music, therapy, and me

It is amazing how things revolve and how Mondays inevitably return, week after week, month after month. My Mondays are not (currently) full of groups, even though that would be the way I would prefer it - full Mondays and emptier Fridays, so I am preparing myself for supervision, consultation, an individual session, and an in-class relaxation session. We've had a definite COVID exposure in our department, so we will be looking for symptoms and monitoring ourselves as well as monitoring others. We still wear our masks around each other, but we had relaxed a bit. Then, I exposed everyone. Now we have another exposure in our department. My school's policy is that if you are asymptomatic, you can work with your mask on. Nothing has really changed all that much for us. I am still testing positive on my at-home kits, but most of my issues at the moment are my typical asthma symptoms so I am not sure if they are COVID symptoms or asthma situations. So, I am continuing my social distan...

I am not enjoying the current season of my life. My physical therapist has told me to decrease stress and increase my meditation practices to help with my slipped disc and sciatica. I told my physical therapist that the major cause of my stress is my slipped disc and sciatica. I do not really meditate. I find it difficult to empty my mind and not think about other things I could be doing. I do better with journaling and mindfulness practices than meditation. Most of my time is spent trying to figure out how I am going to move from one place to another, and I am anticipating pain each time, so I think I am a bit more tense than I need to be. It's quite a mess right now, but I am trying to find ways to alleviate the physical pain and get the mental processes to work past that pain barrier. Blogging is one of the ways that I try to do this. At the moment, I am sitting at my computer, watching the western sky lighten as the sun tries to come up on this cold Easter morning. Yesterday, I...

Okay. Here's the deal. It seems that there are significant problems happening within our national organization. I am not a person in the know. I am not someone who has been keeping up with whatever is happening on Music Therapists Unite because I decided a LONG TIME AGO that Facebook is not the place where we can unite on ANYTHING! I withdrew my participation in that group MANY years ago due to the constant bickering and nasty comments about other music therapists that I saw over and over again. All I know about situations is what is being filtered out by various parties about various circumstances. So, all of the following blog nonsense is based on my current status of not really knowing lots about the situations that are being debated and are causing so much concern! Keep the above paragraph in mind, please, as you read the rest of my opinions about stuff - I am a bit ignorant of all the details, and I am seeking to know more without overwhelming my entire life with any one situa...

I am struggling this morning with the return of grief. I was able to think and miss and mourn my baby for a bit without tears, but they came back as soon as I got up - I am not sure why that is. I am moving from moment to moment at this time, catching sight of one of my curls out of the corner of my eye and thinking that it is Bella coming to see what I am doing, then remembering that she is gone, and taking the time to cry about it. Most of my gifts this year were cat-related, so looking at those things bring tears. I still love cats, but mine is gone, and that hurts right now. Even though this has happened, I still go on, and there are things that need to be done that are not related to my Belle at all. Tomorrow, I return to my Occupational Therapist to do more finger exercises. My fingers are very stiff and it hurts to bend them, but I am doing so. I am trying hard to keep to my regime of stretching them in specific ways four or five times a day, but each time is more painful. I nee...

I started a post about how my daily routine went yesterday, but I decided that I needed to focus a bit on something more fun. So.... I wrote a song yesterday. It was not the song I set out to compose, but it is pretty cool, if I do say so myself! Here's how it happened...  If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know that I love to make visual aids for my clients and for other clients of music therapists. I post those things on my Teachers Pay Teachers store for small costs to others. I try to make things that I use in my clinical interactions, and I always include a song to go with my visuals. I also have therapeutic music experience plans and thematic units to go along with these visuals, but I do not offer those in my store because I want to have a bit more control over who can access that material. Usually, if you send me an email, I'll send you a copy of my TME - just let me know that you are a music therapist (student, intern, or professional), and you can...