Help For The Helpers

In this episode I talk with Ashley Comegys about how to creatively and confidently navigate starting up initiatives for yourself as a helper when times get tricky/problems arise. Ashley has reinvented and pivoted her work over time, creating new opportunities for herself to best suit her changing living situations. She gives great insight on how to find solutions within ourselves that are tailored to meet our own wants and needs first, while serving others.

Ashley Comegys is a licensed clinical social worker with an online therapy practice that helps women with anxiety navigate life transitions, grief, trauma, and loss. She has been working with clients online since 2014 and loves the ability to work with clients who may not have been able to make it into a traditional office for therapy. Through cross country moves, and a growing family, Ashley has built a successful online practice, working with clients in Louisiana, Hawaii, and Colorado. Ashley is passionate about helping other mom clinicians build their own online therapy practices so they can have the time freedom and flexibility to have a career and raise their family.

To help moms get started with building their online practices Ashley has created a free guide called The ABCs of Online Therapy: A Quickstart Guide for Mom Clinicians to Take Their Practice Online

Practice Website

For more from me, I encourage you to subscribe to my blog, where I talk about all things finances for helping professionals, at www.danabelletiere.com. I also encourage you to check out my Help Yourself Group Intensive, launching this January! More info here!

In this episode I talk with my friend Josh Alvarez about his commitment to investing in his creative outlets (music and podcasting) while working in the helping professions. Josh beautifully illustrates the importance of maintaining creativity in balance with compassion, and he highlights the ways we can find bits and snippets of time to cultivate creativity in our daily lives.

A note from Josh:

Hello! My name is Josh Alvarez & Dana asked me to be on her podcast. Now, you may be asking yourself how Dana managed to get the internationally ignored song stylist & podcaster barely standing before you for this episode of Help for the Helpers, but the answer is really quite simple: she is the best & one would be a fool to deny her request to chitchat. In addition to the aforementioned jobs of “singer” & “podcaster”, I’m also a mental health technician on an acute inpatient psych unit.

Josh’s music can be found at CROSSED KEYS and his SOLO project. He is the cohost on the Cinepunx podcast. He can be found on Instagram at @joeyangel

and on Twitter here

I’m launching an exciting program THIS JANUARY to help other helping professionals get out of student loan debt, like I did, in order to free themselves from PSLF and agency work and allow them to pursue what they love without financial binds. It’s called Help Yourself, and you can find details about the program here!

My newsletter for helpers about finding financial freedom comes out weekly. You can subscribe here: www.danabelletiere.com

You can also catch up with Help for the Helpers on Facebook.

Hello Helpers! I’m a career psychotherapist with a deep love for my fellow helpers and a strong loathing for the systems that keep us from living our best lives. I’ve had a rough go of figuring out how to take good care of myself while working in a field that takes care of others, and I’m telling the story of how I got to a place of balance, health, and financial freedom with the help of my producer and dear friend Liam.

I run a program to help other helping professionals get out of student loan debt called “Help Yourself”. You can find details about the program here!

My newsletter for helpers about finding financial freedom comes out weekly. You can subscribe here: www.danabelletiere.com

You can catch up with Help for the Helpers on Facebook.

Help for the Helpers, the podcast: Compassion without Self-Compromise. On Help for the Helpers, career psychotherapist Dana Belletiere explores the stories of radical helping professionals seeking to change the face of the game by investing FIRST in their own emotional and physical well-being, financial health, lifestyle dreams, personal missions, and creative goals, and then providing excellent care to the people whom they serve. A must-listen for mental health professionals, educators, healthcare providers, and all other helpers that want more for themselves, but aren’t sure where to begin.