perfectionism Archives - Lucy Hyde Therapy

Self-care: How to relax

Lucy Hyde on 3 May 2021

I’m just back from a week’s leave.

I’m being strict with myself this year about taking regular and frequent breaks for self-care. It’s been an interesting and useful experience; because a bit of me thinks it’s ‘self-indulgent’, I’ve been challenging that thought by talking about it. Getting it out there helps counteract a tendency to feel ashamed about looking after myself.

Breaks = regular maintenance

So many people I encounter find it difficult to prioritise time off. This has been the case especially in the last year where the usual ‘reasons’ for taking leave, many of which are connected to other people – visits to family, plans arranged with others, booked holidays – have been unavailable, leading to many people realising belatedly that they haven’t taken a break for a loooong time.

I feel a sense of responsibility to look after myself because of my work with clients; I use myself in my work, I owe it to my clients to offer value for money, and I’m less effective when I’m less healthy or emotionally unwell. This makes it ‘easier’ for me to take time off out of a sense of duty. I’m a people-pleaser who worries about getting it wrong, and changing that is an ongoing, slow process. In the meantime, if ‘duty of self-care’ encourages me to take time off, then I make the most of the result, without worrying too much about the impetus!

Exactly halfway through my leave I felt I had to make a significant decision – ‘how best to use my week off’. Essentially, having had the opportunity the day before to meet up with family for the first time in nearly 6 months, my attention up until then had been focused on that; and indeed, it WAS a highlight – being able to spend a few hours together eating, and walking, outside, filled me up. But after that, I had empty days in front of me and a sense of responsibility to not ‘waste’ them.

Of course, reality-checking after the event, I realise that the idea of a ‘right’ choice was a myth, and it was being faced with the emptiness of unplanned time that felt disorientating.

I was talking to someone a few days later who said they experienced a similar sense of pressure at weekends:

“During the week I’m just busy with work and eating and sleeping and recovering, then at the weekend I feel I have to make the most of it and often I end up not enjoying my time off because of thinking how else I could be spending it, and it’s almost a relief when Monday comes and I just slot back in to automatic work pattern.”

I’ve heard people say they need a week off just to get used to being on holiday, to let go of the feeling they should be ‘doing’, after which they can start actually enjoying it. But sometimes we only have a week, or a few days (or a weekend).

And it can spiral into self-criticism too; for example I felt anxious about how to use my time off, then felt guilty for being bothered by such a first-world problem – ‘poor me, I’ve got a break’. It can sometimes take me a while to pull back, to recognise that yes, I am fortunate, and no, feeling guilty about it doesn’t make one jot of difference to people worse off than me, any more than enjoying it would.

How to deal with the fear of getting it wrong

For me, learning to tolerate the thought or feeling, rather than distracting myself from it by getting busy, has helped. I recognise it for what it is, a thought generated by my perfectionist tendencies, rather than an actual real-life risk. Being able to sit with it for a time helps it feel less urgent.

A few other things that I’ve found are useful:

1. Using my Focusing practice to sense bodily what I need.

You can read more about Focusing here. ‘Clearing a space’ was a particularly useful exercise in my week off. Once I had settled inside myself I used the question ‘what’s stopping me feeling really fine right now?’, seeing what appeared, acknowledging it and putting it aside. This is particularly helpful when there’s a few practical problems or life events that take up mental space. You can read about clearing a space here .

2. Giving myself options.

Sometimes checking within myself for what I need can bring an urge to hide away or retreat. While hibernating is OK, I know from previous experience that connecting to the world by getting outside, getting moving, or being with people is often better at getting me ‘unstuck’, even if it feels like an effort initially. Sometimes it helps to give myself options – ‘How do I feel about X? or Y?’ – and seeing what my gut response is. If I have a week off, making just one plan for something I usually enjoy takes some of the pressure off figuring it out.

