music, therapy, and me

It has been an interesting journey so far, this whole "not having a full-time job" thing. I am not sleeping the same way. I am not moving the same way. I have less pain happening in my body which is such a good thing, but I am bored with what I have to do. I am back to watching "Desperate Housewives" to give me something new to experience that isn't Korean dramas. I am someone who thrives with routine. I miss having the routine of getting up and getting ready to go somewhere. I miss having a schedule that is predictable, but I am also happy to have time here at home to just do what I want to do when I want to do it. Yesterday, I traveled east about 30 miles to go to a store that specializes in Japanese products. There are tons of these stores in California that I go to when I am visiting my Mom and my sister, but there are not as many out here in Kansas, so I made a trip especially for that store.  I arrived early (of course), and ended up strolling around one s...

One of the things that is interesting about this job of music therapy is that there are creative needs that never really end. I just finished my sing about the ocean  packet ( available here, by the way !), and now it is time to finish up the next sing about   songs edition for the month of October. If you are unaware, I try to release my monthly subscription about three months in advance so you have the resources available well before the month arrives. I find that composing music and coming up with ways to use songs in sessions with a variety of clients keeps me engaged and thinking. When I talk with other music therapists, I hear things like "I feel like I'm in a rut with what I do with my clients," and I get that. I understand that and have written about it over and over for many years now. Ruts happen, especially when the rigors of the job demand that the creative process take second place to working on the actual act of therapy. So, one of my projects for this week...

I did not do much this weekend as far as making things was concerned, but I did start two presentations for our conference in two Saturdays from now and worked on the books that I have in progress, so that's something. I started a course on Skillshare all about digital marketing. It is 12 hours long, so I have lots to do with it, but I think I will make this part of my evening routine. I have been having some trouble sleeping lately, and I think it has to do with how I am spending much of my leisure hours. I am going to try an experiment to see if I can get to sleep more easily than in the recent weeks. It is strange that my sleep schedule is so messed up, so I am going to try to reestablish a routine again. I am a month into my retirement break, and I feel the need to do more than I am doing right now. This was part of the plan to take time off before heading back into the workforce, but I am starting to itch a bit about going back to a work routine. My problem is that I don't...

If you haven't seen it, the World Federation of Music Therapy has released a definition of music therapy. You can find it here . I gotta tell you that I really like this definition. Defining what we do as music therapists is difficult because what I do with clients may be completely different from what you do with the same clients, and that is fine in the grand scheme of things. We do not have to agree exactly on what we are doing and how we do it to share this profession. As our society moves towards more egocentric behaviors and attitudes that opinions are facts and difficulty with others, I feel that having a shared definition is important. What I do in music therapy sessions is enveloped in the WFMT definition, and yours is as well. I think that we do better when we realize that each of us has a unique way of doing this job and that we need these paths to enrich the lives of our clients. In other words, I do music therapy the way I think it is appropriate and you do it your way...

It is raining outside and is supposed to rain most of today. After today, we will be heading back into a heat warning time for four days which means sticking around my home since I react strongly to the humidity. So, I have some time to do something by myself and in the relative quiet of my home. I currently have five unfinished journals sitting in various places around my craft/office space. I have some ideas of how to finish them, but I also see the piles of things that are around my home and feel the "you SHOULD [goblin] be cleaning" guilt pulling me away from those projects. I am getting better with actually moving things, but there is much to be done...still. It has been a month since I retired from my full-time job as a music therapist working in a psychiatric residential treatment facility and day school. I still have a month left on my self-imposed work break, and I am starting to panic about not having a steady job. I am looking at job announcements and am finding lo...

Happy - uh, I want to say - Thursday?  One of the things that is difficult for me right now is telling time - especially what day it is! The hours are not as difficult to feel, but the days are. I do not have lots of things that I have to get done these days, so the days just kinda slip away. Having appointments helps with discerning which day is which. Last night, I met with three others for a discussion about working with people who have a specific type of diagnosis. We had a good conversation about ways to work with this population. The other three music therapists were younger than me by about 15 years at least, so it was interesting to hear them speak about their own music therapy tools and materials and to contrast them with my own. I am a vintage music therapist. I wear that title proudly because I have been a clinician for 33 years now. I have earned the title of "vintage," and I am going to revel in the fact that I am still doing the thing that I love the most even a...