music, therapy, and me

It is finally Thursday. I have only six groups left in the week. That means that we have finished fifteen groups by this time every week. It is no wonder that Thursday usually includes some exhaustion. While we only have four groups today, our day is pretty full - in addition to our four groups, we have two individuals scheduled now. I am not the leader of many of these sessions - I do not have primary therapist responsibilities in our individual sessions and I lead half of the group sessions today. I am spending time this week, during my office hours (non-session time in the music therapy room), writing therapeutic music experiences (TMEs). My goal is to have five finished by the end of tomorrow. I have completed two of the five and have the other ideas identified but not in TME format. I established a new Google form to work in to generate a database in a form a bit different from what I usually do, and I am finding the task interesting. I am a creative person. I create all sorts of ...

Yesterday was a day when I was grateful for my TME database and idea book. I don't know about you, but I have times when I do not have any idea what I want to do for my group programming during the week. I sit and stare at my guitar. I wonder what I am going to do with the clients who will be arriving to my music therapy room.  I was in such a state yesterday, and I went to the places that I keep my ideas - my ideas book and my database. One of the quests that I have right now is to update my database so I have all my TME files listed. I am behind in that task - seriously behind - so it is something that I am spending time organizing. As I was looking through the individual letter folders, I remembered several TMEs that I used to use and have moved away from recently. I also flipped through my ideas book to see what ideas are waiting to be moved into my "Ideas for Development" folder in my TME folder. My ideas book and the Ideas for Development folder serve the same purpo...

I received some disappointing news yesterday. Now, in the long range scheme of things, not having enough registrants to justify my CMTE is not a big deal, but for me, it is disappointing. So, I go into some of my coping skills and strategies to find my center again. Today is Tuesday, which means that I try to focus my writing on therapeutic music experiences (what I call the things I do with my clients in sessions - AKA TMEs). Today is a good day to talk about taking an idea and then making it into a TME - something that happens with music therapists all the time. Ideas can come from any place. There are times when I am driving home after work, and a song pops into my head. I scramble to get out my pencil and my post-its to notate it a bit before it fades into oblivion. There are times when an object sparks some therapeutic intervention ideas. There are other times when I hear a song on the radio, and I just know that a particular client will enjoy it and welcome the song into music th...

I am an idea generator. I have more ideas than I have time to execute in my regular life. When I sit down and try to accomplish my ideas, I tend to get partway through the situation before getting to a place where I have to think a bit more about things before I can proceed. While I am working on getting things put together for idea #1, several more ideas pop into my head. It is a very challenging procedure for me that often leads me into feelings of inadequacy that can, at times, overwhelm me. Since this is something that is part of my regular way of existing, I have found ways to help me record the ideas for eventual manifestation. What I really need is the opportunity to not need to go outside my house to be able to pay for things so I can putter around in my studio until things get finished up! But, alas, like everyone else in this world, I do need to work in order to pay for my dreaming... I am currently working on task boxes and activities for my clients at work. My latest idea i...

Yep, this is another time management post from me because I am still figuring out how to manage my time at work. I've pretty much given up on the idea of managing my time at home because I am just tired all the time so planning tasks for a future me is a complete waste of time! At work, though, I am using some time management strategies that seem to work at the moment. I am feeling more productive, but who knows if I actually am more productive. As I am sitting here writing this, I am remembering that I did not do Wednesday's documentation, so I have behind. So much for feeling like I have everything finished. Maybe this topic isn't the best one to be doing after all. I will continue, however, because I am feeling more productive these days than I have in a long time. I finished my first interactive presentation for my clients yesterday. My original goal was to finish this presentation by the 31st of August, so I only went two days past my original goal. Hooray! This was no...

Last week, I wrote a bit about my latest quest to organize myself and my ideas. This has come out of many years of using different systems and finding that I didn't keep going with any of them. I turned to what I do well - planning in my planners - and adapted that idea into a new system. It's been happening for two weeks now, so I'm feeling pretty good about this particular system. (If you are interested in reading the original post, click here .)  So, it has been another week of brainstorming and figuring things out on paper in my little book. I keep it in my backpack so I can transport it from work to home and back again due to the fact that ideas come to me at all times. I have found several song post-its that have made their ways into the TME book for storage until I transcribe them into my TME database. My ideas book has several thoughts about upcoming uses for my new technology. My calendar book is the most unused part of the book so far, but I anticipate it will be ...