Career Archives - Andrea Tackore

Work-Life Harmony

July 10, 2025 by Andrea

Frustrated that you can’t seem to balance work demands with your personal life?

Wondering how your job affects your mental health?

Before we get into the details of our personal work-life relationships, let’s look at the bigger picture. Every society has a philosophy about human rights and work. The continuum stretches from having to earn every scrap of dignity and provision, all the way to a focus on each person contributing to the greater good with dignity assumed and provision a byproduct of impact on the community. Where does your society fall on this continuum?

At its core – work is always about economics, whether scrapping to pay basic bills, or managing/preserving great wealth. It is impossible to talk about work without awareness of economic systems. Capitalism demands continuous expansion in order to operate so every person must contribute through both productivity and consumerism, making rest a liability. The machine has to be fed 24/7. This is our context if we live in the US, which significantly shapes our career experience.

That larger context can trickle down into our family of origin, creating more specific messaging like, “you are only as worthwhile as your ability to meet everyone’s needs”; “if you don’t behave the way we need you to, we can treat you any way we like”; “you better earn your keep around here, nobody gets a free ride”; “if you are struggling, you must have done something wrong so you don’t deserve help”; “only weak people need help”; or “you better look out only for yourself”, to name a few…

So how does work interact with our personal lives?

Body

When we purchase a new electronic item, the first thing we have to do is ensure that it is charged before we can use it or we must plug it in to a power source. This simple dynamic is a perfect example of how our bodies function: we need fuel (rest and food) before we can function. Yet…we don’t act like that is true. How many of us work first and rest later? How many of us produce first and take in fuel later? We act as if we have to earn rest and food instead of recognizing that we cannot produce without first fueling up. Sound familiar? There’s the context I mentioned – it’s the water we’re swimming in.

Putting the cart before the horse – demanding production before fuel – places enormous stress on the body and where does that lead? Heart problems, digestive issues, weakened immune system and a host of other physical ailments.

Pause: Reflect on your physical health. Have you been experiencing headaches, muscle tension, fatigue, sleep problems, chronic pain or any of the other consequences of stress? If so, could your work be a source of the problem? Your focus is simply on awareness at this stage.

Soul

When I ask clients about their relationship with work, I often get a baffled look. Relationship? What do you mean? I’m referring to the way in which we relate to our work. How do we feel about it? What purpose does it serve in our lives? Is it a life giving part of our world or is it soul draining? These dynamics and more, comprise the relationship we have with our job and life experiences largely dictate this relationship. Have you experienced poverty? That can either drive over commitment to work or can wire the brain into a ‘poverty mindset’ that expects a low-paying existence. Did your primary caregivers show you that relying on others was not a good idea? Work can become the tool we use to ensure our independence, keeping us too busy for the entanglement of relationships. If love in our family of origin was only offered when there was achievement and productivity…well, we carry this mindset into our careers – making ‘success’ our holy grail. On the other hand, exposure to work as contributing to society, carried out with healthy boundaries and functional teams can set expectations for a fulfilling career that does not harm every other area of our life.

Another important dynamic is being the member of a marginalized group in our society. This presents relentless challenges in the workplace from microaggressions to outright discrimination. Being perceived as less than most days, takes a tremendous toll on one’s mental health and having to work twice as hard to disprove negative assumptions erodes not only emotional health but physical health as well. Add in the gaslighting of those who would try to say that these challenges do not exist – and you have a recipe for breakdown. The few who rise above these challenges are held up as the standard rather than the exception, and used as an excuse to ignore the very real obstacles that the rest face.

Most of us spend at least thirty six percent of our waking hours working! There is no way that work does not affect our thoughts, feelings and behaviors across the board. The fact is that our relationship with work, when unhealthy, can lead to anxiety, depression, mood swings, irritability, difficulty concentrating, impaired cognitive functioning, and substance abuse. Yes, our soul health is set up by our childhood years but work is a major proving ground for those foundational dynamics. Our work makes or breaks generational trends.

