music, therapy, and me

Today was the first day of the fall semester at my facility. It was a work day interrupted by waiting to sign up for health benefits and behavior management training. Once my two tasks were finished, I didn't do much more with my day. I reviewed the 105 emails that had accrued in my inbox, made a list of kids who were leaving and another list of kids arriving. I spent some time talking to my friend, the Art Therapist, about schedules, our break, and various and sundry other things, and I took down the summer school entry bulletin board. The rest of the time was spent sitting in my music room wondering what I should be doing. I didn't do much - just enjoyed being in my space, by myself. My intern was not present as she was originally going to the intern of my recent graduate. I had already taken an inventory of all of the materials in the music room (thanks to the help of my interns). The senior intern's desk was clear and ready to use as storage. My desk was relativel...

So, the happiness project that I have taken up during the summer months has been pretty good for me both as a therapist and as a person. I have been spending as much time as possible training my brain to find the positive in things. My biggest challenge to this summer of positivity has been my co-workers - several are displaying signs of burnout. I have had to make decisions about who to spend time around at work. Some of the decisions have been difficult, others easy as I continue to move towards training my amygdala towards thinking in a positive vein rather than in a negative vein. Some of the other happiness project things that I have been trying to complete include my project drawer. The project drawer is where I put all of my ideas that are not fully fleshed out until I can get some time to complete them. The problem is that I never really seem to have time to complete anything. This summer, I am making time. Last week's challenge was a file folder visual aid for the son...

I am practicing positivity in my life right now. Just in case you don't know, things were pretty rough last year and being positive was difficult. I do not like to be a negative person, so I am actively practicing positivity. I was helped along yesterday by an article on the MSN page, http://living.msn.com/life-inspired/find-happiness-in-unexpected-places . This little article was just enough to continue me on my path towards being happy in my work situation and reminded me that happiness is a learned habit - thanks, amygdala! Much like learning to do anything else, our brain needs practice in being positive. The article states that our brain evolved as a finely tuned instrument for survival. We had to be able to recognize negative or dangerous situations, react to those situations quickly, and engage in our fight/flight response immediately to simply stay alive. As a result, our brains have a tendency to react more strongly to the negative happenings in our lives. We have to ...