I do not know about you, but I was in year 6 within my journey as a school counselor and I was not sure I could make it another 24 years to retirement.
I was looking into careers and different avenues for money (if you are within the educational system, you know that this is not the career if you want to make a lot of money).
Are you currently feeling burnout?
I do believe that burnout is at an all time high since the Covid pandemic. Counselors are dealing with inflation, navigating a bigger gap in pay scale in order to have a modest living, and more responsibilities without pay compensation.
I fell into the category of all three. Trying to navigate being a mother, supporting my household and balancing my time was becoming an overwhelming task.
I did decide to actively find a therapist to help process my thoughts and feelings. I would encourage you to try therapy because I am an advocate for mental health. You must put yourself first in order to be able to be of assistance to anyone else (counselor).
Here are two websites I used in my journey to find a therapist:
Moving from being problem obsessed to solution focused:
It is easy to either obsess over what we are going through, or ignore it. For those who chose to obsess, you may constantly think about how you are going to make a current problem work. Meaning your minding may think of all the reasons why the problem is an issue in your life.
I definitely understand this mentality. I too have allowed a problem to run laps in my mind. Over and over thinking about how a situation is going to have a million negative results within my life.
As I moved to being solution focused, I thought about what changes I wanted to make in my life. Specifically focusing on what was my “big” problem and what steps I could make to change it.
So, what’s next?
Finding out what your “big” problem is, creates a space to then figure out how to create solutions. My problem was “I want peace”. I had to figure out what peace looked like for me, in order to then prepare to obtain peace.
There are two different avenues that people take within their journey to find a solution.
My journey to peace involved me figuring out what I value. I value my time, I value having areas of my life where I can focus on myself, and I value being able to put myself first. To move towards actively pursuing these values, I decided to focus on what specifics are in my life that do not align with my values. Eliminating actions that I take that take me away from what I want and value.
Does counseling look the same everywhere?
Or do I only feel this way here?
My curious mind started asking myself, will I only feel this way here? I was lucky to have colleagues who have previously and currently worked abroad. All were teachers, so although I could not ask counselor related questions, I could figure out their stances within the educational system abroad.
Most of the teachers I knew loved their experience abroad. They informed me of the benefits and the reasoning they decided to return stateside.
So, welcome to my journey as I figure out “does counseling look the same everywhere?” I will be following up with another blog on this very topic. Stay tuned in September 2023. You never know until you try.