REFLECTION & THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE WORK
Personal Growth Hub
This personal growth hub brings together original poems, annual reflections, and personal essays on the parts of being a social worker that don’t fit neatly into a “how-to” guide
Personal Reflections
Total Shares
Focus Areas
This personal growth hub is a little different from the rest of this site. Instead of job search advice or clinical techniques, it holds the writing that grew out of doing this work and living this life. You’ll find poems written to process what couldn’t be said any other way, an annual tradition of choosing three words to live by, and essays and book reviews that explore the more reflective parts of being a helping professional. Together, they offer a different kind of resource: space to pause, reflect, and return to what matters.
Poems & Reflection
Original poems written over the years, each one a way of putting words to something that resisted plain prose
The Three Words Tradition
Instead of New Year’s resolutions, three years of choosing three words to set an intention for the year ahead
Personal Essays & Book Reviews
Reflective writing on shame, vulnerability, and what it actually feels like to build a career in this field
The MSW Journey
Real-time reflections from graduate school and the internship years, read in chronological order. More experienced colleagues, supervisors, even a professor or dean, often weighed in on the issues raised, and their perspective in the comments is frequently as valuable as the post itself.
This is the personal side of the journey. For the clinical case work from the same internship years, including a first case presentation and a first suicide risk assessment, see the Internship Case Journal on the Clinical Practice Hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this personal growth hub different from the Self-Care & Resilience Hub?
The Self-Care & Resilience Hub is practical, evidence-based tools for burnout, resilience, and daily self-care habits. This personal growth hub is personal narrative and reflection, poems, annual traditions, and essays, written to process an experience rather than to teach a technique.
What is the “Three Words” tradition?
Instead of a list of New Year’s resolutions, each January brings three words chosen to set an intention for the year ahead. The tradition ran for three years: 2014’s Daring, Connection & Self-Care, 2015’s Clear, Reach & Embrace, and 2016’s Nourish, Simplify and Charge.
Why write poems about clinical or personal topics instead of standard articles?
Some experiences resist plain prose. How Does a Person Know Her True Self? and How to Live Wholeheartedly were both written because the medium of poetry could reach something that a straightforward explanation couldn’t.
I’m having a hard time in this field. Where should I start?
Shame Resiliency 101 a la Brené Brown and Beginnings, Middles, & Ends both speak to the harder, less-talked-about parts of this work. If what you’re feeling goes beyond a hard week, please reach out to a supervisor, a trusted colleague, or a therapist of your own.
