I Won't Bring Myself Down

I am trying really hard to make it to the end of this week. Yesterday, my last group included full frontal nudity - never something fun - and I am completely knackered.

I'm frustrated by so many things right now that I am going to focus on some positives to remind me that there are positive, happy things going on in my world.

I am going to end this contract year with some sick time accrued! Granted, it's not lots of time, only 4.5 hours, but still! For the first time since my my knee injury, I will have sick time carry over into the next contract year! I keep reminding myself that this is a good thing as I drag my exhausted body into work every morning - sick time accrued is good time.

I will have four new team mates when this next break is over. It is a concern when a third of the teaching staff decides to leave, but it is somewhat of a blessing as well. We are really hoping that we have the teachers we need as of a week from Monday, but we don't usually have folks who start on July 1st for the new school year. We will see how classrooms work without teachers for a time. The classes losing teachers do not have strong leadership at this time, so it will be a rough time for us all. We have done this before and will do it again.

It is interesting, isn't it, that every positive I think of also has some frustration aligned with it? I'll try to do better...

I am ready to start launching my first CMTE course. I have to wait until July 20th to open registration to appease the requirements of CBMT, but Composition and Creativity offered through musictherapyworks.com will be starting up really soon! It's been approved and everything!!! I get to spend some time in my website getting the links ready to go! Hooray!

My current intern is starting to take over some session responsibilities. Kids are responding the way they usually do - some with suspicion, others with relief that it isn't me up there, yet others with no response at all. We are all on this journey together, and that is good.

I have a Skype date with a friend on Friday. We haven't talked in a long time, so it will be good to connect. I am looking forward to a chat about all things.

My favorite blogger, The Bloggess, is writing about depression and her most current treatment. I am so very happy that I found her and her words. It may sound like a strange thing to be happy about - writing about depression and medical treatments, but her words mean so much to so many people who feel alone in their journeys. Being prone to depression myself, especially during these summer months, it is wonderful to find someone who writes with humor and complete honesty. When she is in the throes of her depression, she doesn't write much, so when she starts posting things almost every day, it is a sign that she is ready to be part of our lives again - even if only through her writing. I appreciate that.

I continue to do my music therapy job, day after day, for the benefit of my clients. I forgot my mantra yesterday, and really needed it for my afternoon groups. I need to remember that mantra/prayer - it helped out before, and I believe it will help out again. Maybe I will make into some word art to put on the cabinets or the wall of the music therapy room. It's a silly little thing, but it helps me center. I take a deep breath and say, "God, help me be the therapist these clients need me to be." I take a couple of minutes to center myself a bit before my students arrive in the room and then I feel a bit more prepared to handle what happens during the session. I really do need to make that into something I can see - maybe something for the wall that represents this thought for me...hmm. I need to think about that...

Focus on the positives, even when the negatives and the frustrations try to take over. There are always positives.

I'm starting to feel better about things even though my temperature is rising again. Two more days and then I can take some time to rest and figure out what is going on with my body. I get next week off from our Extended School Year, then three more weeks of ESY, and then two, long, wonderful, glorious, lazy weeks off before the start of the regular school year!

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