Show Notes

Welcome back to The Designer Practice Podcast. I’m your host, Kayla Das.

In today’s episode, I have a special guest, Emily Goobie. She is a registered social worker, a therapeutic play practitioner, and a student doing her MSW placement at our agency. So I’m so excited to have you here today, Emily. And what we’re actually going to be discussing is self-care that energizes therapist.

So Emily, welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Hi Kayla. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be on the show and have a chat with you today.

Emily, before we dive into today’s episode, please introduce yourself, where you’re from, and tell us a little bit about your social work and practice journey thus far.

Absolutely. So yeah, I’m a registered social worker with the Alberta College of Social Workers and I’ve been practicing as a child, youth and family mental health therapist for several years now. Currently I work in northern rural Alberta, but I’m originally from Deer Lake, Newfoundland, so I’m also a very proud Newfie. And like you said, Kayla. I am an MSW student at Dalhousie University and I’m currently in my last semester of my studies and completing my practicum years, which is a really exciting opportunity.

A main passion of mine is actually clinical work with children, youth, and families. And I’ve also received specialized training in therapeutic play practitioning in order to integrate more alternative and holistic interventions into my work with clients.

Although moving forward in my professional journey, I’m definitely motivated by education and the engagement of other clinicians and professional development opportunities. Specialized trainings and overall the empowerment of other social workers, therapists, psychologists, et cetera. I want them to continue feeling ignited by the work that we do, or at times, I want to help work to reignite that spark and that confidence in our profession.

And that’s why I am really impressed and grateful for the work that you do, Kayla, in making space for these hard conversations and allowing other social workers to feel empowered by navigating this at times very complex field. So I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to chat with you today.

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for your kind words. You know, I really love today’s episode topic because I know we talk a lot about self-care as practitioners with our clients, and there are some conversations that happen amongst us as practitioners as well. But I do think there’s almost like a prescription type thing when we think about self-care.

And even if we look at today’s title Beyond the Bubbles, right? You know, go get a bubble bath, that’ll make you feel better. So I am curious on how you define self-care, when we’re talking about this in today’s episode.

So I define self-care as any practice activity or engagement that genuinely restores you or sustains your ability to live and work in alignment with your values. Not just something that temporarily distracts you from exhaustion.

I think that it’s really important for us to differentiate between feeling relief and actually experiencing restoration. Relief is our short term solution. It’s our distractions, our scrolling, the glass of wine, the bubble bath, and those things aren’t inherently bad, and relief is essential. And sometimes all that we can manage after a long day of emotionally taxing work. But it doesn’t address the underlying depletion that we experience.

I think true self-care is an energizing practice and asking yourself. What actually fills up my cup and accepting that it might not always just be rest, you know? I know for me, self-care is movement. It’s creating. It’s at times having hard conversations or setting a boundary. And I think that the ability to practice self-care is also a privilege and it’s systemically charged and kind of influenced by our social context and the organizations and environments that we exist in.

Yeah, and I love that you say that because it really makes me think about, especially in our field as being therapists, it’s like burning out is almost like a badge of honor. It’s like if you burn out, it means you are doing really great work and it means that you are helping more clients.

But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. And we are all doing great work, we don’t necessarily need to burnout, but when we think of burnout in general, it’s just that we just believe that’s the name of the game. It’s kind of what we think of as practitioners.

You know, sometimes we kind of roll our eyes at self-care, especially when we’re thinking of maybe some of those more generic type self-care strategies that may not resonate with us particularly.

So I’m curious when we think of self-care, do you think that it’s because of these generic strategies that may kind of fit everybody into one specific box?

Yeah. You know, I think that the eye roll reaction isn’t really about self-care itself, and instead it’s more about what the term has kind of come to mean in our practice, our organizations in our society.

Originally self-care came out of medical and therapeutic spaces where it meant preserving your physical and your psychological wellbeing in sustaining ways. So we’re experiencing an absolute shift here in which culturally self-care has been reduced to consumable comforts, like spa days, candles, or having a 100 step skincare routine. And in all fairness, I’ll be the first to say that I subscribe to and enjoy all of those things.

