Moving to the New Office – The Saga

Blurry eyed, I am writing an account of what went down during our move to Everett Washington over the holiday season. I forgot how difficult moves can be – if difficult can come close to describing it.

Why the Move

Our expensive lease was up and what started out as an adventure to downsize and save some extra money each month, turned into a monster. It seemed like it was the perfect time to move. The holidays are usually a slow time and our numbers are usually down, so with more hours at hand to create busywork, why not move? It was a first for me to move while at the same time treat people – though that didn’t happen at the same time. Anyway, thank God I am a therapist because I had to use every one of my skills on myself!

Then it happened the closer it got to Christmas, the more upset I became. Foregoing my regular trip to California to spend the holidays with my family and friends was now replaced by packing up boxes, loading them up on a dolly, countless trips down the elevator, and packing my SUV to capacity – then repeat. With my parents in their 90s and my dad in the hospital with Pneumonia, even though because of Covid I couldn’t see him, I still wanted to be there.

The definition of suffering is believing things should be different than the way they are, and boy was I making myself suffer. Hey, I’m only human. Suddenly this self-proclaimed spiritual guy who is supposed to always be loving sure wasn’t. I was worn out and disappointed in the people who promised to help out but didn’t. Spiritual my ass, that went right out the window, and only frustration, anger, and overwhelm remained. I wondered why God was making me go through all of this. Suddenly I was faced with making this move all by myself and the 31^st of December was looming larger on Christmas Eve.

The Stress of Moving During the Holiday’s

I know I am not the only person on Earth who has moved during the holidays, while at the same time being separated from loved ones, so I tried to make the best of it. I listened to heavy metal music and voiced my anger as I drove down the freeway. I became the guy they warned you about – jockeying for the fast lane position and sneering at people that slowed me down. If only my patients could see me now. The shadow side of my personality woke up and my light side seemed to be nowhere in sight.

In a time of need, you find out who your true friends are. My friends were nowhere to be found. What does that say about me? I am a friendless, angry, guy who makes believe he is spiritual? What happened to me? While mister spirituality was having a hissy fit I started to laugh. I kind of liked the edgy me because I haven’t experienced this in myself for 30 years or more. I used to be this angry, competitive, jerk, who played Semi-Pro baseball player with aspirations of making it to the big leagues. I was shot down when I blew out my arm pitching. The blessing was, it led me into therapy which changed the course of my life.

Seeing Problems as Blessings

My motto is to use every opportunity to learn and grow. Seeing problems as blessings is one of the cornerstones of the Spiritual Psychology approach. My mood actually made me sick. Thank God it wasn’t Covid – but it did leave me weak and above all grumpy. It’s interesting how emotions affect the physical body. So kicking back into a self-counseling mode, I found a few blessings: I reworked my policies, found a wonderful new office, and was getting good exercise. These are blessings – aren’t they? But, through all the complaining about the volume of what I was moving, I did notice that I was working out and my body was looking much better. At least I was able to do all the heavy lifting.

One thing I do like is downsizing. It felt great tossing out so many of my unneeded items. It always feels that releasing things I don’t need, it allows space for new better things to come in.  Does this mean that once I finish this move I’m going to clean out my closet – heck no! I want a vacation! Or at least Christmas in January.

Psychologically speaking, there are several events that are stressful. There is actually an inventory of the top stressors which includes: a job interview, getting married, public speaking, the first day of school, and of course moving. I wonder where running a mental health clinic while treating others, as well as moving during the holidays is located on that list?

Incremental Steps

What changed my mood the most was boxing up a lot of drawings clients made, which adorned our walls. It reminded me of what I do for a living – helping others get better. This brought up a lot of compassion for the people who drew these. They are my heroes and the reason I moved up here in the first place.

