Pay attention to your body

Have you ever really paid attention to your body? The flushes of blood or heat to your face when you are embarassed? The drop in your stomach when taken by surprise? The way you fidget or bounce your knee when you’re nervous?

When I was being trained in Gestalt therapy, which is the modality I mostly use with my clients, we spent hours upon hours of watching videos, practicing with each other, and talking about taking cues from your own body experience and helping our clients talk about theirs. It was drilled into us, in college courses and first jobs mostly, that we should pay attention to the client’s experience instead of our own. Anything that was happening to me was for me to explore with my supervisor or therapist. It wasn’t until my favorite Gestalt teacher directed me to “bring yourself into the room” that I truly understood the importance of paying attention to myself. Leaving myself to attend to the client wasn’t always the right thing to do. It’s not until I really started thinking about it that I realized denying my own experience was not helpful to my client. I couldn’t leave my own feelings and experiences outside or… at the very least…. acknowledge them.

When I started my private therapy practice, I wanted to take health insurance. I wanted to have people be able to use that benefit that was given to them in order to attend to their mental health. Over time I realized that taking health insurance and having to take care of myself and run a business on those low rates meant that I had to ignore my own needs to attend to my clients. That was a recipe for disaster. I couldn’t remember whose story was whose, I didn’t have a bathroom break or time to grab a snack, I ran in and out of my office like it was a marathon so that I could be home to get my kids off of the bus or pick them up.

I wasn’t paying attention to my own experience, and it wasn’t good for me or my clients. I knew I wasn’t showing up as the therapist I knew I could be.

So the time came that I decided to leave insurance and therefore had to let my clients know. For some clients, I became one of the several therapists they had tried that decided to not take their insurance anymore. I felt bad, but I knew it was the right thing to do. One client was really mad. I could feel it. Their anger filled the room. My stomach started to drop and I felt like they were not being aware that I was a person too, that needed to set boundaries and get my own needs met. And then I realized that I wanted to stay away from setting a boundary with them, which is what other people in their lives did. That would be why they didn’t know what limits were, didn’t have long term friends, and generally had a pretty one-sided perspective of life but wanted others to accept all of theirs.

I asked, “Do you want to know why I made the decision to not accept insurance?”

They grew angrier. They said they didn’t care. They didn’t want to spend their therapy time hashing it out. I told them that while I understood their frustration, I also felt that expressing their anger was a very important part of the process… and hearing my response to it. I watched them soften in front of me. My explanation was short and honest. Taking insurance wasn’t allowing me to be the therapist they deserved me to be because it didn’t meet my needs. I explained the stress of not knowing whether or not insurance would come back and someone that didn’t know me or my client could decide they didn’t want to pay (or worse, order me to pay back) for services I already provided. They had no idea the challenge on my side, nor how that challenge affected my ability to fully show up with them. I didn’t take over the session with my stuff, but I did express my needs. That was something completely foreign to them. They started to wonder how many people had good reasons for boundaries they set, but they never got to hear it. I asked them to explain what assumptions they were making. It helped for them to see the things they were ASSUMING but did not know for sure. I told them the things that they said that made me feel like I couldn’t explain to them. They realized this is something they do often and had not realized it actually cut them off from connection with others.

I saw this client a few additional times after this session and they were different. Something shifted for them by me bringing in my own experience of feelings and body sensations.

Now I know that paying attention to myself and what’s happening in my body is so important to my work and for my clients’ progress.

I would encourage you to do the same. Pay attention to your experience, when you are holding back and when you feel free to express yourself. It gives you so much information about yourself and others and their impact on you (and likely others).

If you’re interested in working with me and learning more about my services and their cost, let’s connect.