It’s hard to believe that it’s already December; time is flying by so fast! This is my favorite time of the year and I enjoy every minute of it. Even though it’s a great time of year, the holiday season c an quickly become extremely busy and overwhelming and it is my first holiday season not being a traditional student. Things in my internship have been busy and I’ve been finding it more and more difficult to leave my work at home and enjoy this holiday season during the evenings and weekends because self-care has not been my priority.
Self-care, especially around this time of year, is essential to maintaining sanity, health, and just an overall positive attitude. It’s definitely hard to put self-care first when life gets busy; the to-do list just grows increasingly long and it always includes gift shopping, finishing treatment reports, holiday parties, recitals, dealing with snow, and the list goes on and on. However, I’m learning that self-care doesn’t mean that you have to block out a huge chunk of time to just sit and relax (which is actually really nice and is necessary to do sometimes); self-care can be as minimal as taking five minutes before a session to just close your eyes and meditate or think of positive and happy thoughts. If life gets too stressful, reminding yourself to take deep breaths can even be a form of self-care. Katey uses essential oils frequently and the one time that I used lavender, I became calm and more relaxed, my anxiety significantly decreasing.
This holiday season, in order make self-care a priority, I will be intentionally changing my mindset and taking time out for myself, especially when it gets closer to the holidays. In order to do this, I’m going to try my best to leave my work at my internship, continue to maintain an eight hour sleep schedule, work out on a regular basis, enjoy looking at the snow (once it comes), and eat healthier meals. The minute my life gets busy, my diet goes out the window and I find myself eating more junk food, fast food, and chocolate. However, this is no good because it brings down my energy level which I need to combat my to-do list. Also, I want to read a book so I’m going to make it a priority to read and relax. Before every session that I am either co-leading or leading, I will take five minutes to take deep breaths and re-focus, grounding myself. Interns and professional music therapists always want to help their clients feel grounded and more aware and it’s just as important that we feel this way as well. I encourage others to join me and do the same because it will help ease the stress of the holidays!
I would love to hear from you so that I can build up my self-care routine; how do you de-stress during the busy holiday season and maintain self-care every day?
Thanks for reading and I hope that everyone has a great week!
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and ate delicious food. This is a great time to reflect on what I’m thankful for during these past few months here at my internship. Everyday is a blessing and I’m so incredibly grateful for all of the learning experiences that occur each day! That being said, I would love to share with you a few of the things that I am thankful for in my life right now.
I’m thankful for a supportive and loving family.
I don’t know where I would be in life if it weren’t for the love and support that I get on a daily basis from my family. They are constantly there to encourage me or lift me up when I am down. There have been several times during my internship where I have felt defeated, but my mom and dad always remind me where I need to find the strength to continue and they always bring a smile to my face. they have never once doubted me or my abilities and this has helped immensely during my internship. Thanks family for being so awesome!
I’m thankful for fantastic supervisors.
I am being completely serious when I say this, but my internship supervisors are amazing people. I’m thankful for them because they have helped me grow as an individual and have helped me gain a significant amount of confidence that I didn’t have before, in every area of my life. They welcome me with open arms and never expect me to be anything else but myself around them. They’re great mentors and people that I look up to and inspire to be one day. I’m so thankful for this internship and for all of the wonderful people that surround me here.
I’m thankful for my friends.
Even though we live miles and hours apart, I can always count on them to be there for me. Sending me random texts throughout the week of funny GIFS or even just calling me up/skyping with me makes me feel incredibly special and is a constant reminder that I am loved. They bring a smile to my face every day and I hope that they know just how much they mean to me and how valuable they are in my life.
I’m grateful for music therapy.
Obviously, I am grateful for music therapy and my soon-to-be degree, but music therapy is such a blessing. Watching the smiles on my client faces as they realize their success is so wonderful and music therapy can help people grow in many different ways. I’m thankful that music therapy is a valuable and effective service to many and helps improve overall quality of life. I’m already thankful for my future co-workers who will help me continue to grow in this field and for their work that they are doing with their clients.
I’m so grateful for each learning opportunity.
I am so fortunate and privileged to live in a society where I have the opportunity each day to learn by being in school/internship. I have the chance to use what I learned in a constructive and beneficial way for other people. No matter what, each moment in the day is some sort of learning opportunity therefore I am grateful for the bad moments and the awesome moments because I know that they will help me become a kind, empathetic, and mindful person.
Well, thank you for reading this post. It’s always a good reminder to reflect on things that you might be grateful for, especially around this time of year.
As I progress through my internship, I realize how important it is to have fun with what I am doing because lets face it, music therapy is a fun and an effective profession. It’s something that I have been learning recently and I finally had a break through this week. Yesterday, I had fun working with my clients and students and they all made significant progress towards their goals.