Pause: Reflect on your soul health. Does work intrude on your relationships? Do you feel guilty when you’re not working? Do you rarely have time for fun outside of work? Are you realizing a lot of your stress and anxiety is work-related? Take note of what you are seeing here.

Spirit

In faith communities, there is often conversation around one’s calling – the thing we were created to do. Ideally, choosing our work within the context of relationship to a Higher Power should lead to a career that honors our natural giftings and offers a sense of purpose and fulfillment. That relational foundation also becomes another source of fuel for the work we do.

There are two major threats to this ideal: 1) the reality of economic systems which care little for purpose or fulfillment and 2) the entangling of calling with worth. There is a special kind of misery for those who have a clear sense of calling but who find themselves in an unrelated job due to economic pressure. That discrepancy gnaws at the soul. Calls to simply “have faith” and take the leap toward what we are meant to do are easily lobbed from the sidelines…from those who will not bear the economic consequence. Even if we are working in our calling, our job can easily become the thing that pays our bills more than a faith offering. Then there is the trap of earning favor with our Higher Power through working “as unto the Lord”. Rather than the gift we were built to give the world, work becomes the way we prove our devotion

A few years ago, I harbored a lot of concerns about our business and its economic viability. We had chosen to operate in ways contrary to the usual business practices in our field, based on directives we believed came from God. We had a calling to build a practice of integrity, freedom and depth which does not align with the financial realities of healthcare in the US. As I engaged ongoing conversation with God about this, I distinctly heard this truth: “Your provision does not come from the work you do. Your provision comes from Me (God). You don’t work to pay your bills. You work to build my kingdom as I direct you.” While I would have always said God was my provider, I promise you, that is not how I approached my work. If I am honest about what I subconsciously believed, paying my bills was entirely up to me and the work I was willing to put in. Clearly, this means I applied the same idea to my husband as we are in this together. God helps those who help themselves…amiright? (insert eye roll here) That word from God was a lightning bolt! It aligned with what I would have claimed to believe but I had never considered such a plain and clear summary and I certainly had not been thinking or acting out of that truth.

Pause: If you ascribe to a particular spirituality, what is its view of work? Have you ever considered what you were created to contribute to the world? Do you have a sense of purpose and fulfillment in your work? Do you believe your job aligns with your calling? What do you truly believe about the source of provision for your needs?

So where do we go from here? I stopped using the word “balance” with this topic because that has come to represent an unrealistic pressure to give everything in life an even amount of attention. That isn’t realistic. The word I use instead is “harmony” which asks the questions: Is my work bringing more positive to my personal life than negative? Is my personal life bringing more positive to my work life than negative? This post has majored on awareness and it is my hope that you now have clarity about aspects of your career that you may never have considered.

Your next step is to use your awareness to make a plan. Where are there gaps between what you see and the goal of work-life harmony? Identify these discrepancies and then generate a list of ideas for addressing each one. Brainstorm with others who are further along in their journey of harmonizing. Remember to think short term and long term. Some gaps cannot be closed in a year but that does not mean you should abandon the mission. Keep a separate list of options – short term strategies that respect your current limitations and long term objectives that break out of current boxes and move you toward the ideal. You can then back up from those long term goals to identify small steps you will take now to start moving in the right direction. We overestimate what we can do in the short term but we underestimate what we can change over time! Then it is time to take action – start taking those baby steps. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and reach out to us if you want to unpack the childhood messages that drive your career.

We have a LinkedIn profile where we want to continue this conversation about work-life harmony. What questions do you have? What would you like to hear more about? Comment below!

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Mental Health, Mind-Body Tagged With: Career, Mind Body Connection, Purpose, Self Knowledge, Vocation

Vision

October 28, 2022 by Andrea

Have you given up on dreaming big in this season of unpredictability and global chaos?