Although I feel like I have an understanding that they’re only a small fraction of what actually sustains me. Going back to the idea of that eye roll response to self-care, I think that the response is not necessarily a dismissal of the term self-care, but a challenge to the culturally indulgent and aesthetic self-care practices that are really prominent in our society and very prominent on social media.

As a therapist I see self-care as being very intimate, vulnerable, and at times uncomfortable. For me, like I said, it’s setting boundaries, having difficult conversations, sometimes grieving, confronting difficult patterns, and sustaining ourselves in ways that energizes us rather than engaging in practices that don’t support our long-term physical and psychological health.

And, at the end of the day, it’s also not an individual experience or a responsibility. We often hear the phrase that healing doesn’t happen in isolation and I would be very remiss if I didn’t touch on the organizations and the systems that impact our ability to practice true self-care.

This question actually makes me think of a personal experience in which a hospital that I worked at had a singular self-care poster in the staff washroom that listed all of the ways that we can practice self-care as employees. It included taking a bubble bath, laughing, journaling, drinking water, getting enough sleep amongst many other generic practices.

And I remember how hard I would sigh every single time I looked at this poster because I would think not only is this my first bathroom break of the day. I just saw eight clients and I’m feeling the emotional weight of holding space for them throughout the day. Now I have to complete all of my case notes, without approved overtime, and you’re telling me to laugh and ensure that I get enough sleep.

You know, it’s feels very hypocritical at times. And also, I can sit here and say that it’s not good enough because it isn’t. But I also know that that uncomfortability we feel around individual self-care also extends to and exists within our organizations. And that comes with the acknowledgement of organizational practices and accountability on the part of our organizations to address things that directly impact employees like high caseloads, productivity quotas, and workplace culture. So really, this is just a long way of saying that the eye roll is probably not about the true nature or the importance of self-care as a term, but more so about the trivialization or hypocrisy surrounding self-care in our current context.

You know what I’m hearing you say is that when it comes to self-care, it’s kind of three-tiered, one that there’s often barriers connected to us being able to implement self-care like in our agencies. And kind of going back to that badge of honor we talked about earlier, it’s just the name of the game that you burn out being a therapist and you know, you just expected and agencies expected and just society expects it. And then as a result, those barriers to self-care is one thing.

The next thing I’m hearing you say is that activities really need to align with who you are and what it is that you find energizing and helpful. And I think that, again, going back to the eye roll I am not a bubble bath person. And I don’t know if people are going to be like, why you don’t like bubble baths? But no, I am someone who’s always doing something and sitting in a bubble bath, it’s like, I got to have my phone next to me. Or if I’m going to have my laptop next to me, it’s like I can’t just sit in a bubble bath and be like sitting, doing nothing. I’m someone that has to be doing something all the time. And some people might think. Well, that’s not self-care, but what I’m doing are things that energize me. I like to write, I like to think, I like to learn. So even though I might be on my laptop or doing whatever is like, I’m immersing in the things that I love to do. So to me, that’s energizing.

The third piece, which I love that you highlighted, and actually I didn’t even think about it until today, was self-care sometimes needs to be uncomfortable. And one of those things that popped in my mind is boundaries, right? When we think of certain types of burnout, it’s around not being able to create some of those boundaries.

And it could go back to the barriers that prevent us from being able to create that self-care, but it also might be internal to us and us being able to kind of create that self-care. And if we’re able to create those boundaries, might be super uncomfortable, especially as people in the helping profession. We love to help people and helping people is really our calling and why we’re here, but there are such things as doing too much of a good thing, and with that, being able to set those boundaries and how many hours can I work? Going back into agencies, sometimes we don’t even have a choice, which is again, going back to the barrier.

But in our own private practice we can create the schedule that we create. We can create the fees that we want to set, we can take on the clients that we want to take on. And so anything that’s really outside of that is our own boundaries that we are putting in place or not putting in place. I’m curious on what you think about me kind of putting these into pillars like that.