I’ve written in previous blog posts about being myself in sessions and growing in my personal life. Yesterday was the first time that I finally felt like I had been my complete self in every single session that I lead. It wasn’t scary; it actually felt natural and I had fun working with my clients! I was better able to assess their needs in the moment because I wasn’t so focused on what I was doing. Also, like previously mentioned, my clients were better able to meet their goals. If I am having fun and not focusing so much on myself, my clients definitely notice and they, in return, enjoy what they are doing which is important so that they can work towards their goals.
I think that it’s common to forget to have fun in any profession. Daily life stress, documentation, requirements, and other projects may get in the way and it’s easy to forget why you went into the field in the first place! This can lead to negative feelings, work stress, and a decrease in work production. I’ve noticed that when I have a bad mindset and think too much (aka not be myself), I am miserable and then I don’t want to do anything because everything seems terrible. Dale Carnegie said “people rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” This quote speaks volumes to me because I learned this week that when I get out of my head and start to have fun with my clients while working towards their goals, a lot more gets accomplished. My clinical skills were significantly better and the clients were more successful all because I changed my mindset to be more positive and decided to enjoy every little moment.
It may be easier to have a negative outlook on life, but everything is much better with a positive outlook. Having a positive mindset and enjoying the time with clients can be so huge and change everything. I love music therapy and I love what I do everyday at my internship working with many different clients.
Basically, just make sure you are having fun in your profession because life is too short and music therapy is awesome.
I hope that you all have had a wonderful week. I know I have! This weekend was the American Music Therapy Association National Music Therapy conference and it was a blast. Music Therapy Connections had a booth at this conference which gave me several opportunities to talk with professionals and students, building connections and growing my communication skills. It has been an exciting time and it’s always so interesting to hear other people’s stories and their experiences. Also, I was able to see and talk with many friends from school, which was wonderful because I missed all of them dearly.
Besides talking with professional MT-BC’s and other students, I had the opportunity to attend several sessions; at these sessions, music therapists gave presentations about current research, collaboration between music therapy and other professions, and even shared their methods and intervention ideas. It was a great learning experience, especially now that I am completing my internship.
I believe that attending conferences is extremely important and essential in the growth of the music therapy profession. As I continue in my education and continue building my skills, I am realizing just how important it is to network with other music therapists and students. I am learning that when you have these relationships and connections, you can discuss ideas for interventions, research, best practice methods, and help in the growth of the profession. I love talking with my friends from school and learning about their experiences in their life as a professional music therapist because I can ask for suggestions and guidance; they may have experience in a different area and I can learn from them.
Collaboration, not just with other professions, but with other music therapists and students is important and wonderful. In my personal opinion, if we work together, learn from each other, and support one another, then the field of music therapy will continue to be a strong profession and grow even more. Attending conferences allows us to do just this-grow, work, and learn from each other. School is another excellent place to build relationships. When you are a student, build connections with everyone in the program because you never know what the future holds; you may work with a few peers and they can be excellent resource sources!
I am going to spend this week reflecting on my experience at this conference and determine how I can use what I learned in my practice as an intern. I look forward to attending future conferences, especially next year in St. Louis!
This week marks the halfway point of my internship. As I mentioned last week, it’s an amazing feeling being this far into my internship and learning so much!
During this next half of my internship, I really want to continue focusing on my clinical skills, applying my knowledge in the clinical setting, and being even more flexible.
One of the biggest things that I have learned this week is that learning is a continuous process. There is always something new to learn in every situation and every situation might be different than the last. That is what makes music therapy so special. It’s unique because each individual is unique and there is no “cookie-cutter” method to do something. One individual may respond well to something that I try, but when I try the same thing with another person, it may not work; this makes sense because each person is different.
I’ve attempted some things in some music therapy sessions with clients that have completely flopped and I’m learning that it has happened to everyone. That’s why learning is a process because you have to try something to see how a client or a group responds to it. If they respond well, then great! If they don’t respond well and the intervention/technique is not effective in helping the client reach their goals, then it’s a great opportunity to reflect, learn about the client/people in the group, and appropriately adapt. Adaptation may need to be done immediately and so it’s important to remain flexible within a session. This is something that I am quickly learning and working on because you may have to switch gears quickly, especially when something does not work.
I’m also learning that it’s important to continuously assess the needs of a client and each individual in a group within every moment of a session and appropriately adapt to their needs. Every person has their good days and their bad days; I’ve had good days and bad days just this week too. This is another reason why remaining flexible is important because a client may not need what you had originally planned. I have struggled with this in practicum while in college and I am learning that it’s just best to have a general plan of a session; not every detail needs to be planned out.
In the next upcoming weeks, I’ll reevaluate what went wrong in a session and improve or change the next session so that it benefits the clients. That’s why learning is always continuous. I guarantee that this will happen when I am a professional. However, the more I learn from these experiences now, the better I will be able to handle and immediately implement new things on the spot as I grow.
everyone had a wonderful holiday and ate delicious food. This is a great time to reflect on what I’m thankful for during these past few months here at my internship. Everyday is a blessing and I’m so incredibly grateful for all of the learning experiences that occur each day! That being said, I would love to share with you a few of the things that I am thankful for in my life right now.