3. Remembering that there’s no ONE right answer.

The reality is that whatever I feel I need, it has to fit in with life. Yes, it might sound great to be able to always follow my sense of what I need at any moment, but realistically it’ll be dependent on time, resources, other people, etc. So finding something that’s, say 60 – 70% good-enough self-care right now, rather than looking for the perfect answer, is fine. Good enough for now IS actually, sometimes, the perfect answer. I was talking to a friend who said:

“I had a few things I really wanted to do, things I like doing, but I felt like going back to bed. And when I was sitting in bed, I was thinking ‘Oh, I’m not doing x, y and z.’ And I had to remind myself that I WAS doing something else that I needed, by just being. But it took effort to do that.”

4. Noticing when I’m content.

When I can notice that I’m enjoying the moment, that’s really bloody useful. Because if I can do more of it (right now) then it’s fulfilling a need. That happened to me when I was sitting in the sun reading a book and – having finished my coffee – I thought ‘This is really nice. Oh, actually, I can carry on sitting here!’ It sounds so obvious, but it can be tricky to catch yourself at these moments – particularly if your pattern is that you can only do the thing that you LIKE once you’ve finished the task that you don’t (and it can lead you to NEVER getting round to the thing that you like).

5. Finding a balance.

On my week off, Covid restrictions at last allowed travel round Scotland. There was a temptation to rush around the place seeing people, to recharge my social battery. But one thing I’ve learned in recent years is that although I need people, I also need solitude. Someone told me recently:

“I’ve learned I need to consciously rest more to actively counteract those stress hormones…..I love lying cosied up with a book……and when I feel a bit sluggish or melancholy from that quiet time I know it’s time for a little activity”.

Most of us live such busy lives of doing that it’s no wonder we find it difficult to change gear and slow down. It’s also normal, as you get older, for transition from one thing to another to take longer – and that includes transition from one way of being to another.

It’s OK and normal for relaxing to not come naturally AND there are things that you can do to support yourself to let go a little. Although I’ve shared some of what works for me I’m really interested to hear if there are ideas or tips you have for how you help yourself relax.

The most important thing, I think, is that ANY relaxation is better than none. So if I can let go of ‘getting it right’ and allow it to be Just Good Enough For Now, that really helps. And if that letting go only lasts for half an hour, or a few moments, that’s OK, because that’s relaxation time I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Lucy Hyde therapist helping you relax — Photo: Jon Gerrard

If reading this has been useful, you might also like to check out my blogs on Focusing for anxiety, and tips for dealing with stress. And if you want to share any ideas, or would like to try working with me, please get in touch.

Counselling for counsellors

Lucy Hyde on 12 September 2019

The therapist as human being

A while ago I read an article in a therapy magazine which referred to the reluctance of therapists to undertake personal therapy. Then I saw a question on an online forum along the lines of “Should you be working as a therapist before you’ve got all your shit together?”

This made me reflect on my own thoughts and feelings about having therapy, how these have changed over time – and about being a therapist AND a client. This blog, rather than focusing on the ethical and professional reasons for therapists to have therapy, muses on those reflections.

I remember my very first taste of therapy training; beginning a course in counselling skills. I remember making the decision that – though it wasn’t a requirement at this level – I wanted to see a counsellor to help me think about how the different bits of learning applied to me. It wasn’t because I felt I had specific ‘issues’ (that catch-all word for so many things from discomfort through to deep trauma) – I simply found I was thinking myself into a fankle* when I fit myself into all the different theories or models I was learning about – and boy, they certainly all seemed to apply to me!

I realised I was really good at thinking myself into a mess (or a dead-end) rather than out of it, and that counselling could help me find other ways of looking at things. That counsellor was an artist whose counselling room was also her studio, and some of the most significant learnings I made there stuck in my head as vivid visual images that just couldn’t be conveyed in any other way. That experience has coloured the way I work with clients and I will often offer images that come up for me as they are speaking without ‘interpreting’ them. Those images can speak in ways that words sometimes can’t, and add richness and depth to the work as we explore them together.

