music, therapy, and me

One of my quests for this year is to get back into listening to music again. It has been a long time since I have spent time listening just to listen. Since music has been my job, I go through periods of time when I just cannot listen to anything outside of music therapy sessions. I am missing music at the moment, so I am making an effort to bring music back into my daily way of engaging in life. I am ripping my CD library onto my computer, and I am rediscovering music that I have loved in the past. I loved the era of burning CDs, and I have lots of "favorites" CDs that I have found in my music library. I pulled out a CD case with "all-time favorites," made in 2007-ish. Curious to see what I loved back then, I popped it into my CD player in my car and have been listening during my commutes. One of the things that I can say with certainty is that I love much of the music of Garth Brooks. There you go. The music that I have included of his always makes me smile. so re...

Fun Friday. When I get to work today, I have to do documentation for the last three days as well as for the two groups that I will see today. That's the only task that has to get finished - well, other than the two groups that are on my schedule. So, I have about seven hours of planning and preparation time. I still do not know what we are going to do in the four day week that happens next week. I will have that situation fixed by the time I leave work this afternoon. My office/storage space is still a mess from the end of May when I had to move my large instruments into my office to accommodate an office for some other people. (I'm still waiting for my supervisor to inform me of this fact...). There are drum set pieces and visual aid making materials everywhere. It is an absolute mess that I have little to no interest in doing anything about, but I need to. I will load up a backpack and one of my reusable grocery bags with things from my office and toy cabinet that do not need...

I hit another exhaustion wall yesterday. My body reminding me that it was rearranged two months ago and that we both are still recovering from the rigors of surgery, anaesthesia, and the constant stressors of changing diagnoses as well as specialists every couple of days. So, I remained at home and slept. I feel better today and was able to crawl out of bed without crying or falling, so that's a positive thing. I missed five groups yesterday, and my mother heaped a whole bunch of guilt on my head last night, so I am ashamed of the fact that I was unable to continue my therapy day after taking my shower and finding it difficult to move my legs to get over the side of the tub.  This is what always happens. I start off trying to be proactive with my self-care, but I end up feeling guilt and shame for taking time for that self-care which increases the need for self-care. It is a never ending loop of shame and guilt that is also exhausting. I know about shame cycles and all that, but th...

I am struggling to get up and get going this morning. Not because of anything about work or "that client" (who made it through a choice session without a peep!) or anything stressful or medical or anything, but just because. When I woke from a deep sleep last night, I cried because the light was on, but I was so tired still. I lounged in my bed until an hour after I woke up because I just couldn't bring myself to get up. I am paying for that now. This is the first time in a long time that the morning temperatures are refreshing rather than hot and humid. It is a glimpse that autumn is coming, and I am all for it, but it also plays havoc on my sleep patterns. This post will be short and sweet because I will have to leave for work pretty soon. This week is our Musicians of the Month and leisure skill development week. We are using different instruments after we listen to music by performers born in this month. I am working on showing my clients that there are options for le...

One of the things that I enjoy is developing therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) which happens to be the term that I like for what I do with my clients during sessions. Others call these things interventions or applications or modules. I am currently designing TMEs to go along with a book that I bought at Thriftbooks.com. It is my goal to have one book organized with TMEs to go along with it for each month of the year. The first one is getting started, and I am revisiting my TME process and refining it all. So, let's catch up about this. I started writing TMEs (we didn't call them that back in 1989, by the way - we called them applications - I didn't like that term very much, even back then, but I didn't argue) in my second semester of music therapy education. We had to come up with 25 things to do with music therapy clients during the semester. It was rough to create that many ideas, but I did it. I wrote down my ideas on 4X6 inch index cards. I still have them, of co...

As a vintage music therapist who has invested in records, cassettes, CDs, mp3s, and now streaming services, I have lots of music around my house. I have managed to give away most of my cassettes, but I have all of the records of my family as well as my extensive CD collection lurking in bookshelves in corners of my home. I have started the process of ripping my CD collection onto my computer to store that music on the cloud. This is not a process for the faint of heart, and it is taking lots of time. I have a CD drive in my computer - I bought it specifically because it had an integrated CD drive because this is a quest I always have at the back of my mind when I am purchasing things. I want to have my music available to me the next time I get a computer. This is a long introduction to the benefit that I am finding with this task. As I put on the topic line, I am finding old favorite songs again. Part of being a music therapist is a love of music, and I have many pieces that I have lov...

