This is Me!
My first blog post, on my new website!
This is my 3rd website in about 3 years, but do you know what makes this one different? It has my actual name.
My first website, Integrative Dramatherapy, very much represented my then identification as a Dramatherapist, in a very narrow way of perceiving myself. I had finally found a profession/career that I loved, with the potential to change people’s lives on a global scale, just like I’d always imagined! And then came a burnout, a breakdown, and a breakthrough. I closed down that website, and created The Healing Continuum. This was an expansion on my Dramatherapy practice and its aim was to begin merging the Professional, and the Personal. It was more of a philosophy of life, as the name was symbolic of my beliefs and experiences around healing – mainly that it never stops, and it’s continuous.
And then came another moment of breaking through, and I almost left the therapeutic world altogether. I know, how dramatic! But the important thing to mention about that, is the fact that I experienced, for the first time in my life, a level of surrender and letting go which was felt throughout my whole being.
Many things that felt important, no longer are. Mainly expectations and life plans. I started living from a place of no expectations, no agendas, relinquishing control that I never had in the first place, and following the clues of life. What do I mean by this? Basically, I’m paying attention to “the signs”. The different clues out there. These clues can come from anywhere, at any time. Sometimes, it’s something that someone says. Or the same thing appearing over and over again in my life in a short amount of time. Or something not working at all. For example, in conversation with a friend who is currently working on opening up her practice, I came upon one of these clues. We were discussing names of businesses, and I was telling her about all the different names that I had used, and why, and how actually it has made great sense that they have evolved and their meaning changed. She was then going through the different names she had thought about, and one of them was simply her name, plus the word Dramatherapy.
I felt something in that moment. I didn’t know what it was, but I paid attention. There was something there. Something about the name. And so, when you begin to pay attention, you will begin to see more. More and more conversations about names took place in the following couple of weeks, and then it dawned on me, what the feeling was about: my name! On a future post, I will be discussing my name and how special it is to me, but for now, I will just say this: I needed to just be me. No fancy names with some kind of fancy philosophy behind it. Just me.
Do you know the number one thing people I know tell me about myself? That all the quotes and insights I post on my Facebook page really help them through challenging circumstances. Do I do this under any kind of banner? Nope, it’s just me: the awareness, the insight, the inspiration, the compassion. I realised that I didn’t need another name for my “work” – I can simply use my own! Ultimately, I am the everything of what I offer professionally. People connect with me because of me, not because of what I studied or learned.
So, no more masks. No more subterfuge.
This is me!
Ryan