No Boundaries
What a week. Some weeks you feel like you are doing so well and other weeks there is a palpable stiffness in your work like you are stuck in a quicksand waist deep. This week has been one of those silted water weeks where anything could suddenly agitate me. I have put an immense amount of time, energy, patience, mind and spirit into my work and unbeknownst to me I find myself in the muddy wetlands of my worries in a fluid-like mixture that can not support my emotional weight. When I stop and ponder this, I realize that it is all my fault. I have given ambivalent messages all along. “Oh no don’t sit outside in the rain (when they are 10 minutes early for their treatment) come on in.” But then 10 minutes becomes 15 and then 20 minutes. And then other times when they arrive on time, “Could you please wait? I have to finish cleaning up here.” You say to yourself, “I am going to finish my sessions 10 minutes early so I can clean up and write my notes so that I don’t have them all hanging over my head at the end of the day but no, you work until the last second or even worse 5 minutes over and then the next patient is chomping at the bit to come in.
The personality types of physical therapists are those who will give so much of themselves; empathetic and altruistic (it's written in our code of ethics for God’s sake) to help and heal others that we often engross ourselves in our work. Work-life balance: who the hell really needs that? We all F-ing do! But what happens when your work is out of your home, your haven, your nest? Your therapy studio is the garage, the waiting room is the gazebo and the patient bathroom is also your two teenager’s bathroom the other 50% of the time? No boundaries and complete running around yelling at everyone to clean, clean, CLEAN…saying “I am trying to run a business here!” and feeling like you never get a break.
Don’t get me wrong I LOVE my job and this is not only the happiest but also the MOST successful (patient progress wise) and fulfilled I have ever been in my career. I would not want to go back and treat any other way. So what is a girl to do?
I need to learn how to set boundaries in a boundaryless setting amongst the chaos of toddlers and teenagers. Or maybe it is that I need to discern how to keep the boundaries I set for myself? How does one master how to put themselves first in a profession that is built off of putting others first? Does anyone have any good ideas? I’m all ears.