I figure that it might be time for a reintroduction to music, therapy, and me. If you have been here for a long time, then you know quite a bit about me. If you are a newer reader, then you may not know much about what I do, where I've been, or where I get my ideas. So, allow me to introduce myself. I am a long-term music therapist. I started my music therapy studies back in the last century, and I have been employed as a music therapist for 32 of my 34 years as a professional. For the other two years, I had job descriptions that were not specifically music therapist but in related fields. I have spent 29 years at my current job, working with children, adolescents, and young adults with developmental, intellectual, and psychiatric diagnoses. I work in a school associated with both local school districts and the psychiatric residential treatment facility where the school is housed. In that time, I have been through many policy changes, changes in the types of kids that we serve, and...

Please forgive me as I swerve from a helpful music therapy website post into a more personal website post. I am an introvert who was made to feel ashamed for my personality traits by teachers, youth group leaders, and professors. In a world that values extroversion, I am a quiet person who is not very prone to those qualities. It is difficult for me to attend gatherings of people, much less be gregarious and make people pay attention to me. It has taken years for me to be comfortable with who I am and what I need as a human being from relationships with others. It has been good to see that others are out there, feeling the same things I feel, and are writing about their experiences. One website that I particularly enjoy is Introvert, Dear .  The posts on this website are often relevant to me, but some are not. As an introvert (as far as you can get on each and every scale that I've taken) raised by an introvert and an extrovert, I felt understood most of the time by my parents. My ...

So, you might notice that I am a prolific blogger, but that I do not blog every day. I have a couple of rules for blogging that I have developed over my years. They are completely random, personal, and vary based on my mood. These, however, tend to be the rules that I look for in the blogs of others - even though they are completely my own. If you cannot write something that sounds coherent to you, then it probably isn't understandable by others. - This explains the gaps that I have in my blog at times. Take yesterday, for example. I started several different posts, but I just kept babbling and burbling my way through random thoughts. So, I gave up on writing. It just wasn't what I wanted to put out into the world. There are some topics that I do not want to write about. Politics is at the top of that list. It is rare that you will hear much about what is going on outside my immediate world because that type of conversation tends to make me feel more stress than specific things...

So, today is not a single song - it is a composer. My favorite composer, to be specific. This is coming from a post I saw randomly yesterday - "what is your favorite song from a soundtrack?" To be completely honest, I cannot answer that question.  I don't have one favorite song from a soundtrack - I have so many that choosing one just makes my brain hurt. So, instead of trying to select one song, I have selected my favorite composer, John Williams. There isn't much that Mr. Williams has written that I have not loved. I am sure that my love stems from my love of the Star Wars movies. That is the first movie that I remember seeing as a child - the first Star Wars movie - back when it was just called "Star Wars" - from the back of the station wagon at the drive-in. My parents had been to the movie the night before and decided that they wanted to see it again. They figured that their three children (I was the oldest at seven) would fall asleep in their pajamas i...

I tried very hard to write something yesterday, but I hit an exhaustion wall and crashed against it, hard. I kept staring at the screen, trying to jumpstart my brain into thinking anything other than "I am so tired." So, no post yesterday. We will see if today will be any better. I am still tired, but not as bone weary as I was yesterday. It is Friday of the first week of school and the first week that I am back doing music therapy things. Today is my least busy session day. I only have two groups, but that is one more group than I had last year on Fridays. I hope that the new teacher in that group realizes that the schedule changed and didn't try to come in yesterday while I was sleeping. I would actually be find if we changed the schedule  to what it is during the summer, but I also figured that it was a good idea to follow the schedule as written for a bit. Today is payday, which means that my salary will make a quick stop in my account before heading back out into the...

