A Plea to the Overly-Ambitious, or, Clients, Let Me Do My Laundry

A plea to the overly-ambitious

My client cancelled 1/2 hour before the appointment. I'd already been traveling for 1/2 hour, was 1/2 way there, in such heavy rain I didn't feel quite safe. My client's cancellation was extremely reasonable: s/he'd had a medical procedure the day before and was still feeling shaky. This wasn't a "AWWWW, I dunn wanna!" which I might have encouraged him/her to push past.

Here's my plea: my client KNEW this was a highly likely reaction to the procedure. My client had already pre-emptively cancelled others of our sessions the minute s/he'd scheduled a medical commitment. I'm annoyed that my client didn't cancel this appointment in advance as well. Self-care is a human right, and, as much as each of us can make it so, a responsibility - look at it as "Putting your mask on first in the airplane" if you have to, although that sorta contradicts what I'm about to say next paragraph. It's a concept I have to teach too many of my clients, and that hurts. Word of honor, I've had to argue my clients OUT of keeping our meetings when they were describing being dizzy and nauseous with time-zone changes from traveling at an awful pace (Don't get me started, been there, done that and then some!), or were in bed for a week with the flu and then a tooth broke...

Please, figure out who are the ugly, vicious demons whispering to you that you can't take care of yourself. Are the messages some version of "Lazy, crazy, stupid," to paraphrase a marvelous book about living with ADHD? Are the lessons some miserable, misanthropic gender-stereotyping of "fill-in-the-blank."? Realistically, when you're taking care of yourself, you're going to be more productive in the long run - less likely to make mistakes, more able to focus and sustain your efforts. Find your balance.

But, so, if I can't convince you to take care of yourselves for the sake of taking care of yourselves, I'll turn it on its head. I could have been doing my laundry. I could have been feeling safer. All (your) actions have reactions.