Shifting Gears

I have never been more committed, convinced, and captivated to pursue a career in clinical therapy. Serious. People who know me I hope need no explanations or reasons why. I hope it’s evident in my way of being. I spend a very great deal of my time, energy, focus, and thought constantly analyzing and deconstructing the human mind, mainly my own. Analyzing the minds of others is a secondary goal which I admit inadvertently comes into play as a result of my sheer desire to understand my own. It’s a simple truth I’ve learned over the years, and I accept it.

I am influenced by people, and people are influenced by me. To understand myself, I seek to understand others. To understand others, I seek to understand myself.

For the longest time since far back into my youth, I’ve been very busy perusing the inner workings of my mind, experiencing a combination of both genuine fascination and confusion. I didn’t realize this back then, but I do now. My journey into working as a therapist started a long time ago. My first and longest client was, is, and will always be myself. I’ve acted as my own therapist in order to continue surviving, to continue thriving. I had to. I’ve learned how to rescue myself from my chronic dips into utter despair, apathy, and low self-worth. I learned how to sit with anxiety, to let myself experience it, and how to dissect it to expose the very core. I learned how I best relate to and with people. I discovered how much I thrive off of experiencing and witnessing authentic human connection with others through the power of vulnerability. I learned the mind truly is an amazing tool which can influence and reshape our bodies, its reactions, and its habits through practice. Throughout life, I felt my mind was trained to be in therapy. Finally, I want to face my fears and pursue the opportunity to leverage and refine this part of me.

The brain is a vast complicated world of possibilities, answers, and mystery. My goal isn’t to tackle them all, not by any means. I’ll leave this for psychologists and neurologists to dig through in their continued research. My focus and fascination lies primarily towards a specific portion of our human traits. Emotions. Though I'm intrigued to understand scientifically how or why we feel the way we do, I feel more drawn to gaining a stronger understanding and foothold around how best to cope with them. I know it’s a lifelong journey, but it’s one I’m clearly already on with no end in sight.

Therapy requires going back to school. It’s a two year commitment in a graduate program with multiple routes to choose from depending on what one wants to focus on. A long time ago, I promised myself I wouldn’t go back to school unless it was absolutely required and necessary to do so. The only reason fitting this bill is the pursuit of a career I’m genuinely and profoundly passionate about. To this day, I haven’t found or felt anything else which matched the same level of passion, curiosity, intrigue, love, diligence, and priority. I’ve found the reason. It’s time to act.

I’ve been mulling this idea over and over for nearly a decade if not slightly more. I’ve experienced the urge coming from my core, pulling me from the inside out, dying to get my attention. Finally it has it. The idea of pursuing a higher education around the field of human emotions, mental illness, and disorder is both incredibly exciting and slightly terrifying at the same time. On one hand, what am I getting myself into? On the other, complete liberation.

I’ve been training myself since as far back as I can remember. It’s second nature to me. A part of me knows I’m ready. I am ready, and the truth is I always have been.