Soulful Boundaries Ensure the Longevity of Your Success
Originally Posted May 31, 2018
There’s this popular quote among entrepreneurs “It’s not work if you love what you do”
In one breath I apprehensively agree but I would rephrase it a little to something like "if your work is fulfilling and you love it, than its not a job”Something that you’re engaged with, enjoy doing, can get lost in, instead of counting down the hours till you can be home, waiting for Saturday, or that elusive vacation that happens once a year.
In my next breath, I’m sorry but I just don’t agree with this sentiment at all, especially when you are in the business of holding space for other people to heal and thrive.
Because, this very popular quote only upholds long standing conditioning and oppression. Just keep working, just put your head down and keep going. If you love the work you won’t mind. One day you will reap the rewards from all of your hard work and finally be free. If you love what you do, you won’t notice the sacrifices that you’re making to your body, family, mental health and anything else.Practitioner Burnout is a real thing, and we can’t ignore it even when we love what we do and enjoy our patients.
You require time to nurture your SELF, space to contemplate the bigger picture, and a safe space where you can let down the posturing that you have to uphold in front of everyone that you have it all together, and just be real and vulnerable.
We need all of this along with soulful strategy that ensures that we're able to keep doing what we love, that we are continually engaged with our medicine and its impact.
We require boundaries, for ourselves and our practices.
We can’t just work and work and work. Its impossible.Boundaries are crucial to the longevity of my success and yours.
I personally need to know when to say no. Even when the Earthy care-taker in me would prefer I bend over backwards to accommodate than actually say it. In the beginning when I was reconciling this truth it physically felt as though I had iced over my heart when I had to tell a patient I’m not available on my day off (even on a day that already had a boundary in place for me to fall back on).
While it ebbs and flows I continue to feel the pull and strain that exists between me holding space and being available for patients and clients and being a mother. Desiring to do all of things that showing up for my kid in the way that hope to encompasses, including picking E up from school when that happens. (I’m actually planning out a full year in advance on how I will transition my practice to be ready for E to enter grade 1)
Yep you read that right. A year in advance, partly because that's how my mind works but also because its just a fact that as professionals and clinicians that's what we have to do in one way or another. We hold the container for peoples healing and it demands that we show up when we say that we will. Our Clients depend on us and so changes and refinements to schedules or offerings often need to be thought out and executed in a way that keeps trust and openness possible. Again I'm an Earth Element and loyalty and dependability are everything to me.
And then the big one, I am also required to unwind the conditioning of the learned beliefs that my self-worth is dependant on the satisfaction and success of the ones I serve, because its just not true. This one, is probably the trickiest of them all and deciding to heal this belief while in an industry of service is revolutionary and as I continue to unlearn this belief I actually become a better Doctor.
So here's the truth, you are only able to help and assist to the capacity that you hold space for yourself to receive and be supported.
Soulful boundaries are a necessessity, and I would love to help you stand for yours.
XO Ashley