When More Training Isn’t the Answer
A while ago, I was about to spend $15,000 on another training. Like, ABOUT TO.
I had looked through the program. I could justify the investment. I was excited about what I would learn. Because I LOVE training.
I have spent an enormous amount of my career learning. EMDR. IFS. Sensorimotor. Attachment. Somatic work. Teachers I deeply respect.
And every single one of those trainings was brilliant. They gave me frameworks, language, skills, ways of understanding people that completely changed my work.
So when I could feel there was another level of therapist I wanted to become, I did what had worked for me for years: I went looking for the next thing to learn.
And right before I made the investment, I had to get really quiet and ask myself:
What am I actually hoping this $15,000 training is going to give me?
Because I wasn't a new therapist who needed a foundation.
I had years of experience. Extensive training. A thriving trauma practice. Other therapists were already coming to me.
But there were still clients who could make me question myself. I could see attachment, a protector, a nervous-system response, developmental trauma, an EMDR target, a missing capacity, and five different directions could all make clinical sense.
That's the weird part nobody tells you about becoming an advanced therapist: Sometimes knowing more doesn't make the answer more obvious. It gives you more possible answers.
And when I really looked back at the biggest leaps I'd made as a therapist, I realized the magic had happened somewhere else. So I pulled my application.
Instead of spending another $15,000 on another training, I took that money and invested it in high-touch mentorship and consultation.
I found people whose work deeply aligned with me, who were further along in places I wanted to grow, and I put myself in the room.
Not as the person everyone came to.
As the person bringing my edge.
My clients. My questions. The places I was getting stuck. The decisions I was wrestling with. The parts of my work, and myself. I couldn't fully see from the inside.
And I let myself be challenged, supported, reflected back to, and stretched.
That changed me.
Yes, my clinical work got deeper. My clients got better outcomes. But the ripple went so much further than that.
It expanded my capacity to lead. in the therapy room and outside of it. To trust myself. To make bigger decisions. To become more visible. To hold more impact without losing myself inside of it.
Because when you expand your capacity, it doesn't stay in the therapy room. It changes how you lead a session. How you lead your work. How you lead your life.
And actually, you saw a tiny glimpse of what I mean yesterday.
At the very end of the class, Gabriella came on and shared about a client who had recently asked to take a break from therapy.
And I need you to know: Gabriella is brilliant.
She's an experienced, deeply thoughtful therapist who has already changed people's lives—and she's still curious enough about her craft to ask, What else am I not seeing yet?
Which is exactly like so many of you.
And while Gabriella was talking, you could literally watch something click.
She saw something about this client, and the treatment, that she hadn't been seeing before.
I'm not going to tell you what she saw. 😂
If you haven't watched the replay yet, go watch it.
Stay until the end. Listen to Gabriella. Listen to what she realizes. And listen to the conversation afterward. Because that little exchange is such a beautiful example of what can happen when a brilliant therapist isn't simply given more information... she's given another set of eyes on the work.
And Gabriella, I'm saying this here:
I think your client is coming back. ❤️
And if she does, I think you're going to meet her differently.
THAT is the kind of work I'm obsessed with.
Not collecting another certification because you're hoping this one will finally be the thing.
But taking the years of training, instinct, experience and clinical wisdom you already have and learning how to embody it, integrate it, and lead from it.
That's what I realized when I almost spent that $15,000.
I didn't need to know more. I needed a different kind of room.
Maybe that's the question for you too:
What are you actually hungry for?
More information?
Or a place where everything you already know can become something you know how to use?
Esther
P.S. Enrollment for the next six-month Trauma Mastery cohort is officially open. I'll tell you much more over the next few days, but if you already know this is the kind of room you've been looking for, you can book a call here.
