traveling psychologist

As a therapist and empathic human, it is so easy for me put my needs aside and prioritize others. Throughout my journey of unlearning codependency and relationship anxiety, it has been so important for me to learn how to take my needs and voice seriously.

However, throughout the years of trial and error it has become so important to me to be able to have a balance. Yes, my needs are important. But my work is also deeply wrapped up in relationships with my patients. Which means that I also want to consider their needs and what kind of healing environment I want to provide them.

This really impacts how I make decisions in my business. And as a coach, I want to help you also find that balance. I don’t think it would feel good to most of us to run our businesses in a way that abandons any thought or care for how it could impact our patients. And I truly believe there is a way to honor your needs and your patient’s needs as you step into your digital nomad dreams.

You as a therapist offer a sacred gift to the world and to your patients. This sacredness should be honored and respected.

Which means I really value therapists helping them create a life and business that treats them with this honor and respect.

I remember when I first learned about the concept of being a digital nomad, I immediately believed I wouldn’t be able to this. I am a huge fan of psychoanalytic thought and assumed that I wouldn’t be able to practice psychoanalytically while traveling the world. I had to be a good therapist and be in the office week after week, providing a consistent and reliable frame. So I quickly pushed the idea away and harbored envy towards people who chose a different career that let them follow their heart into a nomad life.

While I still believe in providing these things, I realized that I couldn’t let the love of my work take over and control my life. That what I wanted deep down was important and worth taking seriously. I needed to respect myself enough to create a business that honored myself, otherwise I would probably grow resentful of my business and patients. Something I deeply did not want. I am so protective of my work, that I know I need to even protect it from myself and my tendency to put others first.

Traveling the world and immersing myself in other cultures, requires so much openness. Openness to the people, ways of living, and to myself. There is so much you can learn about yourself, your way of life, and your own values when you are submerged into a new place. It is important for me to be open to what a place and the people have to teach me about themselves and myself.

Apart of this opens seeps into my work with therapy patients and coaching clients. While I have knowledge and experience that can be helpful, I strive to be open to what the other needs. You are unique and your situation is unique. I am open to figuring out what you need and figuring out how YOU want this life to look.

I remember when I first visited the Middle East on a group tour. As we were driving, there passed Sheppards and their sheep, as well as their tents just set up out in the middle of nowhere. The tour guide was talking about them, the Bedouins. He made a remark about how our current view would think what they do is strange and we might wonder why anyone would still live like that.

But then he went on to say that maybe what they are doing is more natural to humanity than what we are doing currently. That maybe it is capitalism and current governments desire to have us settle down into one place, so that we must pay taxes, mortgages, furniture, and all the other things that go along with our modern society.

While he made this in passing, it is something that has stuck with me to this day. Maybe my desire to travel and move around the world is not actually that strange. Sometimes I feel like a weirdo compared to my friends and colleagues. Like, why can’t I just be happy with a normal life with a house and a yard and an office I go to every week? Why can’t I just be normal?

But maybe I am normal. And if you have this same desire to have freedom to move around - maybe you are normal too. I guess it depends on your personal values. And I want you to know that your values don’t have to match your friends, or your current societies values. You have ancestors that probably travelled around. If you are in the states, then you most likely had ancestors that came across the Atlantic or the Pacific to be there.

There is room for you to follow your internal voice guiding you in a way that is outside of the “norm”.