Ginkgo Leaf is still responding to the emergency in Asheville, NC. We will be resuming business operations as of October 7. If you are in crisis, please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.
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If you have been charged in error during this time for a visit that did not occur, you will be refunded or this will be offered as a credit to your account when we regain Internet access.
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The start date for the RISE program has been changed to October 21, 2024.
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We are thinking of you all. Stay safe.
-The Ginkgo Leaf team
Medical Professionals
You are deeply invested in your work and passionate about healing others. More and more often, though, it is hard to get out of bed in the morning. You feel tightly wound and irritable, and others are starting to notice. You have always been able to rise to the demands of life, but this feels different. It's been flickering in and out of your awareness for a while now, along with words like burn out, compassion fatigue, and vicarious traumatization.
You thought it would get better.
You are not the helped. You are the helper. You are the strong one; you are the one who rescues those who are vulnerable. You worked hard through medical school and residency. You dug deep through nursing school. The whole way through, you told yourself you were one step closer. One step closer to making decisions yourself, to practicing independently. One step closer to being respected and trusted, to being valued in your community.
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Now you're here; you've arrived. And it is not better. You feel like you spend half your time talking to insurance companies, not to your patients. You can see that there is so much need. There are not enough people, there is not enough time.
You are an advocate.
And yet, so often it feels like your words fall on deaf ears.
You have talked to your leadership. You have voiced your concerns. You have streamlined your working processes to the point where you are incredibly efficient. And yet, you still feel like you are buried in paperwork. You just don't feel present anywhere. It feels like you have to hold yourself in a very particular shape - and it is not your own. It is the one that your healthcare system needs you to take.
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You are a wounded healer, and you feel very alone.
They work with herbs
and penicillin
They work with gentleness
and the scalpel.
They dig out the cancer,
close an incision
and say a prayer
to the poverty of the skin.
"Doctors," by Anne Sexton
One of the advantages to seeking psychotherapy is that you can gently dress your own wounds, in privacy. It is incredibly difficult to be in a leadership position, and to be expected to heal others while you, yourself, are suffering.
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You are used to being the one that others trust. You make others feel safe. Perhaps you can experiment with allowing yourself the same experience. Perhaps you, too, can have a safe space to tell your story.
Trust is not a light switch. Let's gradually build it together, one session at a time.
