Phase 2 ~ Exploration of Self ~ Safe Places to Express Your Self

As you are considering exploration and expression of your inner self, please consider:  
 

• Where do you turn when triggered in your work, and in your life? Who do you reach out to via phone/txt/group?  Who are your key attachment figures?
• How do your attachment figures respond to your needs?
• Who has earned the right to hear your story, your vulnerabilities?  (from Brené Brown)
• How do you respond to your own needs?
• Who/what is your ANCHOR© - that secure place that helps you ride the waves of life?
• Consider various relationships - partner, children, family, friends, self, colleagues, groups, supervisor(s), mentor/therapist, higher power (God, Universe)
• What does this relationship give/do for you?  Consider bodily affect, core belief in self, grounding.
• What are you able to give to this relationship?

 
For many of us, we work in private practice in isolation; we are in the room with our clients on our own.  So then what?
 
I have grown to appreciate that the more secure I have become in myself, in the responses of trusted colleagues/family/friends, I have grown more secure, capable and able in my work with clients.  Trusting I am in the hearts of my colleague family of friends, the more I am able to hold onto the truth of not being alone in my life, the more secure I can be when I am on my own.  It is distinguishing feeling alone versus lonely sometimes.  Our work can be very lonely and isolating.  Holding onto that sometimes people can’t be right there at the very moment you reach out, but knowing and trusting they care, and will respond when they can, helps soothe us when we are on our own. 
 
Reading Reflection:  Consider the above questions in your personal journal, reach out to a secure attachment figure, or share here.
 
Next Up: Phase 2 – The Felt Experience in Reach and Response