Wondering how you can recapture your joy for life?

Join us on a journey of building Vision!

I don’t know about you, but I feel as if the last few years have been an exercise in wandering – it has been so difficult to set goals, make plans or set expectations when at any moment, things can be upended. All of us dealt with the complete upheaval of life that COVID brought in 2020; many of us witnessed propaganda, viewpoints and behaviors from loved ones during global and cultural crisis that we would never have expected; thanks to ongoing supply shortages and the long-overdue revolution of a workforce tired of being exploited – gone are the days when you can order an item or step into a store and assume that it will be available at whim. Inflation is rapidly changing our financial expectations. Anyone who has traveled recently knows that we do well to hold travel plans loosely. Justin and Andrea took a vacation/scouting trip last summer where not.one.single.planned task or event went as intended. Not one. Coming home early was definitely discussed but it got to a point where it was downright comical how predictable it became that whatever we planned would fall through or be delayed in an endless variety of ways. Experiences like this have made it very difficult for many of us to generate motivation for specific goals or plans. I have said many times out loud that without a vision, the people perish.

What happens when we have no feasible vision for the future; when our days are a series of unfortunate dynamics – both globally and domestically? We become focused on the negative, the unpredictability, the instability, the worries of what’s next?. Problem is, the science of neurology tells us that we move toward what we ruminate on. I find that we so often focus on what is not as we would like or what we don’t want in our lives: I need to stop doing [insert dysfunction here]. The problem is, this thing we don’t want is the mental ‘vision’ before us and though we are running from it, we somehow find ourselves entangled in it. That’s because we must decide what behavior or thought we want to replace it with. What need is that dysfunction trying to meet? How can we meet that need in a healthier way? Time and time again, in my own life and in the lives of clients, success is finally achieved when we stop worrying about the thing we don’t want and focus on it’s desirable replacement instead! So, for example – instead of saying, why bother making plans – it will all fall apart anyway, we ask ourselves, what character quality do I want to cultivate in myself? and focus on the steps required to do so.

It is this understanding of the importance of focusing our brains on what we value that inspired me to launch a vision-boarding quest as we close out the year. The reality is, life is not settling back into ‘predictability’ anytime soon. The overdue bills from corporate greed and environmental abuse are coming due. War is brewing in a world that no longer has the luxury of dissociating from conflict in other hemispheres. Now, more than ever, we must develop the ability to focus our minds on possibility and values if we are to avoid throwing our hands up in defeat. I want to facilitate a fun-filled process of identifying what matters to each of us in this season and create together, a visual representation to which we can refer, throughout the next year.

Vision boards have been used for all sorts of goals: professional accomplishments, material possessions, travel wishes, physical milestones, etc. For the past several years, I have used vision boards to illustrate a value or concept that I believe God is emphasizing in my life at that time. As we take this journey together, you decide how you want to use the process. Is there a physical activity you want to train for? A goal you want to reach for at work? A place you want to visit? A value or characteristic you want to cultivate in your life? I will encourage you to distill the desires of your heart down to what is stable – what endures despite the unpredictability of our world.

Each week in November, I will post prompting questions on Facebook and Instagram, to help you tune in to where your heart is now and what matters most to you moving into the new year. I will offer general prompts as well as additional questions that invite a faith perspective to the process if that is of interest to you. Use these prompts to journal and reflect, building a vision that is authentic to you but durable in the face of uncertainty. These posts will show up in our stories as well as timeline on both platforms. On Instagram, I’ll create a Vision highlight for our stories so that this can be used anytime in the future.

In early December, I may host vision-boarding events, online or in person, (depending on interest), where we will make our boards together.

Filed Under: Mental Health Tagged With: Career, Hope, Identity, Leadership, Life Seasons, Mindfulness, Purpose, Transformation, Workshop

Living on the other side

August 2, 2022 by Andrea

Wondering what it takes to actually live the life you’ve dreamed of?

