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Meditate on it

Yesterday I wrote about some struggles I’m having coordinating a demanding home and work life. I got some really useful feedback from a fellow music therapist* here in the Minneapolis area. She suggested pre-session meditation, which immediately got me thinking about this fantastic app I have been using over the past several months. The app is buddhify and is coined as the “mobile mindfulness app for modern life.” What I love about it is that the guided meditations are only ten minutes long. I did try to meditate shortly before my last client this evening, and as hard as it was to do, I think I benefitted from the attempt.

Do you meditate? Are there other meditation apps that you like? What other feedback do you have to help dig out? Please leave a comment below.

*Oh, and that fellow music therapist can be heard on her podcast, Urban Therapists.

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Monday matters: Digging out

I’ve started my work week off poorly. I had clinical supervision today and a peer group meeting, as well as several clients with whom I’ve been feeling connected over the past few weeks, and yet I feel completely entrenched in musical mediocrity and just plain self-doubt. Separating my personal life from my clinical life has been a challenge lately as I’m adjusting to being a parent who works outside the home while also attending to some other family needs. I highly doubt I will ever master the ability to completely disentangle work life and personal life, especially since in my work I offer a whole lot of myself and sometimes all of my energy.

Today I had a lot of trouble being self-involved. I was unshakeable in this plateau of negativity. I found myself having to close my eyes while in a session once today, just so that I could still myself enough to try to re-focus and clear out. This worked as well as it could; I did all that I could to effectively reflect and engage with my clients. All in all, I tried my best to dig out.

How do you dig out when you feel this way? How do you clear your head before and during a session? How does this help you relate to your clients or people in your life? Leave a comment below.

 

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This week in clarity

My focus this week, to some extent, was clarity. I had such a good string of sessions going mid-week. Even though my clients are very different from one another, I still felt like I had a better grasp on how to be supportive. Then Thursday came, and I felt like I lost all of that grip. Today wasn’t so great, either.

In supervision last week, we talked a little bit about how clients might appreciate imperfection on the therapist’s part. Well, my clients definitely got that the past couple of days. As much as I tried to calm down and listen, I found myself feeling frantic and nervous in a few sessions. I wonder how those particular clients were feeling.

Do you ever notice the same sorts of feelings with a client, week in a week out? How does that impact your treatment? Leave a comment below.

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How clarity feels

I have always had a tumultuous relationship with music. I started playing violin before I was able to form memories, and grew up with music as an integral part of my life. I burnt out on it in college, even though I was studying vocal performance. I graduated in three years, mostly because I wanted to be done and get on with it, whatever “it” turned out to be. I stopped playing violin for a few years. Only recently, since I’ve been in Minneapolis, have I played it with any frequency again. Now I use music as a tool for others. I haven’t though I use music for myself. I’ve resigned myself in the last few years to thinking of music as a job, albeit a creative and fulfilling one. I have had trouble really identifying myself as a musician. I’ve always thought that I would have to know more in order to identify as one. I’d have to be better able to work with music theory. I’d have to know about more bands. I’d have to write a certain kind of song. Essentially, I’d never be able to truly be a musician, because I don’t have the time, energy, or interest to be or know all these factions of music.

Only this week have I had something of a revelation in regard to my relationship with music. What if I re-position myself? What if I acknowledge that the way I compose my music, the way I play, and certainly the way I sing and use my voice to connect with others really is music? I don’t write songs in the traditional way. I don’t analyze fugues (anymore). I don’t remember a whole lot of the music history I once learned, even though I did find it fascinating. But I do engage with my own music on a daily basis. I use music as a means to communicate and find meaning where I can’t otherwise. I use music to soothe, calm, excite, and energize. I use it to regulate my own energy. I use it in myriad ways, really, and I find it emerges in very natural, unique expressions, given the needs of the circumstance. I do use music. I use it for others and for myself. I take this opportunity to re-create what music is in my eyes.

Do you have trouble identifying yourself in a way that you think you should?

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Triumphs and struggles

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about people’s qualms with social media, in that what is shared is often only the good stuff of the day. I had a decent, busy day today, with two new clients and a group and two more individuals. Even though it was a fulfilling day, I didn’t feel as good about how I am as a therapist as I did yesterday. I didn’t exactly expect to feel so great on a recurring basis, but it is hard to come off of a day when I felt like I really was making progress. Anyway, I think acknowledging our daily struggles can be embarrassing, just as celebrating our daily triumphs can be as well. The more I share (that is non-specific and not client related), the more connected and even supported I can feel.

I’ve started tweeting my triumphs when I think of them. I’ll tweet some small struggles, too. If the thought occurs, do the same with #musictherapytriumph or #musictherapystruggle. I’d love to see what the day-to-day ups and downs can be.

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Monday matters: Clarity

Lately I’ve been feeling that I am calmest and most collected when I’m actually with my clients. This is clearly a good thing, because arguably this is the most important time to feel that way. Today, for example, I had a certain amount of time to get my head around my schedule and my new clients and my invoicing and my documentation and my instrument maintenance and my… etc., that I felt like I was juggling eggs. Really tiny, fragile eggs. I don’t think I’ve ever juggled before, so those little eggs aren’t long for this world. As soon as I got to my clients, though, my head was cleared and I felt very present in that small group of clients. I felt that there was some therapeutic value and even some movement in that session. I love when this happens.

Now, to work toward finding this clarity on a regular basis. What did I do to clear myself for this session? How was I preparing myself differently? Was I? Was I more effectively getting out of the way of the clients, so to speak? How do I continue to support them this way? Was I even being supportive? What was different?

Does anyone out there ask similar questions?

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Monday matters: Consistency in practice

I have been receiving clinical supervision for one year now. Around this time last year, I was beginning this slow transition into working a process-oriented approach. My supervisor has let me repeat myself while I struggle through the same issues over and over again with different clients. What do I do with this person? Am I using the right language? Am I using too much language and not enough music? Am I using the right music? What am I doing? Am I doing what I’m doing the right way? and so forth.

I’ve learned I don’t have to do things. I have to observe, listen, and support. I don’t have to be right in terms of correctness, but I have to be genuine. I have to uphold my role in the therapeutic relationship.

My role is to practice being consistent. I need to be the most genuine version of myself every time I show up to see a client. This means, to me, that I acknowledge where I am in my emotional spectrum and use it to best observe, listen, and support my client where he or she is. To be consistent also means to enforce the same boundaries that I always have, especially when I’m working with my younger clients.

Recently I saw a client with whom I work very hard not to direct. This client uses minimal language, and I believe the client, as an adult, has lived her whole life in an environment that decides her behavior. I think she expects to be told. I try very hard not to tell. Slowly, each week in therapy, we’re getting to the point where I hope she expects to have autonomy with me, where she can guide the session. I usually have a sense of unease about these sessions, but I continue to show up and to try to be consistent. I imagine I’m getting the unease from her as much as I’m feeling it myself, but the hope and the goal here are to find a way to consistently let her lead.