Burnout is common for therapists as they are busy either with clients or trying to attract new clients or feel rundown from helping others. This article gives some practical tips to help you thrive in your therapy work. The focus is all about you!

Leisa Millar and James Ketub Golding talk about how therapist care take better care of themselves in their free book for health practitioners, The Therapist's Portable Paradise - Cultivating bliss and success in your therapy business practice. Their book outlines 10 Actions to Use Self-Enquiry in life and therapy business practice. These Actions are:

1 Enjoy your work and have fun

2 Create sustainability in your therapy work

3 Practise what you preach

4 Keep a beginner's mind

5 Care for yourself

6 Develop a network of support practitioners and mentors

7 See each client as a teacher

8 Express your passion as a service

9 Take inspired action, without demands

10 Know yourself to deepen your practice

This article discusses Action 5.

Care for yourself

How you care for yourself is how you care for others, so take responsibility for your own wellness first. Making everyone and everything else a priority above your own needs may appear admirable but in the long-term it will not be sustainable.

In The Way of the Natural Therapist (2010, L. Millar and J. Golding), Eileen Hall, yoga teacher with over 30 years experience explains the importance of self-care as a therapist when she says: "Do you serve without attachment to the outcome? Do you take care of your spiritual, emotional and physical needs so you are prepared to teach? Only first by serving yourself can you begin to serve others. If you are a compassionate and committed teacher, there is often the drawback of giving to others and forgetting self. This will, of course, make you a gifted and caring therapist with many grateful students, but it may be short lived as you could be the one that falls ill."

A therapist can only authentically care for and inspire their clients when they are taking care of themself. When a therapist is balanced and harmonised, they reflect this state in the work that they do with their clients, thereby affecting their clients' attitudes, behaviours and motivations.

Self-care helps a therapist to cope with the pressures and demands of their therapy work and in doing so they are more likely to prevent burnout. Scheduling adequate breaks between clients, eating healthy meals, knowing when to say 'no', and creating space for stillness each day are some simple ways for a therapist to take responsibility for their own wellbeing.

Having a structured and daily self-practice is also essential in assisting therapists to cultivate a balanced inner state. A self-practice may include meditation, tai chi, qigong, reiki, yoga or mantras. A mindfulness activity could be an effective self-practice too - for example, surfing, music, painting, gardening, walking in nature or any activity where you feel fully present in the moment and you feel connected to the greater natural flow of the universe.

Taking responsibility for one's own health - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually - is an ongoing practice and requires diligence and willpower. In challenging times, a therapist's consistent self-practice and self-enquiry assists them to maintain balance, health and wellbeing, leading them to greater awareness of how to take care of themself. However, self-practice is not only essential when challenges arise. It is necessary at all times as it helps increase awareness of one's inner world and divine purpose.

Siegfried Gutbrod, counsellor and therapeutic director talks about when he was volunteering in Africa: "A normal working week was between 70 and 80 hours on a voluntary basis. Again, it was my meditative practice that saved me from burnout. For the last 30 years I have dedicated at least one hour per day to my meditative and spiritual practice, with very few exceptions. I have learned that when the going gets tough, this is the time to further increase my meditation practice - even though the outer pressures normally suggest the opposite" (2010, Millar and Golding).

Often when people face challenges in their life they are inclined to do more to fix, avoid or control the challenges to make them go away. However, if they were to spend more time on their self-practice they could approach challenges with greater calmness, clarity, insight and confidence. They may then find that the external challenges transform and are not as difficult or insurmountable as they first thought. The challenges may even naturally disappear.