What do you need to know before you take the leap into living your life differently?

The promised land, where your new story begins…

I have written here about the general arc of therapy we follow. We have offered tips for maximizing each stage of therapy and we have written specifically about Phase Two – the grieving process. Today, I want to write about the final phase of therapy – activating the true self you have discovered and walking in your new story.

I have referred to the grieving phase as “the land between”, but embarking on this final phase of therapy is also a transitional season in a different way: A twilight zone between what you have deconstructed and completion of what you are constructing. Anyone who has had a house built understands that it is a PROCESS! One of fits and starts…which may find you living in temporary digs until the new house is ready. Despite the best blueprints, some things just can’t be understood until you see the pieces in place and you may realize, that’s not what I thought it would be. Back to the drawing board you go to choose a different faucet or refrigerator. The whole thing takes time with all sorts of surprise obstacles, but perseverance leaves you with the home of your dreams.

Moving from one house to another always illuminates your possessions in a fresh way, causing you to question why on earth you’ve kept certain things all these years. Some beloved objects have to be released because they simply will not function or fit in the new home. If you are living in temporary quarters, you are surrounded by the chaos of missing vital belongings that are in storage and not being able to permanently settle what you were able to keep with you. Likewise, here are the discomforts that come with leaving behind the life you deconstructed:

Most of the relationships you had before therapy were chosen from the adaptive self you are shedding. Hanging out with friends will often leave you wondering why on earth you tolerated the behaviors, talk and ways of thinking that you now see with clearer eyes. You may find yourself regularly irritated by family members who operate out of the dysfunctional patterns you now recognize. Bitterness and resentment become dragons requiring daily battle.
These folks from your old life are used to the adaptive self you crafted and may not know what to do with who you are becoming. They may not even like your true self, especially if you are no longer willing to offer what they used to get from you! That rejection truly stings…
This season of therapy can be very lonely as you find yourself distancing from those who operate under your old rules, but you have not yet built healthy replacement relationships. It can be incredibly tempting to return to aspects of the old adaptive self in the face of this loneliness. Some fade out of the therapy process at this point but they cannot unknow what they have learned, making their compromise existence a cruel game.
You may realize the job or career you are in is not a good fit for you. Perhaps your job is actually a toxic environment. Maybe the career field you spent thousands of dollars to prepare for will never align with what you now understand to be your strengths and what brings you fulfillment and joy. Again, the decisions you made about work came from the adaptive self you are retiring, leaving you in a situation that is no longer workable.
The old adaptive self is one you mastered. You know how it works. Saying no to the familiar is extremely difficult.

Living in transition and setting up your new “home” comes with many challenges. Temporarily crashing in someone else’s space is inconvenient, humbling and disorderly. Even after you’ve moved to your new place, there’s usually a stage of, “I’ve made a terrible mistake – why did I move here?” before you start meeting neighbors and finding new favorite restaurants and local activities to love. It’s the same when the rubber of therapy meets the road of life:

The new ways of thinking and behaving that will take you in the direction you want to go will feel awkward and clumsy. Very quickly, you begin to wonder if you can really pull this new story off as you move toward new friendships, romance, faith, calling, etc.
When our brains have been normed to the stimulation of dysfunctional life patterns, healthy people and activities will feel boring at best, downright unattractive at worst. It takes time to rewire the brain to enjoy this new existence.
You must retrain the people in your life, how to interact with you. This takes work and will not likely be well received. Conflicts will arise. A few will make it through this process, many will fade away or depart in a fiery blaze. Are we willing to let go of those who cannot steward well, who we are becoming?
For all of these reasons, embracing the true self is terrifying. Offering a committed “YES” to that which is true of you demands Courage with a capital C. Remember, courage is not the absence of fear, it is feeling the fear and moving forward anyway. That is the very definition of Phase Three therapy at Phenix!

