Things being a therapist has taught me (as I become a Product Designer)
It’s been 14 years since I started my journey in psychology and now I am making the career change — Product Design.
In the past six years, I worked as a Marriage and Family Therapist and provided psychotherapy services to kids, adults, couples, and families in hospitals, non-profit, and government agency.
It is a rewarding profession, and I was fortunate to be able to hear people’s stories, assist them to overcome emotional challenges and provide unconditional support. From time to time, I also work with people who are making different transitions in their lives and figure out how to make it as smooth as possible.
Now it’s my turn.
I am currently making a career change and learning to become a Product Designer. While stepping into this new world, I took some time to reflect on what being a therapist has taught me, and what I can carry on into the next chapter. Here it goes
1. Emotions are powerful and make sure to clean up the emotional garbage
We are all human being that born with basic emotions and develop complex emotions along the way. Emotion is part of life and is one of the reasons that live in the world worth it.
Sometimes a split second of a feeling or emotion could either make or destroy your whole day. They are so powerful that sometimes it can be too overwhelming or even scary to deal.
But it’s OK. It’s OK to be vulnerable, it’s OK to have negative emotions and feelings, and it’s GOOD TO TALK ABOUT IT.
Make sure you know when the emotional garbage is built up, and when you need to take it out.
What if I don’t know what to do? Hint — talk to a therapist!
2. Self-care is IMPORTANT
And it DOES NOT need to be expensive or take a lot of time. As simple as baking a cake, eating your childhood favorite snack, or walking around in the neighborhood can do the magic! You can be creative and explore different stress reduction activities, and often it’s a FUN process.
If you are always too busy and you cannot remind yourself to do self-care, schedule them on your calendar!
Talking to others could be a starting of a healing process.
3. When you are listening (the REAL listening), things start to make sense
We all want to be understood by others, especially when we are frustrated, and we know when you are not listening.
In therapy, we use Active Listening as a basic counseling technique. The therapist needs to be highly focused, remember the content, summarize the story, and share it back with the clients. It is powerful to witness people’s reactions when they felt someone finally understood what they went through. Their behaviors and decisions start to make more sense to you.
There is always a reason, a story, or an experience behind a behavior or decision.
4. Pay attention, and appreciate the smallest things in everyday life
In the process of chasing what we want, sometimes we forgot what we have.
Too many stimulations, too much work, and too little time to do everything. We are living in the era that everything moves so fast and constant changing. It’s easy to forget how lucky we are, to be able to wake up in the morning, to be able to make your morning coffee, to be able to drink the coffee you just made, to be able to go out and take a walk, to have a job, to have a family…
Do you remember how freshly cut rose smell?
5. Trust the process, and live in the moment
It happens all the time that we are depressed about what happened in the past, and worried about what might happen in the future, but forget about how to live in the present moment, the only moment we have control.
It can be stressful and frustrating that sometimes after you poured all your hard work, there is no news or updates for a long time. Just because you cannot see it yet, doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Imagine growing a plant from the seed.
Check out Mindfulness and “Full Catastrophe Living” by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Thank you for taking your time reading through this. Please share your thoughts if you have them! If you are also a therapist who is making transitions to design, let’s chat! :)