Whenever a mental health facility moves, the Department of Health needs to be notified. They informed me that I had to reapply for my license. This of course involves paying the fee (which I won’t mention because I am trying to keep my anger down), set up the new facility according to their standards, which isn’t a problem at all, and above all rewrite many of the company policies. The latter freaked me out! It took me eight months to create the original policies back in 2017! Suddenly I was faced with hour upon hour of rewriting a chunk of them. This took place while the clock to the 31^st was ticking. There is only so much I could handle, suddenly I was walking a fine line. Moving, seeing clients, writing, getting things up to standard, and did I mention donating the unneeded items? Well, as my father says: “This is living!” I know one thing for sure. I wasn’t bored.

All I wanted to do was move to a more fitting office suddenly it felt like it became a fight to keep my professional license. Merry Christmas you friendless and sick idiot!

Alright self, breathe, stay in the moment, and let’s break this down into incremental steps. My self-counseling tools seemed to do the trick. The overall picture was too overwhelming, but I could take this one box down to the trash and use the walk up and down the stairs as an exercise I could attempt to enjoy that one item. I had to block out the 500 other items left on my list!

I thought you the reader, would like to see that I am human with my own issues to work through. I don’t profess to be perfect and never had. Perfect seems too boring anyway. I like keeping things real, but it isn’t often that I am in this sort of mood. It was Christmas day and years ago I was the Santa Claus for the 3^rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica California. Oh, I can fill your ears with the ghosts of my Christmas past. Let me tell you that once that suit is on you, there is a certain magic that takes place and I really felt like I was the real Santa Claus – scratchy beard and all.

Sharing My Love and Light

Affirmations are basically positive statements that you repeat over and over again to remind yourself about how wonderful you are – or how wonderful you want to be. Mine is: I am a young, happy, and healthy man, sharing my love and light. Boy did this statement feel like a lie. I was an angry, frustrated, sick man who had a dim light and needed to be in bed resting – but there was no time for that. I had an office to move – and all by myself on Christmas. Ho ho ho.

I learned that nothing ever runs according to plan. The donation centers were turning me away. I couldn’t believe how many people were getting rid of shit. One line I waited in took a good 45 minutes, only to be turned away because they didn’t take cloth furniture. One Goodwill I talked to on the phone beforehand, they asked me to come on in, and when I showed up they were closed. Livid, I called back and they told me they were on a lunch break. What happened to me? I usually took things in stride. I thought I had worked through my anger issues but I guess I was mistaken. Where’s Scott?

Then God stepped in. Though when it happened I was shocked! Two days before the 31^st one of my interns said her kids were bored and would love to clean my walls. I guess kids like weird things. I liked climbing trees when I was a kid and they like cleaning – who knew? Have you ever worked with kids? Once they found the drum and the tambourine it was all about the pounding and noise making. Did I tell you I was sick and had a headache? But they actually did a great job and I realized that the only friends I did have were two young girls and their mother who was my intern. What does this say about me?  Loser?

After day upon day of carrying, packing, sorting, writing, signing, and crying it happened! I packed my vehicle for the last time! It was bittersweet leaving the keys and the memories behind. There were some amazingly great times spent at this office space and walking down the front steps, waving goodbye to the neighbors I had known for three years for the last time made me sad. I loved that place. All the Karaoke singing, the hikes in the neighborhood, making stupid faces to my office neighbor who amazingly cheated death a year ago. One door closes and another one opens.

At 5:00 pm I parked in front of my new facility, took in a few healing breaths, walked inside with the rest of the stuff, and then realized I had to set this new place up. Happy friggin New Year Scott. Obviously, on New Year’s Eve, I didn’t make it to midnight.

Compassionate Care is Always Available

There are many more tools and strategies you can use in your pursuit of happiness. Here is where we come in. Contact us at Basic Steps Mental Health and let us support and educate you on this journey back to your loving heart center. Imagine living a heart-centered life, regardless of what is happening externally. We’d love to be of help.

For 25 years, Dr. Scott Alpert, the clinical director of Basic Steps Mental Health, has treated over 7,000 people with mental health and addiction problems, using a Psychological approach that mixes and matches ten of the top approaches used in the industry.  We are here virtually and in-person to help you get through this COVID-19 pandemic and many other difficulties you may be experiencing.

May you have good mental health.