music, therapy, and me

It is thundering this morning, and I am glad. I like storms as long as they don't come along with tornadoes, and this one seems to be just a regular storm. I am guessing that my mowers won't be coming today, but I will put their check on the door as usual, just in case.  I am experiencing some issues surrounding the fact that I am not at work while all my co-workers are working right now, but I am also enjoying my time alone. This changes from moment to moment. My life has changed significantly in the past two weeks. I no longer sing for adolescents. I sit at a computer and try to make things for music therapists to use and sing with their adolescents. I miss the human interaction, but not enough to consider going back. I felt a creative itch last night. I wanted to make something, but I had some decision fatigue and avoidance coming on, so I asked my mom and sister for some themes. I ended up being challenged to make a winter themed journal and a turtle themed journal. I put...

Two years ago, the plan for this summer was to be going to Italy for the World Congress of Music Therapy. Those plans fell through, so the plan shifted a bit to a trip to the East Coast of this country to see my mother's family and friends, but those plans also fell through. So, the plan for this summer is to stay home and figure out home things for the moment. Rest. Reset the brain and the body to figure out what comes next. I am thankful that I am not having to go anywhere this month. While going to the World Congress would be nice, I am happy not to go. I find that music therapy conferences are more geared towards academics these days than clinicians. I am fully a clinician, so having to choose between this one's dissertation and this one's is not relevant to my role in the music therapy world. I am afraid that the professional organizations in the world are becoming too research-focused at the expense of those of us who are in the day-to-day process of actually doing th...

I am always happier in this time of year than I am in the summer months. For some reason, my seasonal affective depression is related to the sunshine. I don't know if this is because of my vitamin D deficiency, or if I was conditioned due to my early years in Texas where it was hot and humid, but summer is not a good time for me. I flourish so much more in the autumn and winter months when it is chilly, cold, and dark. I know that more people have the opposite response to this time change and the upcoming season. I am seeing so many conversations about how it is difficult for them to navigate these dark days. Meanwhile, I am gaining energy. This has been a typical week in my music therapy life. Kids have been up and down when responding to what I am sending out into the music therapy session. Many of the students have entered the room in full-out tantrums. I don't know if they were angry about having to come to music therapy or if there were other things happening, but it was m...

'Tis the season for working with a new group of co-workers who do not understand what music therapy is or how music therapy works in my therapy space. I have had to ask every single one of them not to yell positive reinforcement over the music - whether it be my singing or the recordings that we are listening to or the improvisations we are creating as a group. I got spoken to by the principal about it as well. Now, I am not against positive reinforcement - not at all. I am against co-workers yelling over the therapeutic medium in order to give such positive reinforcement. I am against the interruption of the music processing and creation that occurs when people start to yell in order to be heard over the music. I am against the interruption of instruction. I am tired of constantly being interrupted by people who do not get what I do and how I am doing it. I am trying not to take it personally at the moment, but I also feel like I am repeating myself over and over again. The new st...

Well, it is now Thursday, and I have one week of my enforced and scheduled break left before I get into the 2025-2026 school year. I think I have finished my medical appointments for some time, but other things are popping up that need to be addressed, so I am not sure that I will be able to leave the world of medical issues completely. This week has been a good one for creativity and for my TPT store as well as for feeding my soul. I have put in three new files - star instrument cards in color, star instrument cards in black and white, and Olympics sports in both color and black and white. I completed several art journal pages, and I have read and read and read my current crop of library books.  I have spent money on things I wanted rather than on things that I needed, but I have done some spending on things I needed as well. I have a new music therapy t-shirt that I am looking forward to wearing around my facility. I have some new die-cut templates for journaling and visual aid p...

Today feels like a rambling day, but, seriously, what day doesn't involve rambling around any given topic?? It is raining today. Yesterday, I had a comedy of errors going on around me. In the space of three hours, I had five vials of blood drawn, ate pizza, had bad intestinal issues, vomited due to a coughing fit, took two quick showers, and talked to my family members about it all. I also had to go outside several times to pick up my trashcans that scattered my recycling all over the place. My neighbor was throwing away a big joe chair that I really wanted for myself, but I did not pinch it, and now it is storming which means that I should not salvage it from the curb now. Too much mold and mildew would happen (but, I still want it! I might have to examine purchasing one for myself...). I deviated from my recent pattern of session topics to include a game day in the music therapy room this week. These games tend to be more active or song-based than board games or games on the Prom...

