music, therapy, and me

I am not sure what is going on with my brain lately - well, that's not entirely true, I know what is happening that is making my brain go into impossible, anxiety-inducing thoughts and responses, but I am trying to figure out how to decrease the amount of dreaming that I am doing right now. Last night's dream was about a tragedy of some sort that happened to all of us. I was one of several people moving through the world after a big event that affected all sorts of things. I woke up after discovering a bunch of car keys and starting a plan to use different cars that we could find in the parking lot to go to the next destination. I can completely see why this is my current frame of mind when sleeping. There is so much horrible stuff happening in the world, and I have been watching a K-drama that has to do with a nuclear incident. So, I totally know why this is on my mind, but I do not like that it is leaking into my dreams right now. I do not remember most of my dreams. I assume...

The first post that I attempted to write today was bumming me out, so I decided to keep it as a draft and try to write something else. Just so you know, I am not looking forward to the next two days or the "break" activities that I have scheduled. That was the theme of the rejected post for this morning. I cannot dwell or my day will be pretty lousy. So, here is attempt #2 for this morning. I was thinking that I have not updated my budget information for a bit. I have paused the envelope system for the moment. This month is a bit screwy, so I decided not to get my usual allowance for my envelopes. I will update it as soon as my medical bills are paid off. I can get back to that system at any time. It did work for me, and I have a bit of tweaking to do, but the foundation was sound. In between my envelope pause and everything else happening in my life, I am finding it difficult to focus on just about anything. Things are uncertain and uncertainty is not something that I deal w...

I have one week left before I am in surgery for a medical issue, one more week of summer session before the start of the new contract year, and six days until my mother arrives for her second visit of the summer. I spent this weekend doing absolutely nothing as the heat and humidity raged outside. In the next seven days, I have to clean my kitchen, get a rental car, prepare for surgery, finish my sub plans for work for the week I will be gone, and get ready for when I am able to return to work. I moved into the library room for the duration since it is so hot upstairs compared to downstairs. I am sleeping on the day bed which is surprisingly comfortable, but is a bit small for my body. The big bed in the music room next door is ready for my mom, so I am not sleeping in there. I will move back upstairs for surgery preparation and for my initial recovery period. My anxiety is pretty high right now. This is pretty typical for me with medical anything. I get nervous and then everything jus...

There are three more weeks of our first summer session before the next break. Does this sound like I am complaining? I'm not - at least, not really. I have never had an entire summer off, and I bet I will not have summers off after I retire from my current job. I am going to take a couple of months off next summer right after I leave my current facility and before I start working again, but I bet I will not have the type of job where I can take summers off. Who knows, though. Maybe I will get that type of job. ANYWAY... Three weeks from today, I will preparing for surgery. I have to have a part of my large intestine removed due to a large polyp/tumor. I have been through this surgery before, but that doesn't really make it any less anxiety-producing for me. I am not very good with medical things and having to go into the hospital is full of complicated situations. My mother is coming out to drive me to and from. She didn't want to come visit this summer, but now has to be h...

It is TME Tuesday again, and I am going to head to work - reluctantly because my bed is more inviting than the thought of leaving it to go to be around other people. That is typical for me. I like sleeping so much more than working, but working is what I need to do in order to have a bed to sleep in, so I will haul my body to my car for a day of work. (I blame President's Day for this malaise this week - I HATE Monday holidays!) I will go reluctantly into this work week. Tomorrow is a 12-hour day at work - full day of work with kids and then additional professional development after school. I have to leave early because I have my Wednesday night job to get to, but I am hoping that it will be "work on your own" time that I will make up. Anyway, today is the first work day of the week. I have about 10 minutes to write this before my time anxiety will take over and make me jumpy. That brings me to today's topic - overcoming my tendencies to not do something because I am ...

It is Wednesday, and I am officially on break for the Thanksgiving holiday. I have a doctor's appointment this morning, and I am anxious about it. It is silly to be upset about a routine appointment, but I am. I am doing everything I can to keep myself feeling somewhat calm for all of this, but I am not calm at all. I am just plain old sick to my stomach about it all. I have white coat anxiety, and I have been suspicious of medical personnel since birth. Literally. I raised my head off the examination table and watched the pediatrician walk around me. It freaked the pediatrician out because he had never seen a newborn do that before. He mentioned it to my mother who was a bit anxious about the health of said newborn. So, what is a routine exam for anyone else is very stressful for me. I will end up going through the examination, falling apart when it is all finished, regroup, and move into the rest of my break knowing that the worst of it all is over for another year. I am quite pr...

