Have you ever dreamed of taking your online practice on the road? 10 years ago, our LIT co-founder, Sonia Jaeger, did exactly that and has been travelling the world while working as an online therapist ever since. In this blog post, Sonia shares her experiences as a digital nomad therapist to celebrate her ten-year nomad anniversary!
Watch the full interview here to hear Sonia’s experience in her own words:
Read on for a glimpse into Sonia’s journey over the last ten years. But we recommend taking the time to sit down with a cup of tea or coffee to watch the full video!
How Sonia started out as a digital nomad therapist
In 2014, Sonia had just finished her PhD in Germany and decided to take a 10-month break to explore the world before returning to Germany to open her private practice (or at least, that was the plan!). But Sonia discovered that she really enjoyed travelling and couldn’t imagine going back to a stationary life after the freedom of her sabbatical.
While travelling, Sonia did some remote work, reviewing research papers, and quickly realised that it was possible to work from a laptop, no matter where you were in the world. But even so, Sonia never considered the idea of offering online therapy until she met a fellow digital nomad who had continued seeing her therapist remotely as she travelled.
Long story short, Sonia gave herself six months to try it out, and she figured out that she could make it as an online therapist living a nomadic lifestyle. You can read more about how Sonia started out in this interview!
What challenges did Sonia face when she started as an online therapist?
Back then, Sonia couldn’t find many online training courses and conferences, so she would travel to in-person courses. Whenever she had to introduce herself to colleagues, it was always interesting to see their reactions to her working online as a therapist, as it was really unheard of and very unusual in many countries.
Because of this, Sonia had to contend with a lot of questions and a lack of understanding from colleagues and other acquaintances. Many of them really didn’t get what she was doing or how online therapy worked. Despite this, she quickly found other colleagues who were working online or had even been providing therapy over the phone since before the internet even existed.
Ten years ago, the online therapy world was very different ten years ago, as there were much fewer people doing it. But at the same time, that also made it easier to reach out to people in a similar situation. Nowadays, Sonia loves seeing new colleagues coming into the online space with different specialities as there are so many potential clients who want online therapy.
How has Sonia’s digital nomad lifestyle changed over the past 10 years?
When Sonia set out as a digital nomad, she was travelling solo, but along the way, she met her partner. Now, they spend some of their time travelling together but Sonia also still travels solo or with friends for some of the year.
Sonia has found that her travel style has changed over time. When she first started travelling, she had a home base in Germany for a few years and would go back for several months of the year. However, she realised she wasn’t using it enough and eventually gave it up, which led to several years of full-time travel.
Nowadays, Sonia has a couple of home bases on different continents and a few places she likes to revisit often to see friends, family, and familiar sights. She also spends some time exploring new destinations each year, with a mix of slow and fast travelling.
And what about travelling light? Bulky items are the most challenging, so Sonia keeps a bicycle, warm clothes, and a winter coat in her most visited locations to allow her to travel light between them. Not to mention the handmade pottery items that she creates, as she tries to find a pottery studio wherever she goes!
How and why did the LIT Community get started?
Sonia met Melissa Parks, her fellow LIT co-founder, online in 2017 and soon became accountability buddies. They saw the need for support and community for mental health professionals working online. As a result, they began hosting book clubs, supervision sessions, and other events for other online therapists.
This blossomed into the LIT Community, a membership site and online community for mental health professionals all over the world, and the doors officially opened for the first time in February 2020.
When Sonia first started out, she didn’t have any guidance and very few people to look to for inspiration on her location independent therapist journey. That meant she had to figure it all out from scratch for herself – and this was one of the driving factors for creating the LIT Community.
What would have been different for Sonia if she’d had the LIT Community when she was first starting out?
A few things would probably have been different if Sonia hadn’t been figuring everything out on her own, from scratch, when she first started out as a digital nomad therapist.
If she’d had the support of the community from the beginning and been able to learn from other therapists further along on the journey, Sonia thinks she would have had more confidence right from the beginning. When you see other people doing it, you know it’s definitely possible and don’t question yourself as much.
She might have also avoided a few detours caused by following the advice of marketing experts that, in hindsight, weren’t right for her type of business. Unfortunately, a lot of the content out there isn’t geared towards therapists. And that means it often doesn’t work for the very specific type of business that mental health professionals tend to have. Sonia would have found it really helpful to have more targeted advice for her niche instead of more generic tips.
But loneliness was the biggest challenge of working online, especially as Sonia moved around a lot. Being able to meet colleagues in the LIT Community and share experiences, learn new skills and develop professionally together – no matter where she was in the world – was a huge game-changer.
Even more importantly, she loves that she can get advice and hear from colleagues from all around the world. This is especially helpful as many of her clients are also from or living in different countries worldwide. So, having colleagues who are familiar with a variety of cultures and countries is amazing. You can get different perspectives on a case and learn from each other, and that’s something that’s really special and unique about the LIT Community.
Sonia’s 10-Year Nomad Anniversary – The Wrap Up
We hope you enjoyed this little peek into Sonia’s nomadic life as a location independent therapist! If you have any questions for Sonia, ask away in the comments below!
If you’d like to find out more about Sonia’s 10-year journey as an online therapist and digital nomad, make sure to watch the full video above or find it here on YouTube. You can also read her interview on what it’s like to be a digital nomad here, and her tips for digital nomad therapists here.
Let us know if you have any questions for Sonia – you can post them in the comments below!
And you can start your 1-week free trial and try out the LIT Community for yourself! We’d love to welcome you in and support you on your own location independent therapist journey.
