Not a Bad Gig

Besides my private practice as a psychotherapist and lifecoach, I work three days a week as an associate faculty counselor, helping students at my community college with their personal issues and educational goals. I'm treated well, paid well, and vested in retirement pay. Not a bad gig. The other best perk of the job is the free time I have for professional development.

The most significant area of professional development that has captured my interest at this time is practicing what I preach. I'm forever encouraging my students to pay more attention to self-care. All those little little things that reduce stress and increase our potential for being all we can be. Here's how I'm currently practicing my own self-care while on the job and thus futhering my professional development.Students are scheduled every half hour. Sometimes my schedule is full, sometimes not. Even when it's full, usually a student, or two, or more, will "no show" for their appointment. There is of course always some work to catch up on, or something to research and learn more about to improve my skills as a counselor. It just so happens though, that I've discovered that taking care of myself while at work is actually the number one thing that increases my effectiveness as a counselor. So it ends up being a win-win-win situation for both me and my students, as well as the college itself, when I find myself with some extra time to engage in my professional development, "self-care" activities.

Here are three of my most favorite self-care while at work rituals:

1. Yoga. When I arrive at my office in the morning I like to remind myself of that Rumi poem

Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.

while I'm lighting my morning candle. Then I take five or ten, deep, conscious breaths, inhaling and exhaling, centering in my heart, grounding to the earth, and connecting with the sky. I also like to do a body prayer to the four directions. All this takes less than five minutes and serves to settle me into both my body and my office at the same time.

I try to remember to breathe with awareness and stretch my body here and there throughout the day.
I find alternate nostril breathing very helpful also.

When a student doesn't show, that gives me half an hour for an actual yoga session. I turn off the computer monitor and the light, pull down the shade (I have an window that actually opens in my office), lock the door, stretch out on the floor and go for it.

2. During my lunch break when the weather is nice, I take a "walking contemplation" along the creek on campus. Then I circle back, around the pond and organic orchard. This is an approximate 35 minute walk which usually gives me enough time when I get back, to make a brief connection with my co-workers around the lunch table. Human connection and relaxed interaction with the folks one works with is always a good thing. While walking, it's my intention to either contemplate one of my koans/questions, such as "What am I?", or to simply be in the moment with the pure awareness of what my senses are taking in without overlaying my experience with mind chatter. Being in this "naked awareness" is most difficult. My mind is like a wild horse. Even when I'm dedicating conscious effort to being present in the moment I continuously find that my mind has run off again, into the wilds of storyland. It time travels into the past with memories, into the future with possible scenarios, going everywhere except being here now, insisting on making commentary on everything it encounters. I keep working with it though. It's very much like an unruly child that was never modeled any discipline.


3. Sometime during the afternoon when a student doesn't show, I engage in one of my two favorite office meditation breaks for about 30 minutes. Again, I turn off the computer monitor and the light, lock the door, but I leave the window shade up for this. Then I either sit in the moment as a "blended being" noticing both the physical and non-physical aspects of self or else I put on Edrid's "Preparation For Contemplation" (PFC) cd and sit, listening to his soothing voice as it guides me in a "subsidence meditation" which is good for "calming the nervous system so the mind andthe emotions settle down," as Edrid puts it.

There is it. My college work day. Like I said, not a bad gig.

Click here to listen to one track of the PFC
Click here to download all four tracks. Scroll to the bottom of the page and it's on the right.

Click here to read part one article on "Naked Awareness."

Click here to read part two article on "Naked Awareness."
But really, you should click here first and scroll down to find the three previous articles to read before you read the ones on Naked Awareness. You will also find subsequent articles to read. These are all articles that introduce the practice of Dogzen.