Hi guys, and welcome to today’s session. My name is Gilles Brideau, and I’m a psychotherapist, coach and hypnotherapist that works and lives in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
Today is Thursday, so it’s typically gratitude day. I thought I’d change things up a little bit and do more of a focus on the top five reasons I love my job as a therapist, coach, and hypnotist.
The number one thing, these are in no particular order by the way. The first thing is that my career has been ever evolving. What I mean by that is I graduated from Laurentian in 1993, Laurentian University here in Sudbury. Since that time I’ve probably taken 50 to 100 different courses, anything from hypnosis to neuro-linguistic programming, just a whole bunch of different things that kept on challenging my own flexibility in working best with clients.
One thing I must say is I really do enjoy the process of learning and it’s ever evolving. I always want to find more new different ways to help clients. That leads us into the second point which is that my job as a therapist counselor coach hypnotist is extremely challenging. It’s challenging in the sense … not that my clients are challenging like meaning challenging personalities, but the issues that they come in with. The challenge to me is always about the ability to deliver my best. I always say to clients that the only way I feel you as the interventionist or the person that you’re seeking help from is that if I no longer remain flexible. I try to acquire as many tools as I can in my toolbox so that I could best help my clients meet their needs, whatever those may be. That’s from a spiritual component. Maybe I tap into the courses I’ve taken more on spirituality, or if it’s more about cognition and cognitive distortions, that kind of stuff, so it’s ever challenging.
The thing that’s really changed too, especially in the addiction field is that my clients are coming in a lot more complex. They’re not just coming in with this single issue. They’re presenting many more issues than just one. As human beings we’re complex creatures, so the challenge always remains to give the best possible care to every single person that I see.
The next point, point number three is the independence that my job creates. In my life, as I’ve mentioned here before, I have a 16 months old son. The independence that I have is that my days usually start around noon. I have a colleague here in my office, she sees clients early morning. She’s usually in around 8:00, but my preference is seeing clients later in the day and it fits well with my own timetable, meaning I like easing into the day spending time with my son and my partner. Then I usually work with clients from noon until about 7 o’clock in the evening.
I also have not worked Fridays in a long time. Now again, people could say, “Well, if you saw clients on Friday, you can make more money,” and all that kind of stuff. This leads into another point about fulfillment is that I really like the ability and the flexibility that I have in my job that I’ve created over time, to create the schedule that I like that fits into my world, and that independence is so valuable to me.
The next point is that my job is extremely rewarding in this. Just recently this week I’ve had clients who’ve had a tremendous struggle for the last year. One client with two years being away from work, and just the sense of joy that she had in her ability to finally be able to return to work and be successful. There’s a tremendous sense of reward that I was a link in the chain of change. I never take responsibility for somebody’s success because then I’d have to take responsibility for someone’s failure. I really just believe that I’m a link in the chain. Nobody special, just somebody that was able to be there for that person when they needed it.
That part of my job is so rewarding, to see people making changes big and small in their life to improve their quality of life, and that part is probably the most fulfilling one and rewarding one.
The last point, number five is my sense of fulfillment. A great part of spiritual growth, this is from Tony Robbins who has had a great influence especially in my coaching elements of my career is that we don’t live in a me-society, we live in a we-society. If you look at human needs, how you can best attain spiritual needs is by growing and by contributing beyond yourself. I find this career has allowed me to contribute to the ever-changing, ever-evolving lives with my clients.
It’s really about giving back. In session I try to give my absolute best to my clients, so that not only they feel like they’re heard and that I’m present for the issues that they’re dealing with, but I also have this real deep sense of fulfillment that I’m making a difference and contributing to lowering stigma in my community and beyond.
One of the key concepts from Tony is CANI, and I think these five points that I’ve just elicited today really capture CANI. CANI stands for Constant And Never-ending Improvement, and I think more than anything else, my job as a therapist allows me to do so, allows me to do that not only effectively with my clients, but also with myself. That’s what I love most about my job.
So that’s it. Thanks for joining me today. Please, I’d love to hear from you. Comments, likes, any other questions that you would like to have answered, I’d love to hear from you. Have a great day and we’ll speak to you soon.