There comes a time in a therapist’s life when you realize that you don’t have the (productivity) drive you once had. I feel pretty lucky, though–I’m not sure there’s ever been a better period in my lifetime to de-prioritize hustle culture. I grew up at a time where hard work=success, no matter the cost to oneself. And that doesn’t translate very well when your work is motivated by care for others. I also grew up in a situation where hard work was akin to godliness and conversely, people that didn’t work hard were lazy and morally inferior. Who cares if they were enjoying life?

A Period of Reflection

I’ve long been contemplating, in conjunction with my clinical supervisor and my family, that it would be good to reduce–by one–the number of sessions I offer in a day. Longtime readers of my articles might even remember hearing me talk about slowing down before, and the truth is that I have been gradually working less over the last 5 years. And I can attest that it hasn’t come easy. I’m quite serious when I say that I love my clients, I love the work, and I feel guilty when I don’t push myself to do more, even if I’m too tired. This mindset has gotten me in trouble in the past, which was a very, very big wakeup call, but old hustle habits are hard to break.

The Question That Surprised Me

I’m not sure if my decision to work less sessions a week is somehow more obvious to others this time around, or maybe my attitude around this shift is mellowing. I say this because I’ve been asked on several occasions whether I’m retiring. I have to admit that for a person like me who has been enculturated into hard work, this question was somewhat startling! But startling in a good way.

Let me be clear: I have no intention of retiring at this stage of my life. I have more freedom than I have ever had before: I have way less parental and household demands which has allowed me to commute to work slowly and calmly and leave the office in the same manner. I have many hectic memories of jogging down Burrard Street rushing to pick my kids up from school. While I “got my exercise,” those times were pretty stressful.

…And Caused Me To Think

I’ve also thought a lot about the question of whether slowing down is actually some form of semi-retirement. My short answer to this is that it strikes me as good preparation, so that when one eventually goes from work to no work it’s not as abrupt. But when I think of all the things that I do to keep my practice running, not to mention the counselling sessions themselves, I know that I’m most definitely not in a retirement mindset! Counselling work is very interesting, very engaging, brings me focus on the weekdays and is such a meaningful vocation. I’m not ready to give that up!

Clarifying Intention

I never originally set out to make working a little less part of a New Year’s resolution. It just happened to coincide in January. Leading up to it, I had several reasons why I wanted to work less:

1. Get more sleep. By shortening my day a little bit, I was hoping that I would have more free time in the evenings so that I could roll my bedtime forward.
2. Have an hour more to attend to things around my home or engage with family or friends.
3. Nourish my love for therapy by associating counselling with emotional spaciousness (and not overstretching).
4. Allow more room for self-maintenance, particularly activities that help manage more challenging aspects of my neurodivergence.
5. Generally better balance my nervous system.

Evaluation

It’s only been about a month of this new schedule, which is still in progress as I wrap up a few loose ends. What have the results been so far?

Sleep – I’ve always been bad in math so I was a little surprised when it has (mostly) worked out that I’m getting exactly one more hour of sleep a night! And I can say that more sleep is not overrated: I am less irritable, less overwhelmed and more energetic. I can’t credit reduced work entirely, though, for the sleep increase:  I am also pressuring myself less with routines around the house—but that is a discussion for another article!

More time for home, family and friends – I am an introvert and neurodivergent and because of these things,  I find that I feel more motivated to engage with friends and family if I’m not as “talked out” in my weekdays. Having the courage to be realistic about the amount of sessions I am doing has been naturally increasing my social motivation.

Nourish my love for therapy – I’ve been talking more with my clinical supervisor about the spark that got me interested in being a therapist, all those years ago. I’ve also been talking with them about what I want to continue to work on: humanistic growth, values-based practice, excitement for the work and being more direct in my therapy approach (when appropriate). And this talk is very enlivening. Conversely, if I’m pressuring myself to work too much, such conversations fall by the wayside and I lose sight of the aspects of therapy that make this work so enjoyable. This dialogue is ongoing if I allow time and space for it!

Self-Maintenance – I’ve been using this term a little more these days  than “self-care” because I find it to be less guilt-inducing and more practical. I like to think instead of cause and effect: certain actions (or lack of actions) create certain consequences (rather than thinking that an amorphous moral entity is going to come after me and inject me with guilt or imply I’m a bad person if I fail to do or not do something).

Nervous system balance – I think there’s a lot to be said for the value of slowing down, coming from a person who grew up in a near-perpetual “flight” state. I was anxious all the time. I find that I am noticing more things that I haven’t, historically, including feedback from my body telling me to take a rest. It’s harder to ignore now.

And all of this slowing down business is not a “one and done” situation. I am a work in progress. Things will change over time and there will be calls to adapt. And a part of me likes the challenge of taking rest a step further—moving from theoretical to practical. I can’t say it’s necessarily easy, but it sure is interesting! Thanks for reading, friends.