Many people assume that once they have done the work of deconstruction and grieving, they need only find healthy people who have also done their work and relationships will be easy-peasy. Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. Healthy relationships between mature individuals take work but I can promise that it is fulfilling work. Forcing dysfunctional relationships to run is devastating work. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather do the fulfilling work of assessing acquaintances for core relational competencies, learning and teaching about the nuances of each others’ personalities, building trust, and allowing others to meet our appropriate needs as we meet theirs. (Many clients find relying on others one of the most difficult steps to master.)

Then there is an aspect of this phase that I don’t think we talk about enough: It is one thing to intellectually assent to what was lost or never provided. It is another thing altogether to experience life as it should be – the dynamics you didn’t have before. Such experiential understanding ushers in a new level of grieving. This is a surreal, dual experience: moving forward in building the new story while simultaneously holding space for the sadness that comes with truly understanding what you were missing.

The foundational principle to establishing the new “home”, the true self, the new story, is the fact that commitment and action precedes emotion. You will not feel like doing the things that need to be done. Yet, we do not advocate a “fake it till you make it” approach. It’s not about bumbling around, creating a new adaptive self in hopes of getting what you want. It is about tuning in to what is true about you and aligning your actions with that truth versus the lies your old self believed. It’s mindfully walking in truth until your brain, body and soul have enough experience to actually believe it. It is one of the scariest processes you will ever undertake in life. Courage will be required in Costco-sized amounts but the payoff is worth it, just like that dream house we get to live in when the moving truck pulls away, the boxes are unpacked and the interior design has been fully executed. All those months of planning, crisis response, expense, letting go, cleaning, organizing, learning, choosing and moving are absolutely worth all the trouble!

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Mental Health, Relationships Tagged With: Boundaries, Career, Counseling, Grief, Hope, Identity, Psychotherapy, Rebirth, Relationships, Self Knowledge, Therapy, Transformation

For Those Who Want to Become a Therapist:

February 7, 2022 by Andrea

We are starting a new blog post series focused on those who would like to pursue becoming a therapist. The plan is to breakdown important questions to not only ask your future graduate school, but to ask yourself.

Now, as a precursor to this post, I want to direct your attention to a post our director, Andrea, has written about what it takes education wise to become a therapist, as well as how to maximize your own therapy experience. She states in “Maximizing Therapy”,

By the time a new therapist graduates from their masters program, they have spent more than 600 hours in graduate level classrooms taking courses dedicated to the art of helping people with life problems. They have sweated almost 2000 hours on homework and completed 1000 hours of supervised internship. All at a price tag of over $35,000 (minimum). Upon graduation, they must work under supervision for at least two years, complete an additional 1500 hours of client service and pass a national competency exam. When you show up in a therapist’s office, or log on to their teletherapy platform, you are meeting with a highly trained clinician who is there to help you reach your mental, emotional, and relational health goals.

Whew. The journey to licensure is no joke, but is highly rewarding to those who believe being a therapist is part of their calling. Let’s dive in to a few questions to ask yourself as you decide whether this journey is right for you.

Why do you want to be a therapist?

This will be a common question on graduate school applications. Take some time as you are researching different schools to explore what is driving you.

Every individual enters into the master’s program for a different reason, many times because of their own stories. Responding from a place of healing and wanting the same for others can be powerful.

Alfred Adler was a psychotherapist in the 1900’s. (You’ll learn about him in grad school.) He commented on the nature of therapists who have struggled through different aspects of life and the power that comes from having done your own work. Now it was written in 1928, but there is much truth to what he says.

There must be experience [for the therapists] as well. A real appreciation for human nature, in the face of our inadequate education today, will be gained by only one class of human beings. These are the contrite sinners, either those who have been in the whirlpool of psychic life, entangled in all its mistakes and errors, and saved themselves out of it, or those who have been close to it and felt its current touching them….The best knower of the human soul will be the one who has lived through passions himself. (pg. 13)

Are you open to doing your own work?

