The Tuesday She Finally Read the Bedtime Story
I want to talk about what happens when a therapist finds her way back to herself. Because I have watched this too, and the trajectory has its own rhythm.
When you started doing this work, you had a vision. Maybe you have not let yourself remember it lately. The credentials were never the point. Neither were the certifications, or the framework someone handed you in your second year of training and told you to live by. The vision was something else.
You would be the kind of clinician people sought out. Other therapists would email asking for your input. Speaking gigs would arrive unsolicited. Editors would want a chapter from you. Clients would pay you what you were worth without flinching, and you would not flinch when you told them the number.
And at home, your child would feel you in the room with them. You would read bedtime stories with your phone in another room. At dinner you would be fully there, not still half-stuck in the chair across from your four-thirty session. Your partner would feel chosen. You would feel something quiet you had not felt in years. Not pride in your achievements... just pride. Pride in the fact that you were finally somebody you respected.
That vision did not go away. It got buried under a stack of unread books and a six-week course you could not finish and a Substack subscription you forgot you were paying for.
The way back to it is not another training. It is slower than that, quieter, and more honest.
You stop buying books. The therapy chair becomes one you sit in, not just one you send your clients to. Your supervisor finally sees the case you are actually scared of, not the one you have been presenting cleanly.
Your fees go up because you are worth it now. The apologetic emails about sessions that ended early stop appearing in your sent folder. You write the pitch for the speaking gig instead of saving it in drafts and forgetting about it.
Six months in, the supervision referrals start coming back. By the nine-month mark, an editor emails asking about a chapter. A year later, on a Tuesday night, you are reading the bedtime story to your kid with your phone in another room.
And the version of you that started this whole journey... she is the one in the chair now. She just had to come home.
Warmly,
Esther