music, therapy, and me

I am not sure what is going on with my brain lately - well, that's not entirely true, I know what is happening that is making my brain go into impossible, anxiety-inducing thoughts and responses, but I am trying to figure out how to decrease the amount of dreaming that I am doing right now. Last night's dream was about a tragedy of some sort that happened to all of us. I was one of several people moving through the world after a big event that affected all sorts of things. I woke up after discovering a bunch of car keys and starting a plan to use different cars that we could find in the parking lot to go to the next destination. I can completely see why this is my current frame of mind when sleeping. There is so much horrible stuff happening in the world, and I have been watching a K-drama that has to do with a nuclear incident. So, I totally know why this is on my mind, but I do not like that it is leaking into my dreams right now. I do not remember most of my dreams. I assume...

I woke up this morning feeling like it really needs to be an inclement weather day but being disappointed seeing that NO ONE has called off school! I hope that this means that the roads are nice and smooth without any ice on their surfaces. I really hope that this is true because I have been in accidents on days where it should have been an inclement weather day and wasn't. I'm a bit anxious about driving this morning, so I may wait a bit before leaving - icy streets are a bit easier to take when I can see things more clearly. Being able to see any obstacles might make things a bit less anxiety-causing for me today, it might not. We are going to be talking about Ireland this week in my music therapy sessions. I have my penny whistle to play for my clients. They often want to play instruments as well, but the penny whistle is not one that can be played. I do have recorders and flutaphones, but I hate using them with my clients. They are such a hassle of cleaning and germ mitigat...

I am in a season of introspection and finding myself to be severely lacking. This happens to me every so often, usually around conference time, and it is a ridiculous situation that always throws me for a loop and sends my self-confidence into the basement. This is an example of my emotional brain taking over and running roughshod over my rational brain, and it is something that I just have to work through. Most of the time, this crisis in confidence comes after I hear of the wonderful things that other music therapists are doing out in the world while I feel like my own contributions are nothing. This usually goes on until I get to the point where I realize that I may not be adding to the research side of things (I've tried, but that is an entirely different story!!), but I am doing the job that others just study. Most of my feelings are that of jealousy, but I really do not want to be in the same sort of position of those who I am jealous of. Darn you, emotional brain! I woke up ...

Currently, there are a BUNCH of new students who are having difficulties getting into the idea of school. The sheer number of tantrums over being asked to sit in a chair rather than running around the room is ridiculous, and all I can think is the song, "That Don't Impress Me Much" by Shania Twain. Over my career, I have seen so many things that were surreal. It takes quite a bit of novelty to make me take notice. A screaming temper tantrum is not something novel, but for some reason, our current crop of students think that they will get what they want when they engage in this course of action. The best boss I ever had said something once that I often think about. She told us that our job was the equivalent of doing the box step in dancing. This analogy continued with the reinforcement of the thought that we exist in the lives of our clients to provide structure and clear expectations. We move in a predictable manner, always box stepping - nothing too exciting, but someth...

My sister read my blog post yesterday and noted that music is missing from my self-care routine. It is true, music does not feature in my self-care routine. I do not listen to much music outside of my music therapy clinic, and I no longer make music in a community of musicians. So, music is not a big part of my life outside of what I share with my clients. I'm not sure how I feel about this. This is not something new (even the lack of musicking in a community of musicians has lasted over a year and a half now), but it is interesting to me. After a day of handling the emotions of others and navigating the world of music therapy with my population, I need something different to fill up my background. My noise creator of choice is television shows and movies. I have a bunch of things downloaded to my Kindle, so I have company through stories during my commutes. I do not stream music outside of my therapy space, so music is not something that I really use when on the move. Here at home...

I don't want to go to work today. I just want to sleep in my comfortable bed, but I have used up all of my allotted days for time off, so I will get myself to work to do music therapy stuff with my clients.  I know that my feelings have more to do with the current state of the world and my facility than me, but that is little comfort when the dread of having to go to work takes over. Of course, this is also affected by the fact that we have had very few five day work weeks in the past seven weeks since our Winter Break. It is also affected by the fact that we still have three weeks until our Spring Break. Also, many of my therapy cohort were gone yesterday. They have time off still. Lucky ducks - mine was taken up by my colon cancer surgery at the very start of the school year. Oh well. I knew this was going to happen. Since I cannot take time away from work without financial repercussions, I have to find my self-care in other ways. Right now, self-care is coming through eating bet...