music, therapy, and me

When I last wrote, my future was very unclear to me. At this point, my future is still unclear, but I know that I will NOT be having to rearrange all sorts of stuff to accommodate surgery. Turns out that I have a partial tendon rupture in my left middle finger to go along with a fractured left ring finger, but my hand specialist thinks that three months of splinting will heal things up a bit. Now, while I am grateful that I am not trying to juggle two interns and significant time off from work, I am still a bit scared about what this hand injury means for my future, but I am going to try to focus on other things now. Thank you for reading about this. 2020 has really been strange, hunh? So, me and my very strong left-side dominant self are trying to figure out how I am going to do even the most basic of things. My recent self-care practices are on hold because I can't use my left hand to do much of anything. Writing is out, typing is difficult, but I still need to be engaging in sel...

One of the modules I offer for free to interns is one on Crucial Conversations. It was suggested by an anonymous intern quite a while ago as something that would be valuable to other interns - basically, how to talk to someone when you are in a conflict of some sort. We talk about conflict resolution, active listening, and attempting to remain rational rather than emotional. I am going to have a crucial conversation today (I hope). Scheduling for next year has turned into a hot mess. We are adding another classroom, so things will have to change, but everyone is having hissy fits about changing ANYTHING! I am going to engage in my own hissy fit today because I am tired of being the only one who has to change to accommodate the demands of other people. I am not a person who enjoys confrontation. I tend to go straight into my defensive mode of crying when I have to talk about things that affect my emotions. Anger is expressed through crying. Frustration is expressed through crying....

This has been a long couple of days. I started my Friday by waking up later than usual (5:30 am instead of 4 am) and just couldn't seem to coordinate my thoughts enough to write about anything. I did try, but everything was jumbled around in my brain. I took a day off and went to work. Once at work, I found that my "entire day to work in your room" turned into something else entirely. I also made a public announcement about something that irritated me that caused me lots of second thoughts last night. Basically, the Occupational Therapy Assistants have put together a sensory box for each classroom. Not a problem for me, since I feel that we do not often assist our clients in finding sensory integration. What led to my probably not so politically correct comment was the "relaxation CD" included in the box. (In the interest of full-disclosure, I have a personal issue with one of the OTAs that works in our facility, and I think that much of my ooops moment ye...