Reflaction: Using permission liberally

In this week’s podcast episode, we talk about a universal struggle for many female mental health therapists, namely truly prioritizing our self-care and protecting the time we set aside for ourselves. And the reality is, even if we understand our personal barriers to self-care that doesn’t necessarily translate into actually putting ourselves into our schedule. So, as always, we wrap up the podcast with three self-care experiments designed to help protect your self-care intentions (using permission liberally, using scaffolding liberally, and figuring out what doesn’t work for you).

One of the things I’ve really come to appreciate about self-care experiments is how surprising the data can actually be. And that was certainly true for me when I used permission liberally. More specifically, permission to work when I work and vacation when I vacation.

Like many of my colleagues, I have historically checked my emails while on vacation. I rationalized it, as many of us do, that this is in fact an act of self-care as it provides me with an easier transition back to work as I’m not faced with a full in-box of emails. I believed I had a pretty good approach to this by simply quickly scanning the subject line and providing responses to emails from colleagues and doing my best not to get drawn in to client emails unless it was just a quick response (e.g., setting up or rescheduling an appointment). I maintained a similar approach when I moved into private practice and had two separate work emails set up: one for clients and another for an administrative role I had.

Once again, this approach seemed to be working out pretty well for me. Or so I thought.

I don’t recall the exact event or circumstances that prompted a change to my vacation email checking, but it happened a couple of years ago. Before starting vacation, I committed to not checking any work-related emails, even those that only required a quick and simple response. And because my colleagues and some clients were used to my previous behaviour, I made a point of explicitly stating that I would truly be unavailable and ensured they had access to other resources should the need arise.

I essentially gave myself permission to truly vacation when I vacation (what a concept!).

To be perfectly honest, I really didn’t expect it would make much of a difference and was incredibly surprised to discover that it really did result in me having a completely different type of vacation. Giving myself permission to stay mentally planted in vacation mode (Instead of being constantly pulled back into my work, even if it was only minutes at a time) truly was far more restorative than I could have imagined.

As time went on, this one change triggered additional steps that I now affectionately call my pre-and post-vacation work out (more about that in our next newsletter). And it all started because I simply gave myself permission to vacation when I vacation.

Where will your reflactions take you?