Absolutely. I think that it’s a really nice way to look at it because of so much what we do experience in our practice, whether it’s within interagency or within private practice, we do have several layers of influences that are impacting our ability to practice self-care.

And I’m really happy that you continue to bring up burnout in this conversation because at the very root of it, it’s the primary consequence that we experience in our field. It’s the reason that we’re seeing a lot of people exit the field, feel less compelled, warn people about entering the field as well. And so I do like that structure of looking at it in a tier system. I think that’s very, very interesting.

Absolutely. So let’s break something down here. What is the difference between say, self-care for the purpose of relaxation and self-care that’s actually energizing to people? And how can a therapist tell which one they need in any given moment?

You know, this distinction is so important, and though they’re both very important on their own, but they also serve two very different nervous system needs for us.

So if we’re thinking about downregulation or reducing our response to stimuli, relaxation or relief can be exactly what we need. It can help us regulate, soften and come out of stress activation. So for me, that’s scrolling on TikTok, laying down with a heated blanket, watching Game of Thrones, or honestly zoning out. In comparison, energizing self-care restores our capacity. Don’t get me wrong, energizing self-care can also be calming, but it leaves us feeling restored, so that could be working out. Crafting, taking a course, going to bed on time or volunteering.

So in figuring out what we actually need in the moment, I think that we should be asking ourselves, am I dysregulated and need soothing or am I depleted and need replenishment?

If you’re overstimulated or dysregulated, relief is absolutely appropriate. But if you’re chronically depleted, like you see so many people in our field be and experience. Doing relief based self-care leads us to constantly trying to recover instead of re-energizing ourself. I know very, very well in my experience as a therapist that after a long day of work relief is all we can manage. And that’s not failure, that’s survival for us.

So I think it’s about making our energizing self-care more accessible and more sustainable. And sometimes that means titrating it into smaller, more realistic activities. Like instead of doing a full workout hour class, maybe we stretch for 10 minutes. Maybe that’s what we manage and that’s the kind of output that we can complete during that time.

I love this, and this reminds me of an activity I used to do with my clients. As many listeners know I used to work with workplace burnout. So technically self-care was a big part of the conversations that we had.

And I used to have clients develop kind of a self-care plan, but it used to be three different columns. Short duration, moderate duration, and long duration. So I would call short duration, like under five minutes. Moderate, be like five minutes to an hour, and long duration would be. An hour or more. And we would literally say, what are the things that you love to do and how long does it take you to do any of those tasks or activities?

And we would put them in the different columns because sometimes we don’t have time to be able to do something of a certain duration , right? So we’re like, oh, I can’t go to the gym today. I only have a half hour lunch. And then by the time I get there and come back. But then we forget that there’s so many other things that we also enjoy to do that might fit into that half hour.

So let me just give you some examples. I love deep breathing actually if anything, I’m the biggest sigher in the world, and so as a result, deep breathing or sighing probably would be in my short duration. Because that could probably take me a couple seconds. So if I don’t have time to go to my moderate or my long duration activities. I could easily sigh or do deep breathing.

Something I really love to do is write, and as many people know, I just published my first book, the Passive Practice. And honestly, writing that book was so energizing for me. I love it, being able to sit down, but sure, I could probably do it in moderation. But like when I was writing, I really wanted to get lost in the flow, so I needed more than an hour to be able to focus on it.

So if I wanted to use that as my self-care obviously having five minutes in between sessions wouldn’t be the appropriate time, but if I had more time than that, so an hour or more, I might choose that as my other option. And the reason I share this is because one, that’s how I used to structure it with clients, but it goes back to when you mentioned about relaxation and also energizing is what do we love to do? What helps us? One, relax, I mean deep breathing and sighing helps me relax. And then what energizes me is writing. So they’re both on my self-care plan, but they also have very different purposes.

