music, therapy, and me

'Tis the season for working with a new group of co-workers who do not understand what music therapy is or how music therapy works in my therapy space. I have had to ask every single one of them not to yell positive reinforcement over the music - whether it be my singing or the recordings that we are listening to or the improvisations we are creating as a group. I got spoken to by the principal about it as well. Now, I am not against positive reinforcement - not at all. I am against co-workers yelling over the therapeutic medium in order to give such positive reinforcement. I am against the interruption of the music processing and creation that occurs when people start to yell in order to be heard over the music. I am against the interruption of instruction. I am tired of constantly being interrupted by people who do not get what I do and how I am doing it. I am trying not to take it personally at the moment, but I also feel like I am repeating myself over and over again. The new st...

I am sitting here, with eyes crossing, and my brain not quite clicking away, trying to write something. I found that I didn't publish my post yesterday which offers you a glimpse into my headspace lately. Anyway - bonus post today!! As for today, I am trying to engage in blogging in this early morning, but nothing really is clicking. This is indicative of everything that is happening these days. Nothing is really clicking. I finally decided to scrap my songwriting idea for Orff instrument improvisation, and it worked with groups yesterday. I will try to replicate the experiences today for my five groups. "That client" and the other "that client" are in my second group of the day, so I expect some resistance to the use of the instruments. Still, I am heading into the fray to try yet again. There is literally nothing else for me to say. My head hurts all the time these days - allergies to corn must and dust, regular dust, grass pollen, and all that stuff. I am on ...

I am struggling with all sorts of things on this Tuesday morning. I am not really wanting to get going to work. I really want to spend time doing things other than work, but I don't know what those things are. I just know that I don't want to put on outside clothing right now. I think I got used to being home during my recuperation and am now wanting that to be the reality. Ten more months to go until things will change around here. So, Tuesdays are five group days. I have two groups in the morning and three groups in the afternoon. This is a relatively new schedule for me on Tuesdays, and I am still having to remind myself that I have three groups in the afternoons. Fortunately, the third afternoon group is one that seems to enjoy being in music therapy, so it makes the addition something pleasant. I have melody writing on my schedule for this week during the school year, but I'm not really all that excited about writing melodies. One thing I know is that I do not tend to ...

One of my quests for this year is to get back into listening to music again. It has been a long time since I have spent time listening just to listen. Since music has been my job, I go through periods of time when I just cannot listen to anything outside of music therapy sessions. I am missing music at the moment, so I am making an effort to bring music back into my daily way of engaging in life. I am ripping my CD library onto my computer, and I am rediscovering music that I have loved in the past. I loved the era of burning CDs, and I have lots of "favorites" CDs that I have found in my music library. I pulled out a CD case with "all-time favorites," made in 2007-ish. Curious to see what I loved back then, I popped it into my CD player in my car and have been listening during my commutes. One of the things that I can say with certainty is that I love much of the music of Garth Brooks. There you go. The music that I have included of his always makes me smile. so re...

Fun Friday. When I get to work today, I have to do documentation for the last three days as well as for the two groups that I will see today. That's the only task that has to get finished - well, other than the two groups that are on my schedule. So, I have about seven hours of planning and preparation time. I still do not know what we are going to do in the four day week that happens next week. I will have that situation fixed by the time I leave work this afternoon. My office/storage space is still a mess from the end of May when I had to move my large instruments into my office to accommodate an office for some other people. (I'm still waiting for my supervisor to inform me of this fact...). There are drum set pieces and visual aid making materials everywhere. It is an absolute mess that I have little to no interest in doing anything about, but I need to. I will load up a backpack and one of my reusable grocery bags with things from my office and toy cabinet that do not need...

I hit another exhaustion wall yesterday. My body reminding me that it was rearranged two months ago and that we both are still recovering from the rigors of surgery, anaesthesia, and the constant stressors of changing diagnoses as well as specialists every couple of days. So, I remained at home and slept. I feel better today and was able to crawl out of bed without crying or falling, so that's a positive thing. I missed five groups yesterday, and my mother heaped a whole bunch of guilt on my head last night, so I am ashamed of the fact that I was unable to continue my therapy day after taking my shower and finding it difficult to move my legs to get over the side of the tub.  This is what always happens. I start off trying to be proactive with my self-care, but I end up feeling guilt and shame for taking time for that self-care which increases the need for self-care. It is a never ending loop of shame and guilt that is also exhausting. I know about shame cycles and all that, but th...