So, this conversation I had. A while back I got an email from someone in the area who is also a therapist who has a private practice. Her clinic was full, so she had referred a couple of her new enquiries to me. I had just set myself up in my own practice after a year out of practice and deciding it was time to return. I thought it was nice she contacted me (there’s lots of therapists nearby, and it was cool she had seen I was new in the area in practice). Anyway, email conversation turned into a coffee meeting. It was great. It turns out she also teaches, is interested in trauma therapy and eco-therapy, and has some exciting things on the go. After talking a while she asked about how I came to be here and why the move to Stirling since things sounded like they had been set up quite well where I was before in Northampton. I explained that long story short, my PhD supervisor moved and I decided to move too because I didn’t want to do a PhD long distance. I explained it meant a whole lot of change. This is a little how the conversation went after that:
Her: Oh wow that sounds like it was tough. What a radical move, to move up here too.
Me: Yeah, I guess it was a little radical – it definitely wasn’t part of the ‘plan’
Her: Yes! And to do all of that on your own and settle in, as well as start a private practice yourself alongside your work and PhD – that’s impressive.
Me: I guess so, yeah. I think academia kind of thickens your skin. A lot. So you do these things and somehow you survive and you still keep going and doing more. It thickens your skin. It sucks that it has to thicken your skin so much, and it sucks that you bear the scars of that too. But at the same time, it does mean I can be radical at times, and I know it’ll probably be OK.
It's funny because I don’t feel so radical. There are for sure a lot of things people do that are more radical than the decisions I have made in my life so far. But I have definitely taken some risks. Academia does thicken your skin, at least it does for me. In small subtle ways that I don’t really notice at the time, but then when I stop to reflect (like when I am up on mountains), I notice these small subtle ways that I have changed. Like actually being out hiking on a weekend and not working. The thick skin, too. It’s not really real but it’s definitely real enough to feel that it is real at times, and to notice the ways that I’ve become a bit hardened to the system, especially this year. The things that used to bother me (being left off an email list, being ignored, having to pick up things that others don’t do, the hierarchy power wars) – they don’t seem to have the same impact. That’s hardened skin I think. But of course there are things that get me and that get under my skin and into my being. I don’t know that I want that to be different entirely. I don’t want to toughen my skin so much that I can’t feel. You know... we do need to feel in order to live.
When I was out hiking, I had some small revelations. Getting out like this is absolutely sustaining and keeps me going. Yes, I struggle with over exercise and I get flare ups of pain in several parts of my body which means that sometimes it’s hard to work out whether moving helps or makes that worse. But most of the time moving and getting out is therapy and it is healing. It’s a way of coming back to myself. When I was doing my counselling and psychotherapy training we were trained in an integrative humanistic framework. We were taught that whilst we have several theories within our theoretical framework, we always come back to a backbone – a foundation that everything else rests on. For me, that is the therapeutic relationship – as a vehicle for change and as a site of exploration and curiosity (i.e. Sometimes what goes on in the therapeutic relationship can say something about what happens ‘out there’ for clients – and therefore exploring that, bringing that into awareness, and maybe doing things differently in the therapeutic relationship, having a different, maybe more healing experience, can be useful). Also, kindness and compassion are things that I don’t think you can do meaningful therapy without. So, in a similar way, getting out, walking or climbing mountains always has a way of helping me re-connect to my backbone – my own foundations, through small revelations that I make. It is a small way of building on these foundations and coming back to them.
This move was hard work but I appreciate the things that I’m getting from it. To be honest, when you live so close to all of this (photos below), gratitude is not hard. Moving was a bit radical, but filling life up might be the more radical thing. It is radical to follow your instincts about things, to trust yourself that you can make decisions, to take risks, and trust that things will be OK. But more to the point, women, alone, can do radical things and that is OK and pretty cool. We can climb mountains entirely alone and relocate alone. We can do things and take up space in this world whilst we’re at it. It is not easy. And I'm not talking about myself here, but this is more a reflection on women doing radical things and trusting themselves in a world that is set up to make us small - in spaces that would rather we shrink, than grow. But following my small revelations, I’m committing to not rushing, not losing kindness as I thicken up my skin, and definitely making time for the things that help to keep building foundations.
