It is recognizing the role hands-on creative engagement plays in our sense of wellbeing. Positive psychology is catching up with ancient wisdom traditions. Ghandi understood the importance of hands-on creative engagement. If you think your practice will become more successful by simply working harder, think again.Īre you actually living the balance that you are telling your clients they need? Creative Engagement If your “life-lens” now tends to view everything through diagnosis and dysfunction it is time for some FUN. If your life has become solely organized around “the helping role” you are out of balance. In order to provide “living water” for others, you need to find concrete ways to replenish your well. He regularly withdrew to replenish himself. Ghandi understood that life needs to be in balance. Creating a rich social network based on fun, creativity and mutual support (and the pot-luck dinners are great too!). Encouraging each other to play and “go for it” and,.Cross-pollinating each other with enthusiasm, expertise, and resources.Experimenting with a very broad definition of creativity in six major arenas of wholehearted living “just because they felt like it”.Wow! What an energizing experience this has been, and WOW! It’s been amazing to witness how others have “upped their ante” by: We have been going strong for the last five years. I started a Creativity & Camaraderie Club for myself. My group would emphasize the importance of regular, committed social interaction that had nothing to do with work. I decided to give myself what I had been creating professionally for others for years – a support group based on the principles of positive psychology. Of course, this also coincided with mid-life, seeing an aging mother through dementia, the empty nest, and the “mortality reality” wake up call of my husband’s cancer diagnosis. I loved facilitating people, but I was losing steam. When I was fifteen years into my private psychotherapy practice things began to feel heavy. He understood that healing does not take place, personally or collectively, in isolation. Ghandi understood psychotherapists must replenish ourselves by surrounding ourselves with like-minded people who share our vision. Do you embody a presence that inspires people to think, “I’ll have what she’s having!?” Camraderie and Vision YOU are the most powerful therapeutic tool in a client interaction. The mother asked, “Why couldn’t you have just told him that two weeks ago?” Ghandi’s reply? “Because I had not stopped eating candy yet myself two weeks ago. This time Ghandi looked at the son and said with authority “You must stop eating candy.” The son easily agreed. Two weeks later, she returned, waited on line for three days, and asked once again. Ghandi told her to come back in two weeks. Have you heard the story of the worried mother who waited on line for three days with her son to have an audience with Ghandi? When she finally was in his presence, she asked him to please, please, please tell her son to stop eating an unhealthy amount of candy. Ghandi understood that if psychotherapists want to influence others, we must first embody those hoped-for qualities in ourselves. (If you are interested in writing a guest post, check out the guidelines here.)Ī Guest Post by Mary Reilly Mathews, LCSWR Sharpen Your Tool ” That loaded statement alone was a good reason to have Mary join us today to share more about this idea as a support for therapists in private practice. In preparing for her guest post today, Mary sais “Mahatma Ghandi never belonged to a Creativity and Camaraderie Club. She describes herself as working at the intersection of creativity, intuition, embodied therapies, and the wisdom traditions. When I read her biography on one website, I knew immediately why her comments often resonate with me. That comment seemed to catch the attention and spur the curiosity of many of us. But, it was only 5 months ago when Mary made a passing comment in response to a blog post where she referenced starting a Creativity and Camaraderie Club. I first noticed Mary Reilly Mathews, LCSWR popping up in conversations on a fairly regular basis here at Private Practice from the Inside Out about a year ago.
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