Why I love being a therapist.

By: Aaron Mitchum

I can’t shake it. I just think I’m built to be an artist. The arts that I’ve chosen to work in are music and counseling/coaching (I’m bracketing for just a moment that there’s a whole important science side to counseling/coaching and a whole important math side to music).

In music I am passionate about song writing. Keith Richards has said, or was it Leonard Cohen?, I can’t remember, one of them said that writing a song was like putting your ear up to the hotel wall and listening to a radio that’s playing in the next room…you just kind of have to tune in and listen really hard. For me, the feeling of tuning into a song, finding words and melody that match and elucidate something from life that maybe had only been felt up until then is addicting.

In counseling/coaching it’s similar. We work hard together to find a way to harvest the sub feelings of life into words, thoughts, movements and expressions so that people can change in ways that help them feel better and liver fuller. It is truly something sacred. I absolutely love helping people. To get to be on the journey with someone as they: learn about themselves, believe in themselves, change old patterns and beliefs that hold them back, heal from wounds, find forgiveness and hope, etc. is a sacred thing and a gift.

Both song writing and therapy/training are chances to sit with the mysteries of life and bring them into a form that can be shared and thought and be changed by. I can’t think of many things more meaningful for someone like me.