Today is the third day of the World Congress of Music Therapy (or is it "for" music therapy?? I haven't paid attention.), and it is my day to present a workshop that will, hopefully, provoke some ideas about the future of music therapy education and 9clinical training. I am hoping that people will come to see me, but I am convincing myself that I will present what I need to present to the people who are there - whether it is 1 or 100. (Oh dear, I just stubbed my toe on a chair leg and nearly went down on the floor. I am in my hotel room, trying to be as quiet as I can because my mom is still sleeping. I am wandering around in the dark a bit, and was watching my tablet and not my location. Silly me. This is NOT the way to start off the day!) ANYWAY... I have been very nervous about this presentation, and I am not sure why. This entire trip has been anxiety-producing for me. I don't know if it is the fact that I have stepped away from things like music therapy conferenc...

When I was in college, the word, "improvisation" caused my brain to freeze, all of the knowledge that I had of music leak out of my ears, and shot me into a state of high anxiety. I blame Mr. Olson, my junior high band director who would try to make me improvise solos in jazz band, stated that there were so many rules and yet, no rules at all, and didn't understand that I had no idea what I was doing in seventh grade but would ridicule me and the others when we didn't do anything really cohesive. I was not comfortable with the concept of improvisation until I went off to my internship. At my internship, I also struggled with this concept. My internship supervisors, Sheryl, Mary, and Angie, kept encouraging me to break away from a session plan, especially with my individual clients. I was petrified of letting go of the compositions and just finding my way through music. So, I had to figure out what I was doing. My problem? I was all mired down in the music theory of it...

I got some bad news about my move yesterday, and it has thrown me into all sorts of anxiety responses and reactions. I am already wound up extremely tight due to all the changes in my life at the moment, and this last news just threw me completely over the edge. I will be fine, but my financial situation will be extremely tight for the next year because of this news. I am reeling and trying really hard to calm my overactive response to this news. Worst case scenario, I can find yet another part-time job to make this a better deal for me, but I am hoping that I will not have to do that...yet or at all. We will see. I will have to sit down with my budget and then wiggle things around to see how much money I will actually need every month to keep going. For example, I will no longer be paying for home insurance because that will be part of my mortgage payment, but I will have to pay for water and trash because that is not part of my mortgage the way it was part of my rent check each month...

Egad. I am currently a bit overwhelmed and engaged in a slight anxiety episode about all the things happening in my world right now, and the post that I started today was not helping me out, so I am back, writing run-on sentences and manifesting my anxiety through writing. Deep breath. I notified my rental company that I am intending on leaving at the end of next month. I am not sure why this is causing me so much anxiety, but it really is. Everything is going like clockwork, and that is scaring me. At the same time, I am very excited and cannot wait to be moving into my very own home. Then, I look around at all the stuff that I have to pack up and actually move. I am going to pay for the moving part of things, but I need to pack as much as I can before the professionals arrive to move me. If things go as planned, I will have four days to move some things over to the house before the movers move me, so I should be able to get things packed up or toted over if I cannot pack them - like ...

I did not want to get up this morning, so I laid in bed for an extra hour and thought about sleeping all day. It was a nice thought, but the reality is that sleeping in all day is not realistic when you have a week of bereavement leave coming up at the beginning of the contract year. I am going to blow through my entire stash of days off to go to the East Coast for a memorial service for my cousin. We are also going to spend some time with other family members, so it will be a combination of mourning and visiting. So, the time off will be well spent, but it is happening, so I can't really take days off to just sleep.  I was talking to an Introduction to Music Therapy student last night about the life of a music therapist. One of the questions this student asked was how I avoided burnout. I liked that question because it is something I think about...lots of the time! My answer included many of the things that I talk about on this blog - things like knowing yourself, finding a suppor...

So, after yesterday's dread of a specific session, everything went fine. I had a couple of cuss words thrown my direction and one student getting upset because I wouldn't let him leave to get a drink of water (it was 3 minutes before the end of the session, mind you), but the rest of the day went pretty well. I ended up doing all the sessions yesterday because my intern was sick, so I had to plan for four groups instead of two. I enjoyed working with one group that I haven't led since my intern has arrived and taken over. It was refreshing to move into that session and play with my students. I then went to Occupational Therapy where my OTR/L is starting the termination process in a gentle manner. She told me that my tendon finger may never straighten out again. She is also working on strengthening both fingers so that I can do things with my hands without pain. I haven't made it to that point yet. I can play guitar (with pain) but I cannot barre chords yet and my finger...

