Within The Contradiction

Written by: Liz Cerven

Dear Reader,

Lately, I’ve been sitting with a tender contradiction—one that many healers, therapists, and care workers quietly carry:
I believe that healing should not be commodified.
And yet, I work within a system that requires me to charge for care.

This contradiction lives not just in the mind, but in the body.
It curls in the stomach when setting session fees.
It tightens in the jaw when submitting insurance claims.
It flickers behind the eyes when wondering if I’ve done “enough” to deserve rest.

I did not become a therapist to monetize healing. I became a therapist to walk beside others in their grief and their joy, to hold space for what aches and what blooms. But the work of therapy—this sacred, slow labor—unfolds inside a container shaped by capitalism. One that demands invoices and progress notes and clocks that always tick forward.

There are days I feel that contradiction like a pressure on the skin.
There are days I wonder what it would feel like to offer care untethered from currency—
to give without depletion, to rest without guilt,
to move at the pace of trust, not urgency.

It was Leanne Betasamosake Simpson who wrote,

“I am no longer interested in a critique of capitalism—I want to build a life beyond it.”

And I carry those words with me. Not as a blueprint. Not yet.
But as a compass.

Until then, I’m trying to live in the in-between.
To survive the system without letting it consume me.
To charge for the labor without reducing care to a transaction.
To make space for healing even when the world around us doesn’t make it easy.

So I practice small refusals.

Refusing to rush.
Refusing to turn my labor into a performance.
Refusing to believe that the value of my work lives only in what is seen, billed, or measured.

Sometimes, refusal looks like a slow morning before a full caseload.
Sometimes it’s a poem, story, or zine shared freely.
A letter such as this whispered into the digital dark.
An offering made without asking anything in return.

These are not business strategies. They are breath.
They are resistance.

And even when I charge for my sessions,
I remember:
I am not selling healing.
I am resourcing the time, energy, and presence it takes to walk with others as they seek it.

That distinction matters. It holds me steady when the world insists otherwise.

An Offering, to You

If you are someone living this contradiction—
trying to heal while hustling to survive,
trying to stay soft in a system that hardens us—
you are not alone.

You are not a machine. You are not a brand.
You are not behind. You are not failing.

You are moving at the pace of refusal,
the rhythm of care,
the sacred tempo of what is just enough.

And if you are a client, a reader, a fellow traveler—
know that you are not a transaction.
Our work together, whether in a session or on a page,
is not just about outcomes. It is about presence.
About relationship. About witnessing.

Thank you for being here,
in the in-between,
where real healing happens.

With compassion, from the space between sessions