I remember also saying to the trainer “I’m interested in being a counsellor, but I need to get my own stuff sorted out first”. She laughed – kindly – at the idea that there might be a point when I knew I was Completely Normal. This was a revelation to me – the idea that I might have insecurities, fears, areas where I lacked self-belief……..and yet still be able to work with other people on their own struggles. Not long after, I read one of the books of Carl Rogers (the founder of person-centred therapy) and was blown away by his proposal that therapy wasn’t about ‘fixing’ people, and that in fact, the word ‘fixed’ also implied rigidity and immobility: “a person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.”

As I moved into the world of Transactional Analysis (TA) training, I recognised the influence of a very strong ‘Be Perfect’ Driver (i.e. perfectionist tendencies, fear of getting things wrong) and realised that my unquestioned belief, shared years before with that tutor, had been “I can’t do [whatever I want to do at that point] until I’m as Perfectly Mentally Healthy as [I imagine] everyone around me is.” And what’s changed since then, isn’t my fear of not getting things exactly right, so much as an awareness of that fear, and a kind of wry gentleness towards it. TA’s fundamental principle is: “People are OK” – and that includes me.

My internal conversation might go something like “Oh, there you are again, Mrs Be Perfect. Worrying about getting this blog right. That’s OK, I know you’re there. What would be the worst thing that happened if you didn’t do it perfectly?” Much of this gentleness and understanding has come through the personal therapy that I had alongside my psychotherapy training, and of course it influences how I work with clients myself – my knowledge of my own vulnerability is a strength.

That’s the thing about counselling counsellors; we are human too. We suffer from exactly the same weaknesses, fears and issues as others. Often we’re more aware of them because we’ve spent time bringing them to the surface and that can be uncomfortable as well as useful – oh, for sure, sometimes I’d like to be able to switch that awareness off! And sometimes we’re NOT aware of them, and they have subtle influences on our work with clients which we may only realise after the event – which is why it’s so important to keep developing our own self-awareness. It’s a constant journey of personal growth.

As a therapist, the learning never stops. I see the influence of my past therapists in how I am in the counselling relationship. But I learn as much from clients as I do from training. It is a privilege and an honour to share in the personal work of others, and for people to trust me with their tender places and thoughts. That is as true for clients who are counsellors as it is for clients from any other walk of life.

growth through online counselling for counsellors

When I was training to be a counsellor, my therapist asked me “Would you be here if it wasn’t a course requirement?” I saw it as a luxury I was obliged to pay for, to ‘do my learning perfectly’ – and yes, I continued it for some time after my training finished, but I still excused the expenditure, to myself, in other ways – it would help me transition to a new job, it would help me prepare for the challenges of moving abroad. Yet those reasons were only part of the story. I hope that next time I enter into a new personal therapy relationship, I will choose to do so just for me, because I’m worth it.

*for non-Scottish readers, a fankle is a bit of a mess – think a tangled mass of string.

References

Berne, E. 1966. Principles of group treatment. New York: Oxford University Press.

Brown, S. 2018. Walking our talk. Therapy Today. 29:9 November, pp8-11.

Kahler, T. 1975. Drivers: The key to the process of scripts. TAJ. 5:3 July, pp280-284.

Rogers, C. 1961. On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. London: Constable.

The original version of this article appeared in the Spring 2019 edition of STROKES, the Scottish Transactional Analysis Association’s magazine.

Therapist heal thyself

Lucy Hyde on 1 February 2019

This week I’ve been fighting a bug. (You don’t need to feel sorry for me, I’m doing a great job at that.) As I decided each day whether to go ahead with client appointments I’ve been reflecting on what was The Best Thing To Do – for me and for my clients. Never an easy one to figure out, this is even less clearcut with online work when the factor of “Is it in the best interest of my clients to be infected with my snotty bug?” is removed. And I don’t have the additional effort of hauling myself through the cold to a rented room in the city.

