music, therapy, and me

I am not always able to be positive about things that happen outside of my home and work routine. There are so many things happening in the world that I often feel overwhelmed when I start to pay attention. Due to this, I tend to isolate from the news and from conversations about big things or events. When I do pay attention, I tend to get bogged down in negativity and struggle with finding positive things around me. This is something that I try to combat every day. I find that I do much better mentally when I find something positive to focus on during my early mornings. I have a daily happiness practice where I find something happy about my day or my existence. It is often something really small but it is always an important part of my morning. Finding one positive thing helps me shed the feelings of negativity that comes around. Now, this is my habit and my gratitude process. I hope that you have one of your own - it doesn't have to be what I do - find your own way to see positiv...

I am thankful that this week is almost over. Not because of any one thing happening, but just because I need some time away from holding the anger of clients who will not be celebrating holidays with people that they love. I need some time to shed the despair of children who do not understand why they can't go home when they want to go home. I also need to rest up for the sessions next week and the continuation of all of these feelings for the next month. There is something humbling when you realize that you are a safe space for big emotions. I had this realization yesterday when a client became very angry because I turned down the amplifier that was starting to crackle. This client requires very little to get angry, and the anger turns into disruption and aggression really quickly. This is the second week in a row that I was the reason for an emotional outburst while in music therapy. I finally had the thought that music therapy is a safe space to express emotion, and that helped ...

I am currently knee-deep in library books - one of the benefits of having some professional time behind me - I could get to the library in the morning on a weekday. So, I have ten books to read in the next month, and I am only 2/3 of the way finished with the first book. This is because it is a confusing Star Wars book that is taking more time than usual to read. I am enjoying it to the point of wanting to savor every word, so I am reading it in bits and pieces. I am going to take it with me to work today to read in my lunch period. I enjoy going to the library and pulling books off the shelf at random. I have never held a book, but I want to because I found a good book by Anne Perry (the William Monk series), and I want to start from the start of the series. I will try that once I get through this stack of books. I usually just roam and pick things that feel interesting to me. I am strictly a fiction type of reader. I don't like many nonfiction topics, but I will occasionally come...

How to be thrifty? I think that this will become more of a focus for me in the next several years as I transition from full-time work at my current job to retirement and other work in a politically charged environment where I will not be better off. I've lived through this thing before, and I know from experience that I will not be better off once I retire. (One year and seven months from now... not that I'm counting or anything!) Some of my current plans will have to change to accommodate new experiences and taxes and the loss of Social Security or a change in the retirement age - all things that are currently being discussed. I am a bit in panic mode about all of this, but I also know that I will be okay. I do not plan on being completely retired once I leave my school job. I intend to take my pension after 30 years of work at my current facility, and then I also intend to work somewhere while working on my side hustles. I will still need health insurance and something to do ...

I took my second of three three-day weekends this past weekend, and now I am facing the need to actually go to work for the next four days. After that, I will have another three-day weekend and then work for two days, and then I get a five-day weekend. November is back to how I prefer it - limited work time. My first foray into professional development came to via Kanopy - it was a 90's documentary on Music and Movement. It was geared towards preschool teachers, but it was a good reminder of the research behind pairing music and movement for learning outcomes. All of the non-development things that I tried this weekend were thwarted by outside influences. The eye doctor could not verify if my appointment was covered. I was offered the opportunity to pay the entire cost (before tests) and to try to get reimbursement. I opted not to do so. This new insurance company really stinks compared to what we had for the past two years. It is also more expensive (of course). The grocery order ...

Okay. This has not been a really hard week in most estimations, but my students are struggling in music therapy, my moods are mostly negative from the outset, and there isn't much that is happening in the world that I can find positive right now. When the outside world gets too much for me to navigate, I stop paying attention to anything other than my 52 mile radius. I will not be reading news stories. I will not be listening to npr. I will do what I can to insulate myself from the strong feelings that happen when I have difficulty with the feelings out in the world. I will avoid saying specific names for the next four years, and I hope that I will actually be better off in 2028 than I am at this moment. Unfortunately, my recent history indicates that I will not. I am better off right now than I was in 2020 at the same time, so I do not think that anything will get better for those of us who are not billionaires. Do I sound bitter? Probably, but this is why I have to keep myself wr...

I am in a mode of starting projects, and this one is a doozy. For some time now, I have wanted to change the way my craft space looks. I have a hollow door that I use as my table space, and yesterday, the door was sticking out into the room. This format provided a way to sit and craft while watching television, but when my family came to visit, it became obvious to me that this configuration really blocked most of the room. So, an idea started in my brain to push the door flush against the wall. I started that project yesterday morning.  Now, the thing about me and projects like this one is that I have some ideas in my head of what I want to accomplish, but my body no longer sticks with things until the bitter end. So, I currently have all the furniture pieces put away where I want them, but I have much more to go through, organize, declutter, and then use. I have displaced all of the things that lived in that corner. They are now scattered all over the rest of the room. Fortunatel...

This week has been rough. During my warm-up time before the first sessions of the morning and again before the first sessions of the afternoon, I have been engaging in some improvisation. Most of my songs have been cast in a minor mode that reflects the feelings that I have and continue to experience. It is interesting how musicians and artists can work through their emotional ups and downs through creativity. I know that this is a good way for me to process my feelings, and I hope that others will take advantage of this as well. Sing the songs that help you figure out what you are feeling. Write the music that expresses how you feel. Share that music as you feel safe. I will sing my songs of grief and lament until I can feel hope and some glimpse of the way forward. In the meantime, it is time to write the music that needs to be written. 

