Babies, Businesses, & DEEP

This blog will walk you, the reader, through the DEEP skill in RO DBT, and how I have personally applied it to my life.  

In Spring 2024, I concurrently embarked on two adventures. As I prepared for an IVF embryo transfer that led to my son, I resigned from my group practice job and started my own private practice. I realized and continue to realize that this was an intense undertaking to pursue concurrently, but resigning gave me the peace to move forward with the embryo transfer.   I had determined that I strongly valued both expanding my family and continuing the career path that I had spent the last four years developing as an RO DBT clinician (Determine your valued goal and the emotion you wish to express- commitment and love).

As much as I wanted to have another child, since I already had one, I knew what I was in for—to an extent. I remembered the way that motherhood can be all-consuming and leave little time (and energy) for personal and professional development. I assumed that my previous experience with “momming” would help guide me with making plans the second time around. However, what changed between my first maternity leave and my second was that this time around, I was an RO DBT therapist committed to practicing RO principles in my own life. When I made my plans to go on maternity leave from my fledgling practice, I didn’t settle on a date that I would return. I decided instead that I would flexibly respond based on how things were going with my baby’s needs, especially around sleep, and when I felt that I would be ready to be an effective psychologist again. Not having a clear plan was both scary and necessary! I appreciated my clients meeting me flexibly too, as I imagine it would be challenging to not get a clear answer about when I would be back.  

I told myself that I was planning on a shorter maternity leave than I took with my first son, as a 12 to 18 month leave is customary in Canada. I love what I do and separating from my work for a whole year seemed inconceivable. Also, as eager as I was for the time with my new baby, I remember feeling entirely engulfed by motherhood and losing my identity during my first mat leave. Going back to work after 12 months, I felt like a fish out of water.  

The first thing I did differently was that I didn’t completely stop working during my leave. Now that might seem to be going against my values to bond with and focus on my son. However, I was able to maintain a few professional activities to keep my business running and my RO skills sharp. I continued participating in the RO scholars program and attending an RO therapist skills class I had joined prior to my leave. I responded to referral requests, communicated with my clinic’s dietician, met with my supervisor, and saw a very small number of clients when they really needed some ongoing care.  This took typically an hour a day at most, and I was left with 23 hours a day (yes, sometimes I used all of them) with my new baby. During the time together, I focused on being truly present with him and effectively expressing my love through physical affection, making warm eye contact, and being present and not distracted (Effectively express by matching nonverbal signals with valued goals). The amount of work I was doing was enough that I still felt a bit like my old self, but I also largely felt like I was on leave. It also gave me enough free time to really hone my skills to show up well for the work that I was doing. As an added bonus, my baby got to be the youngest- and cutest- attendee at the RO DBT conference!  

With my decision to flexibly respond and return to work when it felt right, this led to quite a bit of grappling regarding when the right time was. I had initially told myself that it would be in late spring 2025, but the baby was not yet sleeping through the night, and he had some medical challenges. I also realized that this was setting me up to return to work not long before the pleasant summer months where work is naturally a little quieter, and I determined that I wanted to enjoy my time with the baby over the summer. Despite initial guilt for expectations about my return that I didn’t keep, after some self-enquiry about disappointing people and realizing that it is okay to change my mind, I decided a fall return would be more feasible (use self-Enquiry to Examine the outcome and learn).  

Even once I determined that a fall return was reasonable, I struggled to imagine returning to work as I had been working before. I thought this mat leave would be much easier than the first since I already had experience as a mom, but I was unprepared for what I did not know about balancing two kids at once and how much more complicated it would be. I also still had some grief about leaving my son and not being able to get this time with him back. Fixed Mind continued to tell me that lots of people can have two kids, work, manage a house, exercise, and find time to stand on their heads in their free time. I continued self-enquiry in order to learn. Something amazing happened! I became aware that I did not have to return to work and work in the same way that I was working before! More flexible responding, more letting go of fixed ways of showing up around work.  

Instead of working all day four days a week with one day a week to do my paperwork, I decided that I could return three days a week with four to five clients a day, allowing myself to have four days “off” and have shorter days to maximize time with my baby. I wish I could say that it has been smooth sailing once realizing that, but I continue to practice self-enquiry to examine the outcome and to try to evaluate how balancing the two is going. I find that I often feel pulled to thinking of my baby when I’m at work and missing him, while worrying about work when I am with him and feeling a need to respond to messages or emails. The force is strong with Fixed Mind, after all. In these moments, I continue to remind myself of my valued goals, the emotions I wish to express, how I want to be present and signal with my son, and I remind myself to relax and have fun with him, again and again (Practice open expression, again and again).