I’ve been remembering an article I read when I first started working with clients which spoke of the ethical requirements of self-care. That as therapists we have a professional obligation to look after ourselves so that we are in the best possible position to look after others. At the time I read it this was gold for me; if I had a duty to look after myself it meant that I would do it, as I could circumnavigate the internal messages that told me I was being self-indulgent.

Doing self-care ‘right’

The downside of my interpretation of this requirement is that my tendency to ‘do things right’ then kicks in, in the area of self-care, too; I find myself asking myself if I’m short-changing clients by working when I’m not 100% in peak physical and mental condition (i.e. coming down with a cold). That battles against the belief that my clients need me, that I’m letting them down by cancelling. (As counsellors we sometimes forget that our clients continue to live and function OK the other 167 hours of the week that we’re not with them.)

I’m sure my perspective is skewed by being inside the therapy world, but sometimes it feels to me that counsellors are particularly demanding of themselves and each other in the need to do things right. Counselling attracts people who care, who want to do well for others, who want to ‘make people happy’. But sometimes we can be blinded to the value of making mistakes, of having to make a judgment call in a fuzzy situation. Black and white decision making is so much easier!

Is it OK for counsellors to have needs, too?

Self-care isn’t all chocolate cake and scented candles, as has been pointed out before. In this context – of whether or not to cancel appointments – it’s not just a question of feeling sorry for myself and curling up under a blanket. Even where I may have felt anxious in anticipation, often I feel energised after an appointment – something about being so focused on that person, about being allowed a little way into their world, about our relationship, about the magic that happens in therapy. Is depriving myself of that feeling self-care? The total focus that I bring to a counselling session means that sometimes I feel as I’m ‘coming back into the world’ afterwards. It’s therefore an opportunity for me to be centred on something other than feeling under-the-weather – surely a form of self-care?

And as therapists we often feel uncomfortable talking about the reality that our work is also our livelihood – we don’t like the idea that we’re charging people a fee for ‘being nice to them’. (Reframe: therapists are people you pay to teach you how to care for yourself.) We need to make a living, and I would be dishonest pretending that potential loss of earnings isn’t a factor – financial survival is self-care too. There’s a practical business aspect to this though: we need to be ‘good-enough’ therapists otherwise our clients won’t come back. If we’re putting ourselves under pressure or making a habit of working when we’re not up to it, that won’t help the bottom line.

Giving it our best guess

All of the above comes with the caveat that we need to not push ourselves to extremes – either of overwork or of self-care! As an example; today I felt I was functioning at 85%; I went ahead with the appointment; I did feel I had more energy afterwards but I knew also that I had recovery time, a buffer of a few hours before the next client.

I have worked in jobs where I would go in when I was feeling rubbish – ‘presenteeism’ we called it in the HR world – because there was stuff that I could do that took less of my energy, and because I believed I had to ‘look keen’. I’ve also worked in jobs where I really needed to be 100% fit to cope with the demand of the role. Being self-employed, the only person I’m fooling is myself, and I just need to make a judgment and make the best of the situation.

As a therapist part of my work is modelling behaviour to the clients I work with. What am I modelling if I feel like shit and go to work anyway for the sake of my client? That the other person is always more important than the self, that I have to rescue them?

Sometimes there’s no formula

Instead I need to check each day as it comes with the information that I have; am I fit enough to work? And check at the end of the day; was I a good-enough counsellor? If some days I decide I would have been better taking the day off, that’s information for the future. And that way I’m modelling what it is to be human, that there are very few black and white decisions and that being human is good enough.

***As a footnote: the week after I wrote this, the bug really kicked in, totally flooring me. At one point I started to wonder if I would ever be well again. This was a good reality-check to my musings; there was no way I could have worked in that state – I could barely even think, let alone ‘focus on my client’. It was a reminder that sometimes there are black and white decisions!

References:

‘therapists are people you pay……’

What self care really means