Learn to be grateful for the many blessings in your life and have humility in knowing that those blessings can be lost. Thus requiring intentional efforts to foster and take care of such blessings.

Over Thanksgiving, I had a great and insightful conversation with my brother in law who is a divorce attorney. Being like minded in our values and beliefs we discussed how we’ve been impacted by the work we do and how much we have learned by working with people who are suffering greatly. We reflected about how the clients we serve are in devastating situations, tumultuous relationships, or have experienced severe tragedies or traumas. Maybe you are able to relate to your client and have experienced a situation or experience or, perhaps, it’s one you couldn’t have imagined anyone able to go through. For example, my brother in law and I discussed what it was like working with couples who are in the process of divorce or on my end, on the brink of divorce and therapy is their last ditch effort. Being married men, our careers have made us learn to appreciate the relationships we do have, knowing, however, that if we do not work hard on our marriages we too might end up sitting across from a divorce lawyer or a marriage therapist. Or in another way, when clients of ours experience helplessness or despair due to tragedy, personal choices, trauma or loss. We ourselves are one life or choice from total nihilism, the disappearance of hope, when suffering occurs. 

We ought to learn then to notice and be attentive to our own journey of being a therapist, the friendships and positive relationships we do have, the blessings in our life that helps us maintain hope and become a better version of ourselves. Gratitude allows you to then experience humility, knowing that you yourself are flawed and broken. What I see in my clients and what I see in their experiences that causes them despair can happen to me. Don’t think because you’re a therapist that life will spare you, that suffering will just pass you by. The “sucks to be you” attitude or “at least I don’t…” ideas will set you up to fail. You are no good to your clients with this mindset. In contrast, learning to appreciate your blessings as a therapist, emphasized by the suffering you do see, will give you the opportunity to take action in discovering what your clients are learning from you. It’s through appreciation of your blessings and humility in your own brokenness that you will strengthen the ability to grow and heal yourself and will help you to engage in the trust of your client a whole lot deeper. You get to witness to them on how to do the same. 

One of the many beautiful realities of being a therapist is not that you are a scientist who studies suffering and healing in a lab and gives the “right formula” to your clients, but is instead, that you know suffering and healing intimately, perhaps you’ve experienced it yourself. You’ve learned to notice and appreciate the blessing in your life in each moment and utilize the virtue of humility to recognize that you’re broken and, in such brokenness, there is opportunity for growth and healing. If I’m not willing to change, then my fate will be one of despair. I believe one of the best attitudes of a great therapist is one who knows suffering and chooses to experience healing personally and helps their clients understand the hope of redemption by noticing the blessings in life and the humility to take action to foster and grow.