Now, it doesn’t mean that I don’t find writing relaxing as well, but I don’t necessarily find deep breathing energizing. It just helps me relax. So I think that there’s definitely a place for both when we think of self-care. And going back to what the individual needs and wants and loves, I’m someone who loves to learn and loves to solve problems and loves to organize.

So bubble baths. If you love bubble baths, you know, that’s great. It would stress me out even more to have a bubble bath. Now, have I ever had a bubble bath? Absolutely. There’s times, I’ve gotten a bubble bath, but I’m probably not in there very long before I’m out again. So picking and choosing what people love and kind of putting them in those buckets can be really helpful, especially when you think you don’t have time, but there’s always something you can have in every single column.

Yeah. And Kayla, I’m really glad that you brought up the point of what do you love to do and what do you enjoy? And honestly, sometimes that can be really hard to figure out. You know, we think of ourself, like you said earlier, social workers as a helping profession, therapist as a supportive role, selfless role. And so oftentimes we. Think about ourselves and our values as constantly giving out to others rather than giving to ourself.

And I know for me that was something that I really struggled with, was figuring out what does actually energize me. I have things that I like to do. I have hobbies and interests, but what is actually making me feel energized. What’s making me feel excited for tomorrow? What’s giving me that extra push?

And I’ll say that my relationship to self-care and re-energization started with a simple personality test, if you can believe it. Recognizing that my internal motivators were creativity and education was so eye-opening for me, and it made sense as to why I wasn’t feeling recharged after having a nap, or watching a movie, or doing a face mask. I now know that my self-care has to be aligned with my intrinsic motivations, so I now spend time with artistic expression movement. Immersing myself in new learnings and creating tangible things that I feel inspired by.

And I think that every therapist is different and has different motivators. And Kayla, you highlighted a different type right there talking about writing and feeling not comfortable in the bathtub because you feel like you should be closer to your phone and that kind of notions of productivity. And there’s a place for that. And there’s specific self-care practices that we can do that support that as well.

And, just off the top of my head here, talking about some different personality types and things that can energize them. I think about those who are introverted. Protecting unscheduled alone time, solo nature walks, and gentle, non-demanding crafts can be really helpful.

On the opposite side for extroverted individuals, it could be having collaborative projects, engaging in community events, or spending time with friends instead of holding space for people. Also, there’s a large population of us who are highly sensitive therapists and require some extra ways to regulate ourselves after absorbing so much emotional weight with our clients.

So this could be feeling more drawn towards sensory regulation practices, some body-based work, yoga or stretching or strong transitions and boundaries between work and home.

And Kayla, I would consider you to be in this category here, but high achieving or driven therapists or individuals, they’re energized by mastery boundaries, education, you know, kind of proving that self-care doesn’t always have to negate traditional concepts of productivity, which I think that you highlighted very well there.

So I do think that there’s a lot of different things and a lot of different ways for therapists to feel inspired and ignited. Their interest and by their self-care. I just think that it does require a lot of sitting and reflecting and kind of getting to know yourself on a more intimate level again, when so much of our life is kind of consumed by our practice.

Oh, there’s so much that you said that I absolutely love and I think one thing I really want to touch on is. I think you’re right. I am, I definitely would identify myself as a high achiever. And we often look at that as like a bad thing. You know, or whether we’re an introvert. Like I’m an introvert as well. But our personality is not good or bad. It’s about working with who we are.

And I can’t remember if I ever shared this on the podcast before, but I am going to share it here today that I used to think that I was a terrible social worker, and the reason is because I always felt that I wasn’t following the traditional social work expectations. For instance, something that does drain me is being a nurturer. Nurturing and handholding. And I would say many of our listeners would not understand that because a lot of our listeners are nurturers. So that is like innately to who they are.

But because that drained me. I could see all of my colleagues spend hours and hours with clients specifically clients with maybe higher needs. I could have two sessions and I am conqued out, especially if they’re like sessions that required a lot of nurturing.