I am currently without something to write about today because I have not made it to my list yet. In fact, I need to write a list of websites that I use often in my work as a music therapist. I wrote about TPT a couple of posts ago, and that is the only website I can think of right now. My brain is a bit scrambled. I am tired. I am not able to think things through these days. Most of this is due to the month off that I had to take for surgery. Some of it is due to having to get back into a work routine. Some of it is due to the fact that I am still in the midst of some medical questions. So, in order to make these Wednesday posts something to actually write about, I need a list of websites. Places that I go when I need resources. Any suggestions? Right now, all I can think about is the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue. This website has provided me with correct APA formatting for many years - I highly recommend that site for anyone who is having to write any sort of academic paper. If ...

Guess who had to miss the first two hours of work yesterday because she left the overhead lights on in her car and drained her battery? If you guessed me, then you are correct. I had all sorts of plans for those two hours, but I was not able to complete those plans. I started the first day with clients in a fog of frustration. The first session that actually happened (because I was five minutes late for a group that is almost ALWAYS 10 minutes late to the session but not yesterday!) was the one with "that client" and "that other client." They both made it through the session, doing the bare minimum, but NOT engaging in screaming, tantrums, or aggression. WIN!! I then finished the other three sessions on my schedule and poured myself into my car. The battery worked, so I went home. One of my specialists called last night and left a message. I have to call him today. That increases my stress level a bit, but I will do it so I know what is happening.  Anyway... I am go...

I had lots of energy yesterday - don't know why and REALLY want to replicate that energy for always - so I finished several file folders that were just sitting and waiting for Velcro. That's all that they needed - Velcro on the folders, and they were finished. These are not resources for my students (who I get to work with again, starting today!), because they are just a bit too kid-like, but they will go into my resource room and inventory because they are finished.   I also loaded the dishwasher, went to pick up groceries for this week, read a book, ripped CDs to the computer, alphabetized the CD covers in the case, cooked a bit, made chicken salad with cranberries and almonds, and other things that I have neglected a bit. I am hoping that I will be able to walk when I get home after work, but who knows. I had absolutely no problem with my knees the entire time I was home, but now that I am back at work, I am hobbling around like my knees are 90 years old. I have no idea what...

One of the advantages of going through my CD collection and ripping music to my computer is that I am being reminded of music that I have loved over my life and career. One of these songs is by Fiona Apple who was part of the "angry girl singer-songwriter" movement that happened at some point in my past. Criminal  is one of my favorites from Fiona Apple. Okay, let me explain something about me. I tend to find one song by an artist that resonates with me, and I then explore more of the music. I am not always impressed by the other songs that those artists share, but I have many CDs that I got because I wanted a copy of the one song that I love. I used to be part of a CD club - BMG got me many CDs for less than $2 each back when I was budgeting for everything - so I was able to find many of the songs that I loved back then for very little money. (I never really paid full price for any CD.) So, with Fiona Apple, I have a couple of songs that I like and more that I do not like as...

I am a proudly vintage music therapist. I have been practicing music therapy for over 30 years now, and it has been an interesting journey. As I am getting ready to transition from a full-time school employee to retiring from that job to something new, I am thinking about all the things that I know now that I wish someone had told me earlier... One of the things that I wish I had been required to do was a introduction to business course. I am starting that process now, but I really wish I had been in the know for my entire career. I am now trying to learn about being a small business owner as I am trying to figure out my next steps. I knew, from the very beginning of my career, that I would never escape the question, "so, what is musical therapy, anyway?" I have had many different ways of explaining what I do, but it has always been interesting to see how people respond and what they ask about our profession. I should keep a tally of the times that I explain my job. That woul...

Oi. My return to work yesterday was frustrating from beginning to end.  The day started with a smooth trip to work. I traversed the 50 miles from my house to the facility parking lot without difficulty, and I entered the building to find my room pretty much the way I left it. For some reason, the stereo had been removed which negated about 50% of the sub plans that I had left. There were chairs everywhere, but no major holes in walls or things that looked too bad - at first glance. Later investigation revealed that someone had knocked over a soda or a cup of coffee on the top of one of my cabinets that was just left there, so there is now a thick residue there that I will have to figure out how to clean because I just cannot handle that sort of mess in my space. Okay, not a bad way to reenter the work space after a month being gone. I arrived 30 minutes early (of course) because I needed to go through my emails to see what we were going to be doing for the day. The calendar said th...