Everywhere I look these days there are angry people. There doesn't seem to be many people who aren't angry about something or another, and most of our anger seems to be part of the entire COVID-19 situation that we are part of at the moment. Some are angry because they are not allowed to do what they feel they should be allowed to do. Others are angry because they want to limit what others do in a protection mode. Others seem to be yelling JUST BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS YELLING, SO HERE IS MY CAUSE THAT I WANT PEOPLE TO HEAR ABOUT! I am not ashamed to admit that I am struggling with all of the negativity that is happening around me, and I am isolating myself from as much of it as possible. As a music therapist, I am linked to music therapists all over the world who are struggling to navigate this pandemic. We are prone to wanting to help (hence the term "therapist"), and this virus has changed everything that we were used to doing in ways that are difficult to process....

I am my own worst critic. Anyone else find that to be true? No other person ever seems to think that my failings are as catastrophic as I find them to be. I lie awake and think about every misstep that I have taken in my life and I end up in anxiety patterns that interrupt lots of other situations. This seems to be a trend in those of us who are music therapists. We are naturally drawn to be with others. We love music so much that we want to share it with everyone in a way that allows those others to experience music with a therapeutic benefit. We constantly face skeptics and naysayers and people who think that they can do what we do because they have made a playlist. We fight for recognition in almost every interaction that we have with other people, and it can become exhausting. We often figure that our lack of recognition has much to do with our selves rather than with our society, and that is easy to personalize to the point of fatigue. I have to stop and remind myself that...

Are you ever stuck in a real-life nightmare where all your biggest insecurities are pushed at over and over again? I'm in that sort of situation at work right now, and no matter how I communicate what I need from the people who are part of the situation, I feel like I am ignored. BIGGEST NIGHTMARE FOR ME, EVER!! All of this stuff is leading me into digestion problems, waking up super early, not eating as much as I need to to sustain my best brain power, and constant second-guessing myself.  The good news is that there are good things happening as well. I have a CMTE course coming up this weekend that I am co-leading with a music therapy colleague and co-worker of mine. I am not quite ready to get it all done, but I am doing pretty well with that planning. No one has signed up for the CMTE course that I am offering the next weekend, so I have plans to do all the recordings during the time I've carved out for the live presentation. Music therapy sessions are going well. I w...

Today is Wednesday and is the first day that I go back to work after gall bladder surgery. I'm simultaneously ready and not ready to get back into my music therapy routine, and today's post is going to be dedicated to all the thoughts in my head and trying to express them so I don't end up dwelling on one thing more than any other. I'm not sure that it will work, but here goes nothing. AMTA National Conference - I am very glad that I decided not to go to conference this year. The benefit of hindsight has me feeling very good about this decision as I now have significant medical expenses to cover in the next couple of months and don't think I would be very happy traveling to Minnesota in my current state of being. I'm tired of hearing the same old things from the same old people, and I'm tired of the constant squabbling that is going on in our association. The most recent brouhaha has led me to leave a social media group completely because of the spoiled at...

I've started this post two other times already, written about three paragraphs, and then deleted everything that I've written because it just hasn't felt right to me. Let's see if version #3 makes it to the final posting stage. There are lots of thoughts in this post - things that affect me as a music therapist at this moment right now. I'm not exactly sure if this is the type of post that you all will like, but this blog is called music, therapy, and me, so today you get mostly me. You can certainly stop reading now, if you don't want to know what is going on in my brain. I need to get it out of my brain in a way that allows me to acknowledge what is going on and how I think about it all...there you go. Anyway... I have made it to the half-point of my time off, and I am starting to have some twinges of boredom and guilt and shame and all that. I am managing to get lots of rest, and my sleep patterns are all screwed up, but I am feeling a bit better tha...

I failed at everything that I set out to do yesterday. I wanted to write down two "NTM" TMEs. I didn't. I wanted to clean my house last night. I didn't. I wanted to have a full serving of vegetables or fruit yesterday. I managed to get in about a third of a serving.  I wanted to stay up until 9pm. I didn't. I wanted to get my documentation completely done. I didn't. I did manage to interact with students in six different therapeutic encounters without any type of behaviors of concern happening from anyone. I did manage to engage diverse learners into therapeutic interactions, and I did sort bus duty into a process that took it from 40 minutes of mayhem on Monday to 18 minutes of controlled release on Tuesday, so it's not like I failed at everything ever! I did fail at some things, but I succeeded in so many more things. The problem that I have is that I tend to dwell on the failures rather than celebrating the successes.  I have learned tha...