It’s not until similar to yourself taking a personality test. And I was like, wow. This is not who I am. It validated what I already knew that nurturing was really difficult for me. And so as a result, I was able to accept who I am and then move into a different way of how I helped the world. And it really did shift. I no longer think I’m a terrible social worker, I think I am a different social worker. I may not be the norm, but at first, I thought there was something wrong with me, but it was more that I wasn’t accepting who I was within my own personality. And so I think it’s really important, you know, for all of us to think about. I know we’re talking about self-care, but self-care is also the strategies that we employ.

I’ve recently even had a conversation with a colleague and I thought it was so validating. Me and this colleague were talking about what we perceive valuable in like a service or product. I see more benefits, like things that I can gain out of a service or a product is going to be beneficial to me. Whereas this individual actually valued more of the experience, the community, the togetherness that a service or product could give. It was really interesting because neither is right or wrong, it’s just that what we personally want to see and need.

And I also want to add this into like kind of the business side of things as well. It’s that what we see as valuable doesn’t mean it’s always what our clients or the people that we want to have in our communities want, right? So we see the world through our own lens, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that that lens is the only way the world sees things.

Again, thinking about personality as an introvert, while I create communities. Me personally, I don’t necessarily seek them out because I am someone who enjoys being an introvert. Now. I do see the value of also having a community and a membership, which is why I developed them and still a part of them, and I gained so much from them. But being Really honest to ourselves of what energizes me and what doesn’t.

And I think society often thinks of the extroverts or the people who need to be around people as being the norm. But I do know the pandemic brought a lot out in different people. Many people really craved the connection with others and they missed it. While there was others for the first time realizing. Wow. I enjoy being behind a computer or I enjoy working from home. I didn’t even know this was an option. And again, neither is right or wrong. It’s going back to our personality.

And so how does this all apply to self-care? I think really being honest with who we are as individuals and not necessarily comparing ourselves to others around us, but really saying, what is it that I am energized by? What is it that I feel that’s relaxing? What is it that I need in this moment? And that could be very, very different from your colleagues, your family, or your friends.

No, I absolutely agree Kayla, and I think that it touches on a good point of, the classic saying, it takes all kinds of kinds and I think that it takes all kinds of therapists, it takes all kinds of social workers.

And even taking it to a bit of a deeper level too, we look at how our organizations. Our education kind of molds us into what is expected of us as the typical social worker, and it is that nurturing role. It’s that supportive role. It’s that perhaps extroverted role. But I think that also negates the fact that our organizations are run by all types of therapists and social workers that come with these different strengths and internal motivators.

And it’s hard to have these conversations too, as a social worker and recognizing that maybe you aren’t the nurturer that you expected of yourself. But does that mean that you are not meant to be a social worker and work in this field? Absolutely not.

And I think that that’s a judgment that we need to be very cautious of placing on ourself and also when regulating others in our profession, which we know happens so often.

So, I’m really glad that you made those points, and thank you for sharing your story as well.

Oh, thank you. So, do you have any additional advice, insights, or tips for listeners about self-care that energizes them?

Yeah, I think that one of the biggest insights that I’ve had when reflecting upon my self-care is how little I was doing to compliment my intrinsic motivations in my professional career. Of course, my work as a therapist is fulfilling and it fulfills several areas of motivation for me and provides me with satisfaction, but I continue to feel emotionally and physically drained. So finding avenues or kind of pockets to include creativity and education into my work has really changed things for me, whether it be creating client resources or posters, prevention materials, or creating and presenting workshops. It’s truly changed the way that I interact with my work and my clients.

So my advice to any other therapist or social workers would be to really reflect and evaluate on your internal motivators. And if you need some assistance from a personality test like I did, amazing, but actually doing something and making changes with that information, even if it’s the most minuscule activity. I believe that if done with intention can change absolutely everything.

Emily, this was such a great conversation today, and thank you so much for joining us on the podcast to discuss self-care that energizes therapists.

Thank you so much, Kayla. I really enjoyed chatting with you today, and thank you everyone for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on The Designer Practice Podcast.

I’m tell next time. Bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by Denis Pavlov Music from Pixabay

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