Thoughtful Thursday: Success

It is time for another Thoughtful Thursday, and this week's quotation comes from Al Capp.

"Success is following the pattern of life one enjoys most." - Al Capp

I often think about what would have happened in my life if my family hadn't moved from all the places that we had moved from in my elementary school years. Where would I be if we had never moved from Dallas? Temple, TX? Hacienda Heights, CA? Denville, NJ? Would I have ever heard of music therapy or would I be working as a special educator or a mom or something completely different? One of the things that I do know is that I would be working with children and adolescents and I would still be doing music in some form - performing or teaching of some sort.

The patterns of life that brought me to music therapy are the same ones that would take me into other paths - a love for music, helping, and people.

I was lucky and found one road that allowed me to combine my passions into one job, one profession, one career.

Within our profession, there are many different paths to take. This goes beyond simply choosing who you want to work with - both clients and co-workers. This goes into what you want to do - theoretical foundations, philosophical viewpoints, practice elements, and role in the profession as a whole. It is important to find your passion and life pattern in order to find your own success.

One of the things that keeps me from fully feeling successful is my need to compare myself with others. I continuously struggle with not feeling like what I do to contribute to the music therapy world is not valuable. My rational brain knows better, but my emotional brain gets caught up in my special form of self-doubt and then the goblins come to visit (I should, I would, I could - Goblins begone!!!) When I get particularly bogged down in these types of thoughts, I have to engage in some active cognitive restructuring.

It all comes down to what I love. I love talking to other music therapists about music therapy. I love composing music for clients to use. I love talking to music therapy students and interns about music therapy. I love the actual process of being a music therapist and of being THE music therapist for my clients. Therein lies my success.

We are fortunate to be in a profession where diversity of thought, style, song, and relationship is prevalent. We need to make sure that we celebrate this diversity and allow it to flourish in order to remain a growing profession. My success is not going to be your success - My life patterns are different from your own. My success should never destroy your success - we are not in competition, we are in collaboration. Your path through music therapy is not my path, and that is something to celebrate!

This week has led me to think about what I want out of my life as a music therapist. This is always a challenging thing for me to do as I tend to get bogged down by the goblins, but I am always able to identify what I do NOT want out of my music therapy life, so that's where I start. Once I know where, when, what, how I do not want to be, I can start to see the other opportunities.

This next month will be a time where I have lots of time on my hands to think and vision what I want my future to be. Expect lots of rambling on days without themes. I am trusting that I will be able to figure out some things that have been challenging me lately and will challenge me in the future. I will use these thoughts to lead me onward, towards my own definition of success.

"Success is following the pattern of life one enjoys most." - Al Capp

Happy Thursday (or Thanksgiving, US readers!). 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear AMTA

Dear American Music Therapy Association: I am debating long and hard about remaining in this relationship. I have been in this relationship since college, and this is not a decision that I am taking lightly or without great cost.  I am not happy with what you are bringing to this relationship. Now, I have been a selfish partner over the past several years - mainly because I am not feeling like we share a common mission anymore. It is easy for me to place the blame on you, but I know that this is not all on me. I have tried to be invested in communication and support and understanding, but everyone comes to a time where enough is enough. I am trying very hard to decide if the benefits that you provide to me are worth the feelings that I have about where I think you and I are going. I am not sure that our destination is the same anymore, and this makes me sad. To be completely honest, I am only in this relationship these days for the music therapy interns. I don't think that is a hea...
Read more

Songwriting Sunday: Repetition

Image
One of the things that I find to be helpful with my client population (children, adolescents, and young adults with dual diagnoses) is repetition of phrases, lyrics, and music. As a result of 30+ years of working with this population in various iterations, I have found that my clients respond the most to songs with three repeated phrases to prime their responses with a different phrase to communicate the important part of the experience. DISCLAIMER: This is not a definite way to write music for clinical interactions. This is what seems to work well with my particular group of human beings. Don't go to your supervisors and tell them that I told you that this is the ONLY way to write music - It is NOT! You have to find what works for your clients and for their clinical goals. Since my clients respond well to this type of song, I tend to write songs in this format more than any other. What I have found is that my clients remember these songs more than the ones that I do in different f...
Read more

Being An Internship Director: On Hiatus

Image
It has been long enough since I have had an intern that I am seriously feeling like I have little to say on the subject. At the same time, I am currently writing Chapter 5 of my general internship handbook, so I am able to write about being an intern and what types of things to think about during this important time in our professional development. It is a strange place to be in, and it is one that is a bit challenging for me. Right now, I have had three vacant internship positions since the beginning of the calendar year. I will have a vacant position next month and that will be an entire year of rejected offers. In the past nine months, I have offered positions to three applicants who have declined. It is interesting how people complain that there aren't enough internship programs, but programs like mine are empty. I guess there aren't enough internship programs that pay large stipends (which mine cannot) out there. I get it. It is interesting to me how we have moved from an ...
Read more