First, Happy World Music Therapy Week!! Did you know that we celebrate an international music therapy focus week - check out this wonderful advocacy resource from the World Federation of Music Therapy!! So, fellow music therapist, celebrate yourself this week. Celebrate what is great about being a music therapist. Celebrate what is challenging about all of this profession. Take some time to just enjoy clients and the interactions that you have this week. We are our best advocates. If we love this job, then our many of our clients will like what we do with them (not everyone, especially if you are in a situation like mine where clients have to be present, but many). As we move through our therapist-lives, we change things, often without seeing the ongoing results. How is that! Second, how are you doing? One of the things that I often feel is isolation. I am the only music therapist at my facility. I no longer participate in many music therapy organization things. I tend to be content t...

Today is the last 12 hour day of my school year. It is parent-teacher conference evening for my school, so I will be completely alone despite a recent curiosity about what students do during school from parents involved in a support group. No one will come to the music therapy room to discuss their students, and if they do, they will tell me what instruments they want their students to learn to play. I did hear our school social worker stating to a guest that "one of the differences between other public schools and our school is that our music and art programs are therapies. We have an art therapist and a music therapist instead of teachers." After 29 years, the school social worker FINALLY gets that my job is different from the local music educators! Hooray!! I got an "atta girl" in the hallway on Monday morning when the quality assurance person stopped me by the printer to tell me that he had recently heard that I do more than just play a guitar during music thera...

I had plans for myself yesterday - an afternoon without sessions where I could do some more organizing of the spaces that I have upended due to a recent ceiling leak. I had plans that were destroyed by a storm two nights ago and slick roads. My afternoon without sessions changed into business as usual - two sessions in the middle of my afternoon. The same groups will be going on their field trip today, but I will only miss one session and will only get 30 minutes of extra preparation time due to my schedule. Sniff. Sigh. Waaaaah! So, I did my actual job yesterday - all of it. One thing I noticed a long time ago was that plans NEVER go exactly like you think they will. I have always thought of session "plans" as more like "strategies" or "suggestions," and I think it baffled some of my teachers during music therapy school. I remember getting marked down for session implementation when I rearranged the session to accommodate client responses and setting even...

I have seen lots of comments from various sources about how some people use 2 spaces after a sentence before starting the next sentence. This appears to be a generational thing that is often bemoaned by those who never had to go through a typing class on an old electric typewriter. I find it interesting that these rules are something that people cling to - whether that you are supposed to put two spaces after a period or whether you should only use one. I must admit that I was pressured to change during graduate school, so I did. I no longer put two spaces after a period/full stop. I wonder who comes up with the "rules." Who out there decides that it is no longer appropriate to hit the spacebar twice? In my case, the American Psychiatric Association made that decision, and I went along with it because my professors required me to do so. What is going to happen if we ever move from a character-driven writing format to something else? All those who deride 2-spacers will become ...

I am currently sitting in the family room at my last childhood home, blogging, and thinking about stuff. Nothing really all that important is going through my head, but I am thinking. There is something about being physically away from all things that I have to do that makes my brain start to rumble about other things. It happens every time I come here, and I am both invigorated by it and frustrated about it at the same time. For example, I love that I do not have to work for the next week. I love that I can spend time with the family members who are here, and I love that I can putter around. I am enjoying my mother create things for her Barbie dolls, and I love the self-satisfied giggle she emits when she accomplishes something for herself. We have a project to start creating some rooms to furnish with all the things that she is creating, and I hope that we get to that pretty soon. The frustration comes from not having my own things to create with. I am away from my own stuff, and Mom...

I lost my badge and office keys somewhere between the administration hallway and my car yesterday. This is bad because it is somewhere where I do not have it. This is good because there is a small place where it can be, and I hope that I can find it and regain access to the building. Ah, the stresses that happen when you drop things. I am hoping that I will find them once I get to work, but if I can't find them outside, then I have to go get a new badge, put in a request to have my office and storage spaces rekeyed, and way too much hoopla for the day before the Holiday Sing. I feel ashamed about all of this because it just is not something that should be happening.  I feel stupid.   Yuck. I don't like this feeling. Something so little just throws me into a struggle cycle. There is so much that happens all the time that goes perfectly fine - I was able to get through physical behavior management training without associated pain, so that's a good thing, but losing my keys ha...

I did not sleep well last night. I apparently fell asleep before 8pm and then woke up at 9pm. I did not get back into deep sleep after that, so when my light went off at 4:19am, I was not very happy. I have since showered and am now sitting here at my computer, so things are moving in the correct direction for this work day. Unfortunately, when this type of sleep interruption happens, I tend to sink into negative thoughts and ponderings. I have been imagining all sorts of negative interactions with people - not something I usually do, but now it is happening every time I start driving to work. I have been in several imaginary confrontations this week - it is exhausting, but that's the way things go... Last week, I received a request to host a practicum student in the Spring semester. This made me laugh because the school that was requesting this placement has not treated me well, so I automatically resist being part of this program. Secondly, I really feel that I have to step away ...

