Prioritizing self-care can refill our cups, bit by bit.
“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
– John Lubbock
Let’s be honest. You’re not always in the mood.
Maybe you’ve just had a fight with your partner, or a final demand for that long-feared bill… or you’re simply just, well, not in the mood today.
Sure, everyone has times when they just don’t feel like working.
I mean, imagine going on stage as a standup comedian after hearing bad news or not having slept, or having to face customers as a waiter at a high-end restaurant after being torn a new one by your crazy neighbour.
So, yes, any job can be tough sometimes. But that doesn’t negate the truth that delivering therapy can feel difficult and lonely sometimes.
Prefer to watch instead?
Being ‘there’ for everyone
We always have to be ‘on our game’ every moment we are with our clients. We can’t hide in the cupboard or lament to co-workers. We’re on our own when at work. Our grief or irritations, ongoing illness, worries and fears – our ‘stuff’ – has to not matter as we fully attend to our clients. And that can be tough.
And practitioners tend to be, naturally, sensitive people. This is how it should be, and in many ways it is a wonderful thing. We need to be attuned to life, to other people, to the ebbs and flows of existence, to appreciate deep feelings and read emotional nuance.
And yet, as with all things, there are (at least!) two sides to a sensitive nature. Highly sensitive people may be more prone to emotional problems themselves.1
We need to be able to harness and direct our sensitivity, not let it run riot and determine all our experience. We cannot, after all, pour from an empty cup.
Running on empty
Feeling defeated and deflated, burnt out and used up helps no one. Being empty of spare capacity to help others because you feel exhausted or wounded yourself is not fair to your clients.
But it’s not fair to you either! Prioritizing your own wellbeing is essential for being the best therapist you can be.
What do you do to boost your mood and energy? Here are five practical strategies to boost your mood and energy before a busy week and between sessions.
One: Prioritize the healthy completion of your own needs
During a safety announcement on an aircraft we are told to make sure our own oxygen mask is fitted firmly before helping others! This isn’t selfishness, it’s practical.
Unless you can ‘breathe’, you can’t help others to do so!
Therapists, just like clients, need to ensure their emotional needs are met and their energy is replenished. When you meet your needs you refill your capacity to help others. You create spare capacity within yourself.
A starving man or woman will desperately seek food in any situation. Urgently seeking attention or understanding from our clients because we are so starved of it in our wider life is definitely not what they signed up for.
So we need spare capacity to focus fully on our clients. This doesn’t mean a therapist needs a perfect life in order to practise; far from it. But it does mean they need to take steps to meet enough of their needs enough of the time so that the instinctive drive to meet them doesn’t corrupt therapy.
FREE Reframing Book! Just subscribe to my therapy techniques newsletter below.
Download my book on reframing, "New Ways of Seeing", when you subscribe for free email updates
When our core needs, such as connection, meaning, achievement, and control, are met, we naturally feel more energized and resilient.
Take a moment to check in with yourself:
- Are you getting enough social connection (even brief positive interactions)?
- Do you have something to look forward to outside of work?
- Are you giving yourself a sense of achievement, even in small ways (like ticking off a to-do list or learning something new)?
- Do you relax deeply sometimes away from work?
- Do you get enough exercise and sleep, eat a healthy diet, and moderate alcohol and sugar consumption?
- Do you feel connected to a community?
- Is there someone in your life who accepts you as you are and with whom you can share your feelings and thoughts?
Prioritizing these aspects of self-care can refill our cups, bit by bit. Which leads me to the next recovery, or maybe I should say ‘self-replenishment’, strategy.
Two: Harness the power of small wins
To have enough spare capacity to be able to give to clients, we don’t, as I said, need to have a perfect, problem-free life ourselves (as if there were such a thing!). But we do need to ensure we have enough gas in the tank or, more poetically, magical elixir in our cups, to be able to help heal others.
Focusing on small, achievable tasks can help lift mood and create momentum. For example, set a simple goal for each day, like going for a walk between sessions, preparing a healthy meal, or organizing your workspace. Completing these ‘micro-goals’ can give you a sense of progress and control.
