Begin: again

Tomorrow is a big day for me.

Tomorrow I start Grad school toward licensure in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.

(This is the part where my stomach lurches and then drops into my lap.)

Am I excited?

Oh yes. Very.

But “excitement” feels the same as “anxiety”; the body simply cannot tell the difference. So there’s that …

I’ve endured so much to get here: religious trauma, failed personal relationships, family abandonment, narcissistic abuse — and then there are all the mistakes and circumstances that I more intimately experienced between the ears, like self-abandonment, working through codependency, ADHD, and Bipolar II Disorder (depressive type).

And none of it qualifies me to do this therapy thing — at least that’s how it feels. I feels like I’m too broken, too messy, too much of a train wreck to help others.

And yet, the purpose-driven Me is compelled to plough forward, into the fray, carrying all of this baggage, working through my own shit, even as I facilitate others doing the same.

anxiety

excitement

What’s the difference?

Chatting with my husband last week, he and I identified an unhealthy pattern in our relationship (we’re super self-reflective like that — one has to be if one wants to turn their 29 years of marriage into 50 or even 75), more specifically an unhealthy relational pattern in me. And I looked at him, sorrow suffusing every cell in my body, and I said to him, “this is why I think I’m gonna be a horrible therapist.”

Toph (that’s my husband) smiled kindly and replied, “this is exactly why you’re gonna be an amazing therapist.”

Back in 2012 was the first time I seriously considered entering the field of psychology. It always felt like something I was meant to do, but at that time money and daily life simply didn’t allow for it.

So I experienced a few more years of hurt, growth, and healing. I’m learning how to love myself. I’m learning how to better love others. I’ve learned boundaries and the exquisite power of “no”. I’ve learned when to walk away from a toxic situation (or person) and how to deeply grieve loss. I’ve learned how to dance with my shadow self — through self-doubt and struggle.

And now I’m ready to learn so much more. I’m ready to learn how to take all of those ingredients and bake a life worth living and loving.

Here I am on the cusp of my 50th birthday, and I’m choosing to Begin …

again

To learn a new, skillset, new vocabulary — for the betterment of society, one individual at a time.

Because I want to do a thing — I must do The Thing — because I simply cannot fathom an existence in which I am not useful in sharing my wisdom with those who are hurting and want to heal, in easing the suffering of my kindred, in being intentionally and compassionately present with humankind.

That’s always been the heart of me, even through all of my mistakes and wins, my joys and my sadness, my tripping and my righting myself again.

So tomorrow feels like like the first day of the REST of the rest of my life. It feels like destiny if ya really wanna be super dramatic about it.

I wonder what kind of therapist I will be. I wonder how much this Grad school journey will change me. I wonder what I will learn about myself even as I am learning how to aid others in their own healing.

Join with me on the journey? I’d love it if ya did.

xx