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From: Scott Palasik
Date: 13 Oct 2010
Time: 17:21:02 -0500
Remote Name: 131.95.172.211
Jennifer, Hi again! I wanted to follow up on your last question about "how to “keep yourselves from losing sleep each night thinking about clients/families” while engaging in this highly emotional and therapeutic dance of sharing, understanding and providing options (especially since you can relate so deeply)?"...Such a great question and like Jaime said, that is something that may be challenging sometimes, and there may be some clients you will wake up at night and think about...Something I've learned is that my "worries" are me trying to control something about the future and they take me away from just "accepting" and "appreciating" the client at the moment... We can care about people without worrying about them, we can love people without loving ALL aspects of them, the secret is just accepting the moment for what is (good or challenging)...That being said, I still have clients from the past that I think about and "hope"they are doing well. When I think of them I generally smile, because I know that I gave them my best and the rest is up to them. Their path, they choose, just like their thoughts and their reactions to thoughts, just like us. We are merely guides Jennifer, the client drives the bus, we just help with directions through the mountains of cold and snow, through the desserts of dry heat, we are just guides for the good thoughts and the challenging thoughts, we are just attempting to help clients see who they really are (values) and that they can "accept" who they are...They do all of the hard work, we just guide, nothing more...Again, just philosophy...Like Kelly Wilson (2008) said, Clients are like Sunsets, we need to appreciate them for what they bring, not math problems for us to solve....Have a wonderful day and please ask or share whatever you want to!!Scott