I am celebrating my life changes right now - giving up things that I no longer want to do and finding new things to help me fill some time. This process is not one that I was anticipating in this year, but I have learned to go with the flow of life rather than fight against it too much. Well, I still fight it as evidenced by my constant nattering about things in the music therapy world, but you know - I am getting better. There are so many things to feel grateful for in this point of my life, but there are also so many things to mourn. I am trying to do both at the same time while continuing my journey as a music therapist. I am enjoying the concept of changing my work schedule to work only my contract hours rather than internship hours. I like knowing that I will be able to leave my workplace at 3:15 every day. This means some more time at home each day which is taking some getting used to, but is nice. I like having more afternoon time. Right now, I want to fill up that time with som...

I am gearing up for some self-care things later today. My Thursday afternoon meeting is cancelled to accommodate some "team-building" activities tomorrow that some of the team (ahem - the school therapists) are not invited to attend. So, I am going to use the meeting time for some self-care of my own. A large part of my self-care routine at the moment is finding a cool place to be. My room is not any cooler with the fans that have been installed - the fans just move the air around which is helpful but doesn't fix the broken HVAC system. My body does not handle heat well - it never has - so I tend to be overly tired and headachy at the end of every day. Ir is not a super comfortable situation. In fact, I am starting today with a headache which is also pretty typical for the summer months. I am thankful that I have a working AC system in my car and here at home. So, I am going to come home a little bit early and cool down in my space. I will also spend a bit of time trying ...

This week is where my two roles in the professional world collide into a very long schedule of work, more work, worship, more worship, interrupted schedules, and exhaustion. It is Holy Week, the week in the Christian faith where believers commemorate the last days of Jesus before his death and resurrection. For church employees, like me, it means at least two extra worship services and more church than is on our typical weekly schedule. It means different music, more time involved in spiritual focus, and different things happening at different times in the week. I work in a publicly funded, special purpose school. The roots of the facility itself are deeply centered in the Catholic faith, but we no longer have a Catholic focus. When I first arrived at the facility so many years ago, we did have that particular religious focus. Fridays were fish days. The annual Christmas program included acting out the Nativity story. (I stopped that practice because I didn't feel that it was right...

I am trying to be a bit more intentional in my writing this week, so here is a topic that I hope you all will like - the books that have influenced my music therapy practice over the past "ahem" MANY years. Some of these books are music therapy texts, others are not. There have been many different books that have made me think a bit more about who I am and what I do with my clients. Here they are, in no particular order... Music In Therapy , edited by E. Thayer Gaston, published in 1968. You can find a copy at this link here . The influential part of this book, for me at least, Chapter Two, Processes in Music Therapy by William W. Sears. This was one of the first things that I really understood when I encountered it as an undergraduate, and it still has deep meaning for me. I am lucky enough to own a physical copy of this book, and I am meaning to reread this chapter. It reminds me that there is so much more that music does than just fill the brain with stimuli. I think I wou...

I made a donation today to help save part of music therapy history. It wasn't a huge donation because I can't really do that at the moment, but it was something. It was something more than I was thinking I could donate. It is interesting that AMTA is going to crowd funding for things like this, and these types of money requests are confusing me right now. Why is this happening? I make no secret on my blog about how I feel about the directions that AMTA has decided to take in the recent years. I am still a member for the sole fact that I am not quite ready to give up my internship program. I do not feel like many of the views and opinions that AMTA currently promotes are representative of my own views or opinions, so I am a bit uneasy about being a member. I have pulled away from the music therapy community due to lots of screaming voices that do not seem to care about anyone other than themselves. So, I am coming to this particular post from a particular viewpoint. I love histo...

Yesterday was a day of ups and downs for my part of the country. We were celebrating the win of the local football team when someone started shooting others. There was one casualty and many injuries after the panic. I heard about things when I was waiting to start the Ash Wednesday service last night. I know that two friends were present at the celebration, and it will be interesting to know if they were part of the situation at all when I make it to work this morning. We are now in a season of mourning around our area because of three people who caused this situation. I do not watch the news. I do not listen to the news. I read the news when I feel like I need to catch up with what is happening in the world. I do not find it healthy for me to watch the news or listen to the constant reporting of the bad things that happen in the world. I cannot deal with the ways that people choose to hurt other people - the emotions that come up are not good for me, and I get enough angst at work wit...