Okay quick. Close your eyes. Well, rather read to the end and then close your eyes.
I want to ask you one question.
“Why are you doing this work?”
I am imagining your response…
“Because I like to help people.” Or maybe …
“I wouldn’t want to do anything else – in fact I’ve been a therapist since I was five years old.”
Or even …
“I enjoy the work and I like having my private practice so I can set my own hours.”
Let’s go deeper…
“Why are you called to do this work?”
For some it is about being called to be a healer as a life purpose. For others it is a way to continue to grow and evolve ourselves.
But for many, spoken or unspoken, it is about leaving a quiet legacy.
For every life you touch..for every heart you mend … for every bad relationship you help someone to leave lies a new birth. The client is changed forever in ways that you can see and in ways that you may never imagine possible.
But there is more. That healed soul goes forward and lives a happier, more fulfilling life. Her children have a more stable and happier mom. Her intimate relationships become more loving and more playful. Her co-workers see her new found self-confidence and enjoy her support and friendship. Being in her presence causes others to be their best. People in her world begin to heal their wounded parts too.
As you, my wonderful colleague, touch one life, you are exponentially healing this planet. Those you touch go on to positively influence many others.
That is the legacy I see you leave. And in this time when some are devaluing therapy or making therapist jokes, please know, I see your legacy.
So now, close your eyes and think about -
Why are you doing this work?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Casey,
Thanks for the uplifting support, beautiful inspirationa and reminder of the ripple effect. Sometimes the work of therapy gets lost in the individual legacy or the why I really went into this work.
As for me I went into working with others because I believe in the human spirit of change fostered with unconditional support.
That is what I want my legacy to be, the one who offered unconditional support, inspiraton, hope andor belief in another helping them to be able to achieve anything they could concieve.
Thanks again for bringing me back to the heart thought about why I do this work.
What beautiful words. I was tempted to say what a wonderful self-delusion but decided not to be cynical. Wouldn’t it be marvellous if the hundreds of thousands of successfully-changed clients do indeed influence the world for the better.
I do this work to bring inner and outer peace to the people I help. When people learn they can make healthier choices about the way they think and feel, they can create better lives and stop the inner and outer turmoil in their lives.
I love how you phrased it – leaving a “quiet legacy”. I have always said that my epitaph would be “she made a difference in people’s lives”. I have never felt that I needed trumpets or accolades, only a quiet and genuine thank you from my clients. Your words spoke to my heart. Thank you.
i am doing this work for pretty much the same reasons you stated in the blog, except leave a legacy. i don’t care about that; my legacy is my 4 grown children who are practicing peace, love, joy and political activism in the world from beauty to agriculture to science to literacy. i do this because after spending 30+ years raising successful children i wanted to continue to help people become who they were meant to be; to try and help them find their core and source of growing from maladaptive feelings, thoughts and actions to more adaptive ones for themselves. i was born with the gift of intuition and empathy (which took a lot of years to acknowledge), and find people easy to understand, and seem to know the way into their hearts and help them draw out (if they have the courage and it’s their time) the best in themselves. i have worked with every population we have in america, and don’t judge anyone negatively (even the murderers and sex offenders) because i know the etiology of their woundings. i speak to these woundings and work with people to help them heal themselves and find a current life and a future life where they will eventually learn to thrive, not just survive (most likely we have to start at the just survive). it’s just what i do. i also do this with dogs, and horses and plants. i guess my utopian desire is to do my part to help heal the planet, both through proaction and retroaction depending on the circumstances. and, of course, the bonus is, it makes me happy simultaneously. so, perhaps it’s my selfish way of obtaining my “thrive.”