As you all emerge from the deep, dark cave of first semester, you’re facing 5 weeks of freedom. Five weeks of sleeping in, reading for fun (yes, it actually happens), exercising, watching Friday Night Lights (yes, I will weave Friday Night Lights into every class or message I send out), or getting started on next semester’s workload (you may laugh, but at least 10 of you have thanked me for sending out the readings for next semester already). Of course, if you’re reading this entry, you’re spending part of your vacation reading about school counseling and UMass Boston, and I don’t know if I feel flattered or sad or excited about that choice.

My wish for you is that you spend some time this vacation taking care of yourself. Nowadays, self-care is discussed a lot. A LOT. Yet it is rarely practiced. In a field where you’re expected to constantly give of yourself, it can feel unnatural to turn inward and, gasp, actually pay attention to your own mental and psychological well-being. Yet, this attention to self is not only personally enriching and sustaining, but it is professionally mandated. In the ASCA Code of Ethics, E.1.b., Professional School Counselors “monitor emotional and physical health and practice wellness to ensure optimal effectiveness. Seek physical or mental health referrals when needed to ensure competence at all times.” In the ACA Code of Ethics, Section C: Professional Responsibility:”…counselors engage in self-care activities to maintain and promote their emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being to best meet their professional responsibilities.” In fact, a few years ago, Dr. Williams wrote about the importance of self-care on professional responsibility/sustainability.

So, you see, this is your charge. Your professional responsibility.  It my part of my professional responsibility to help you do that. Or, at least to constantly remind you to do that. Or, at the VERY least, to be a good reminder. So, rather than focus on the fact that I’m writing to you on my vacation, and you’re reading my writing on your vacation, let’s focus on how to take care of yourself during the break. Lynn Shellcross (2011) wrote an insightful article about self-care as a counselor, highlighting the importance of “making room for life”, which is something I’m hoping you all take to heart over the break, with the intent of keeping that life present throughout the remainder of graduate school and your career. Her full article can be found here, and drips with compassion and well developed positions on the reasons for, and benefits of, self-care.

Really, this is a very simple concept. Find what gives you meaning and do it. This is slightly different than finding what makes you happy. In many of my classes, we discuss eudemonic and hedonic happiness. We discuss making room for meaningful and fulfilling choices as well as making room for activities that give you temporary pleasure.  For example, I find fulfillment in exploring my physical limitations. As an athlete, if I don’t run daily, I feel less invigorated, less whole. But, it doesn’t always bring me immediate happiness. This morning, I’d much rather have slept for another hour than get up before my kids got up to complete a run in the dark, cold air. Yet the harder choice, to get out of my warm bed, to lace up and hit the pavement, was most congruent with my sense of self. I’m sure I will also watch at least one You Tube SNL clip today at some point. And, that, that is the pinnacle of pure hedonic bliss. So, find your meaning and find your happy. Find time for both. And enjoy both.  For if you don’t, you at risk of what a very wise woman has termed “blorft”. What is “blorft”? Well, as Tina Fey so eloquently stated in Bossypants, “’Blorft’ is an adjective I just made up that means ‘Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.’” Don’t be blorft.

By Laura Hayden, valiantly fighting blorftdom