Thursday, October 16, 2014

PMS and Sarcasm

Wow, PMS, thank you for inviting me to cry during every song on the Frozen soundtrack. And The Bare Necessities too. Thanks. 

Monday, October 13, 2014

Digging Deep

To quote from Brene Brown, on page 4 of "The Gifts of Imperfection":

[The Wholehearted] get:

  • Deliberate in their thoughts and behaviors through prayer, meditation, or simply setting their intentions;
  • Inspired to make new and different choices;
  • Going. They take action.
Close quote. =)


For becoming more comfortable with myself:
  • My intention that I'm setting right now is to become more fully comfortable with myself.
  • My new and different choice will be to read from this book every day, and apply something in it.
  • And I will prove I did something by reporting that I did, on here.


I will also apply this to my work tomorrow.
  • I will set my intention to put patients first.
  • My different choice will be to use positive language - "I GET to see several patients today" instead of "I better see several patients today."
  • I will go do several sessions. As many as time will allow.

Time to Dig Deep

Today I was reminded that I am not as emotionally resilient as I would like to be. After a rough conversation with my internship director, I realized several things, and these are two that stuck out the most:
  1. If I don't become comfortable with myself, I will never succeed as a therapist.
  2. I also need to believe that the music therapy sessions I'm providing are extremely valuable, or at least of worth, to the well-being of my patients. I can't succeed without that either.
I feel like these are a foundation that I have to have, in order for anything else to work out.

How does one become comfortable with oneself? The answers I've thought of so far are:
  • Praying for healing
  • Praying with the purpose of developing a relationship with God, who loves me
  • Praying specifically for Him to remind me of His love
  • Prayerfully guided scripture study
  • Exercise and good diet and sleep
  • The 10 guideposts in "The Gifts of Imperfection" by Brene Brown. I started working on it earlier this year (it helped!), and I think its time to pick it up or start it over.
So I might be sharing some of my Wholehearted Journey on here. Starting with this amazing quote from page 6 of "The Gifts of Imperfection":
Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy -- the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

 The 10 Guideposts
Painted in July 2014 =)

Sunday, October 12, 2014

8 Weeks

Somehow, I have been here for 8 weeks. Two months. I'm basically a third of the way through. How did that happen?

If I had to sum up my time here so far, I would say that the first four weeks were the hardest. They were exciting because everything was new. But  it was also stressful because everything was new! It was hard to adjust to the internship itself, to my new house and roommates, to a long-distance relationship, to being alone... It was a rough time.

But things have been getting better. I'm starting to find a lot of joy in my internship. It is stretching me, but its delivering joy too, so I'm very happy about it. I'm feeling more at home in Chicago, and more used to my surroundings. I can even travel around without using my Maps app, most of the time. =) Instead of a long-distance relationship, I'm focusing on friendship. And I'm making friends, and spending much less time alone.

It astounds me that I'm only a month away from half-way. And that after that, I only have three months left. I'm curious to see how much I will grow. It's kind of exciting to think about that. I don't know the details of what my future holds, but its actually pretty exciting to think about. =)