I am taking the next two Fridays off for professional development and for collecting some CMTEs for this certification year. I am doing this for several reasons. First, by taking these next two Fridays, I will only miss one clinical session. Second, by taking the second Friday, I will miss having to go to the circus. The circus is a source of trauma for both myself and my mother. I am the reason that my siblings never went to the circus with our family. Neither Mom nor I could handle a repeat of what happened the day we went when I was a toddler! Sorry, siblings, but I'm not all that sorry, if you know what I mean! For some reason, the administrators at my facility are REALLY good at scheduling mandatory participation for my trauma triggers. To avoid the trauma response in myself, I have had to do things like this - take professional time to avoid being placed in situations where my trauma experiences take over my rational mind. I don't share that I am filled with fear when I h...

This has not been a happy time for me, and I am sure that many of us are feeling scattered. I haven't been able to write much at all because I tend to go into spates of angry tears and hysteria. Today, though, I feel that I need to try to write a bit. I unfriended a person that I have known for a very long time over the election results. The rhetoric that came from this person became too much for me to see on my feed, and Facebook would not allow me to snooze that person at all. My only choice was to block this person. I am sad about this, but I am not able to continue to share aspects of my life with someone who does not recognize that people have the right to be who they want rather than who the government wants them to be. I have struggled with this rhetoric throughout this political season, and I cannot allow it to continue. So, this person is now blocked from interacting with me on social media. I am trying to process my feelings. At the moment, I am overcome with fear. I am s...

One of the essential tools in my thrifty toolbox is finding things to do that take little to no money but offer great rewards in terms of self-care and relaxation. Now, the hardest thing about this is that what I find valuable might make you more stressed, so you have to find your own way into self-care. What I talk about here might not be something that works for you, so the first thing to know is that you have to find what interests you. My self-care routines include reading, making books and other papercrafts, crocheting, watching movies, and napping. I also like taking classes on papercrafting and self-improvement, and all that, so I look for ways to get the most bang for my buck! I subscribe to a service called SkillShare where I can take classes on lots of different topics. I also have an unlimited movie subscription to my local theater where I can watch as many movies as I want every month. Between these two subscriptions, I spend about $30 per month. My other hobbies and self-c...

It is my season for thinking about what comes next for me. This year has been especially challenging due to leaving the worlds of church and internships within a couple of months of each other. I am faced with less income and more time - things that are both good and not so good. So, my natural period of reflection and planning is laced with thoughts about finding more money and using the time I have from this current iteration of my body and mind. I am not struggling with my current salary, but more money is always nice. I am also going to have to pay quite a bit for some medical procedures this year, so extra money would be good for me. I feel that I have some options, but it will mean breaking a habit of needing to crash as soon as I get home from my 7-3 job. The big question for today is "where do I feel I need to be?" Lately, something that has bothered me for most of my career has been expressed by someone else, so it has come to the forefront of my brain again. It is t...

Two weeks ago, I shared music from people born in the month of October with my students as part of our Musicians of the Month series. One of the musicians that I shared was Weird Al Yankovic - one of my favorite people since I met him in a sandwich shop at 2am in West Hollywood in 1986. I put "Eat It" on the playlist, and my clients got angry! They were upset that the song that they were listening to sounded like Michael Jackson's song, but it wasn't. For those that were able to listen rather than just engage in bluster, I explained the concept of a parody song, and I remembered that I haven't written about this valuable tool in this blog series. I combine the concepts of piggyback and parody songs into one. It just makes sense that I am doing the same thing when I use a melody for a piggyback song or a parody - they are the same things. I have used piggyback techniques for myself, with my clients, and with my interns over the years. How do I do this? I strip the ...

It is Saturday, and I am getting a slow start to my day. After a day of horrible pain and behavior management recertification, things are starting to calm down a bit. I put my feet up on a chair and did some stretching before behavior management, and that seemed to help. We will see how the back and the knees go as the day progresses, but I know how to help it if it goes bad on me again. Well, not if, but when. Do you ever have a time when you feel like something needs to happen, but you don't know what? My brain is spinning. My body is hurting, and it feels like autumn outside. We are expecting rain throughout the weekend which is good because it will tamp down the dust kicked up by the harvest. That should help my breathing - less dust and plant-based mold in the air. What do I want to get done these days? I have no idea. I just have this feeling that something needs to be accomplished. So, I will take some time to explore this feeling a bit more. See you tomorrow!

It is the day after Halloween, and other than a screaming fit from my first group of students where I had to yell in order to be heard, the day went pretty well. I am in immense levels of pain from my repaired knee - don't know if it was sitting on the floor so much, CPR recertification, or the weather that has had the most effect on this level of pain, but it is pretty bad. So, here I am, facing physical behavior management training this afternoon with a bum leg and a close to bum back. Can't wait! Anyway, let's talk about fun things on this Friday. This week, I have been introducing my 21st century musicians to 20th century music technology. I have managed to break two cassette players, a record player from the 1960's, an RCA cord, and my RCA input in my karaoke machine. I did something really hard for me - I threw out the broken cassette players after trying to open them up and fix them. I hate throwing things out that might be able to be fixed, but I also cannot jus...