Show Up Anyway: What to Do When You Feel Like You Don't Belong

She's sitting across from someone who just told her the worst thing that has ever happened to them.

She nods professionally and asks the next question.

She holds it steady the way that she's been trained to for almost two decades.

When the session ends, she walks to her car and somewhere between the parking lot and her own front door, she has to figure out where does all that go? That's Mitze Alexander's Tuesday and Wednesday and most evenings when a friend or a family member calls because they know that she'll pick up because she's a therapist and being a therapist doesn't necessarily come with a clock out.

Yes, she'll tell you that she has boundaries.

She'll tell you that she practices what she preaches.

And then she'll tell you, almost as a throwaway line, that when she starts to feel off-keel, she catches herself before she'll even let the word overwhelmed leave her mouth.

She'll pause and think about it, and she chooses to laugh instead.

This isn't a problem that is solved.

This is a woman who found a way to keep functioning inside difficult terrain.