Self as a tool: What an interesting profession we've chosen! Our ability to feel deeply with and for others is utilized to allow deep connection and the healing of others. We use ourselves as a tool. For many of us, it is no accident that we picked a field where we are using ourselves in the service of others. 

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Where did we learn to prioritize attuning to others? Most therapists I know, self included, come from families where our capacity for empathic attunement was an asset within the family system. We were welcomed into the roles of mediators, peacemakers, and holders.  

 

Overwhelmed family systems benefited greatly from our ability to minimize our own expressed emotional needs and our capacity to prioritize the emotional needs of others within the system. 

 

This practice required a tremendous amount of energy and focus, as we constantly monitored the reactions and needs of those we were in relationships with.  ​​

 

Role as holder: We learned that our role was to hold others, believing we were ultimately responsible for their feelings and well-being. By playing our role, we offered ourselves some sense of security in that we anchored vulnerable, tentative connections, de-escalated conflict, and propped up fragile caregivers.

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What was born out of an emotional survival tool developed into a lifelong process of de-centering ourselves. 

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​Underdeveloped ability to self-attune: ​Many of us never had the opportunity develop the muscles necessary for assessing and honoring our internal needs and feelings. Our Caregivers lacked the  emotional resources to provide the attunement and centering of our childhood selves necessary to cultivate self-attunement.

 

Self-attunement and exploration require energy and mental resources, which were often unavailable to us because they were primarily allocated to the practice of attuning to others.

 

A Self-De-Centered Boundary System Is Born...​ As a result, therapists often struggle to assert boundaries in our business', therapy practices, and relationships. We continue to prioritize the needs and feelings of others.

 

This practice reinforces old frameworks from our childhoods and often places us in a cycle of reliving what was. Our brains process new realities as if they were our former experiences, limiting our ability to have new experiences of self and others. For many of us, this keeps us trapped in an emotional survival mode, where our emotional well-being is linked to the well-being of others. 

 

Have you been in the practice of de-centering yourself? ​​​

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