One of the best mirrors to your own unhealed areas in life will be your clients. This is why it is so vital that you have explored your own story before sitting with someone else. Your clients are not there to save you, fix you, or help you figure out your stuff. You are there for them. As our supervisor, Larry Shyers, loves reminding us, “It is never ever, ever, ever, ever about you”.

I highly encourage you to continue therapy throughout graduate school. Implement the things you are learning, allow yourself to go on the adventure. Having an openness to growth and knowing that you are selecting a profession that will constantly challenge you is a necessity.

If not, then when something comes up in session that reveals an area of wounding in you, it is so much easier to stick your head in the sand and push it down. When this happens, we can cause harm. The session inadvertently becomes about us and our own avoidance, thus taking the focus off the individuals coming to us for help.

…

At the end of the day, you are pursing a profession that has a profound impact on people’s lives. You may be the first person they share their deepest, darkest moments with. You may be the only support they have at this time. Please don’t take that for granted. Realize the impact you have on people’s lives and walk through your own story. Pursue your own healing.

At the same time, you also have to realize that you cannot save your clients or rescue them from their problems (as much as we wish we could). There will be nights this rocks you to the core. There will be days you wish you could pull them out, especially when they are not a number or a “session” to you.

Continuing to walk through your own story helps you remain present and humble, no matter who may walk through your door. It also creates an environment of authenticity in the room that can be felt (even through telehealth).

…

Join us next week as we continue to explore important considerations and aspects of learning how to be a therapist.

Filed Under: Mental Health, Service Tagged With: Business, Career, Counseling, Group Therapy, Leadership, Psychotherapy, Purpose, Therapy, Vocation

Career Work

September 27, 2016 by Andrea

One of the courses I teach regularly is Career Development. As a result, that topic is regularly on my radar. I really enjoy teaching the class and love even more – working with people who are making decisions about their career. So, how does the process work?

Career development begins with knowing yourself. (Does this blog have a theme or what?) How can we determine our best career fit if we don’t fully know ourselves? Thus, the counseling process begins with working collaboratively to drill down to the true self – who God created you to be. I use a combination of the Career Style Interview (CSI) developed by Savickas as well as results from familiar assessments like the MBTI or the Strong Interest Inventory. Assessments are wonderful for identifying specific traits, interests and talents but if the goal is to get to know the true self, we have to go deeper and that’s where the CSI comes in. It offers a creative way to explore who you really are, the foundational ideals that define you, environments in which you thrive, how you deal with problems, and the deeper preoccupations that drive you. This gives context to the assessment results.

The second part of the career development process applies to clients who wish to include their faith journey. For this, I use Gordon T Smith’s book, Courage and Calling. It is the best resource I’ve found for walking through the process of discerning God’s call on our lives. Not everyone is a reader so perhaps we use the book on audio or I share the videos I’ve created from the book for the class I teach…whatever works to get into the material. Then, we digest it all according to your learning style: journaling, expressive projects or discussion.

The peak of the process is in stepping back and looking at all the data: the contextual picture of self, specific assessment results, and the spiritual principles learned (if we took that route). At this stage, I provide interpretation and suggestions to help you create the vision for your future that feels most authentic to your God-given purpose. Homework usually involves the research needed to craft your specific strategy – typically interviews with folks in your field of interest, visits to schools if further education is required, etc. With this information, we are able to set out a step by step plan for walking in your vocation.

Incidentally, as we work through this career focus, it is not unusual to uncover issues that need counseling attention: holes in self knowledge, self esteem deficiencies, unaddressed losses or traumas that hinder living out your calling. In such cases, you have the option to detour and attend to it, or simply make note of the need and commit to the work at a later date. Overall, the career development process can be one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling experiences in counseling!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Career, Career Coaching, Career Counseling, Counseling, Identity, Psychotherapy, Self Knowledge, Vocation