This is a small way we can refill our cups. But it’s not always enough.
Three: Practise mindful transitions
Client sessions can sometimes be gruelling and hard. We can feel sucked into the depressive, anguished mindset or trance state of our clients. And when this happens, we need a way to decompress. We need, in other words, to refill our cups – and we can do this by observing ‘mindful transitions’.
Before and after sessions, take a few minutes to ground yourself. Simple mindfulness techniques, such as focusing on your breath, noticing sensations in your body, or stepping outside for a few deep breaths, can help you ‘reset’ between clients and ward off emotional fatigue.
One practitioner I know tells me he shadow boxes after a session, leaping around, getting the blood moving. Another does a quick yoga routine, and yet another walks briskly around the block to clear her head. Physical activity can lift mood and demark one session from another, delivering a fresh slate for your upcoming client.
“I do the daily crossword,” one counsellor told me, “just to clear myself.” The same practitioner told me she also does mindful meditation between sessions.
But a large part of life can and perhaps should be… fun.
Four: Engage in pleasurable activities
Healthy pleasures should certainly be encouraged for our clients, but we need to take our own advice.
Regularly enjoy healthy pleasures such as listening to music, spending time in nature, or savouring a favourite food. And remember that laughing, playing, and spontaneous fun are not the sole preserve of young kids!2
Small joys can recharge your emotional batteries and remind you of life’s richness outside the therapy room. Not everything in life is struggle, pain, regret, panic, or fear, and we need to regularly feel connected to the truth of that.
We can become stuck in problem mode, yet it’s often when we are not thinking about therapy and human problems that insights emerge from the unconscious solution factory that is your subconscious mind. Play a sport or engage in a shared hobby, outside in nature if possible. You can almost feel your cup refilling during these times.
Finally, we can use direct techniques to reset our minds and bodies.
Five: Use self-hypnosis or deep relaxation
Self-hypnosis or meditation is useful for therapists as well as clients. Even a short body scan or ‘three things’ induction can help you access a calm, resourceful state and boost your energy for the day ahead. During self-hypnosis I might access the feelings, sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of walking a favourite route by the sea.
Relaxing in a beautiful secluded spot, I might imagine any feelings of tension or tiredness filtering out of me through my fingertips out into the ether as, in turn, I start to be filled up by sunlight, warmth, and a healing energy.
This is also a great mindful transition (see tip three).
I don’t want to suggest that doing therapy is always hard or draining. Far from it. Especially if you practise hypnotic therapy, because you tend to benefit in tandem with the client.
Many clients inspire us. Some can recharge us, make us feel great. We become so absorbed in their story we forget ourselves and enter that beautiful state of selfless flow, and after sessions like that you tend to feel great.
Some clients are entertaining, even funny, and all are fascinating. But the sessions are, and should be, all about them. And hearing terrible tales of hardship or horrific accounts of trauma can have an impact on us even if we don’t always recognize that.
Tending to others begins with tending to ourselves. Your wellbeing is not optional, it’s essential. When we refill our own cup we can truly give to others.
Train Online with Mark Tyrrell
Did you know we have a whole suite of online courses for practitioners, all delivered through our platform Uncommon U? This means it’s easy to continue with your course whether you’re on a laptop, tablet or phone, so you can get your CPD hours no matter where you are. Read about Mark’s courses here.
FREE Reframing Book! Just subscribe to my therapy techniques newsletter below.
Download my book on reframing, "New Ways of Seeing", when you subscribe for free email updates
About Mark Tyrrell
Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.
You can get my book FREE when you subscribe to my therapy techniques newsletter. Click here to subscribe free now.
You can also get my articles on YouTube, find me on Instagram, Amazon, Twitter, and Facebook.
Notes:
- See: Falkenstein, T., Sartori, L., Malanchini, M., Hadfield, K., & Pluess, M. (2025). The relationship between environmental sensitivity and common mental-health problems in adolescents and adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychological Science, 0(0).
- See the great book Healthy Pleasures: Ornstein, R., & Sobel, D. (1990). Healthy pleasures. Grand Central Publishing.
