more simple meals for my family.
All of that is great, but I think a big part also is thinking of our minds. What expectations are we having for ourselves? Are we expecting that we’re going to have energy to see seven clients a day or work hard for seven hours?
Whatever you’re doing, come Home and do second shift with the kids sometimes. That’s not everyone’s reality. That’s my reality. Or whatever demands that you have on yourself and then wake up and feel energized for the next day and hold space for the people you need to hold space for.
That’s. That’s hard to expect that of ourselves. And I think for a lot of the therapists I talk with, I think the way that they see themselves really impacts how they’re showing up because they think they should be able to hold more than they’re able to hold.
So I really talk about. I have a process for this in my before your quit guy quit guide.
So if you just have like no idea where your burnout is coming from, it just feels like a big ball of hard. I have that for you. So it’s my before you quit guide a way to untangle your burnout.
And it really walks you through some prompts that you need to work through on what’s coming up in the environment. What are you experiencing personally, Whether that be stress, physical complaints, things of that nature, things that you need to change.
Things about the clinical work, like what do you need to change clinically in your caseload. You start to look at some of that stuff and untangle a lot of it.
And it kind of gives you some thoughts about next steps for managing the burnout side of things. I think the Money guide is essential to think about your math.
Ramit Sethi is the financial expert that I use, and I use his financial system because it really thinks about what do we want our money to do for us.
Right. I know it. It took a while for my partner and I to give to get there with that. So he loves vacations. I want to fix our home and have my home environment be just the way I want it.
So we have to think about what am I motivated to do with our money. So certainly look at those two resources. I’m gonna put those in the show notes as next steps.
And I think for you really, you know, to think through what is coming up in your mind, how you can start to find more neutrality in your thinking, hold yourself more lightly.
You know, I thought of my, myself when I was kind of in in stage burnout and I was 30 pounds overweight and I just didn’t like myself. And now I see her with a lot of compassion, that she was trying the best she could.
She was trying to figure it out. She was trying lots of things. It just took a while. So if you are trying to do that, you’re trying to figure it out.
It’s been a while trying to figure this all out. I just encourage you that to keep going, keep trying and also that you don’t have to continue living the way you’re living, that there is something else for you.
It just might take a little bit to get there. So I wish you happy holidays and I will talk with you next week. We’ll kind of do a year recap and what to look forward to in January.
I have some really great guests coming on so I’m gonna try to have maybe one or two guests per month on for you guys a burnout story because you seem to really like those and also some themes, themes you know, what you can hear on the podcast.
So I appreciate all of you. When you write to me, it means a lot. So whether it be DMing me on LinkedIn or sending me an actual email, I love that.
So it’s great to know I’m not speaking into the void. Happy holidays.
