Being Serious

You have been warned. This will not be the funnest, most art therapy rich post you have ever read, but because I set a goal of writing every week, I will share with you what is up in my professional world.

I have a fantasy and it goes like this... Someday, I would like to have my own practice, my own space and my own approach. I feel like I have mentioned this before, probably within the past few weeks, but in case not, I want to work with people using a whole-body, goal-focused approach to create a greater sense of physical and mental health and general well-being. The three main components will be attention to and pursuance of spiritual self (in terms of being creative and feeling a sense of higher purpose or meaning), physical self (in terms of greater health and recognition of body as our only form of transportation through this life, therefore requiring care and upkeep), and mental/emotional self (in terms of understanding strengths and limitations and comforting one's inner voice).

In the interest of figuring it out, I have an extensive to-do list which includes many levels of my own education. Goals for this year are to get my AFAA (Aerobics and Fitness Association of America) Certification on February 8, LMHC in April and prepare for ATR-BC on a date not yet determined. This requires a great deal of studying. Many of my peers are also in study mode, so I introduce you to a sweet app called gFlashPro which is a flashcard making app that I have been introduced to this week in order to help my studying.

It looks like this when editing and creating cards.

And it looks like this when in use.

The non-AFAA cards came with it as samples. When in use, you tap the cards you know and those you don't, so you can continue working on what you don't know. I think flashcard are helpful and I would recommend them for studying for any exam. This app makes them portable and interactive. You can also add sounds and photos.

On the current act of being an art therapist, I am starting a new group intervention this week. I will tell you more as it progresses. The guys are still using their gratitude journals at the beginning of each group and have gone a full two weeks of seeming to like them, which is not bad. Also, I have been able to keep up on my altered calendar. I rushed through it and could be happier with my effort, but a little sloppy art everyday is better than none.

Lastly, shout out to another app called blogsy, which I am using on my iPad for the first time. I love you iPad and if this looks okay, I also love you blogsy.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Forgetting What I Do

I spent 14 hours working yesterday, most of them sitting in a van or on a ferry, traveling to represent a kid. I got home in time to go to bed and get a full night of sleep before waking up to rush to an early morning meeting back at the annex and then haul ass back to my office and the school to plan a group in five minutes or less. Cranky and dreading doing group, I grabbed a book from my shelf of directives and randomly opened to find something meaningful to do with my guys. Instead I found an old directive and had this thought, "Remember when you were an art therapist? What happened?" In spite of my annoyance at feeling rushed quite literally all over the place, this was surprisingly a happy thought like an old friend who could come visit and make me better at my job.

Sometimes I struggle to feel like an art therapist where I work, because nobody is an art therapist and everybody is an art therapist. I imagine that is not a rare phenomenon when one works with kids: not many people are trained to do art with kids, but everyone does it anyway. If I were to grab that fact and run with it, I could do some great work, take some initiative and shake things up in the best of ways, but other than entertaining thoughts of something better, I have followed along with the flow. That works too, but I am not putting my full self and knowledge to use. Pretty sad.

But the realization of this brought me some comfort. Like things aren't that bad. My kiddos still make progress. We still have some good groups and interventions. I imagined what would happen if I put what I have learned to use with attention and intention. It could be really great. So in that split second I vowed to work with more materials, put more thought into my guys' abilities and figure out how to make interventions make more sense, so the guys get maximum benefit.

I need to bring more of myself to work everyday.

Living with Intensity

This post is brought to you by serendipity. This weekend I have been thinking about the potential value in living an intentionally dialectic/bipolar life as well as questioning how to give the guys I work with an intense physical outlet for intense emotions. These thoughts are coming together based on a series of conversations, emotions and events.

The past week at work included hearing some tough stories and playing a role in some tough decisions as well as a boost in awareness of the seriousness of my job. While being a kind of "holder of horrors" is by no means boring, it's also not really all that pleasant. By Friday last week, I was toast: burned and a little sad.

Coincidentally, I had an amazing weekend planned that happened to be far outside my normal methods of blowing off steam: pure physicality, adrenaline and a hefty dose of absolute terror. First, I did this...

My First Trapeze Lesson

I was shocked when I saw this video, because this didn't feel like it looks at all. It felt a little awkward and very scary. I shook. I felt dizzy. I thought I might throw up and it was all amazing. I dropped every other stressor I have ever had. There was nothing else in the universe but my body, fear and the rush of pushing through extremes. 

On Sunday I trained with the local roller derby team. The last time I wore quad skates, they had Cabbage Patch Dolls on the sides, so again I was awkward, a little scared and forced to focus on nothing but my body and not smashing my teeth in. It was awesome. I don't actually do roller derby, but what I think is great about it is the release of an alter-ego. One can do her yoga, her human-services job or volunteer during the day, be of a gentle-mind and carry the weight of others' trauma then come derby time become someone named Sadie Masochist, wear a helmet with skulls and blood, elbow other women in the ribs while moving at high speeds, laugh and compare bruises later. We don't get a lot of appropriate outlets for rage and the giant emotions in our culture. Maybe we should... Maybe intense emotions call for intense sensations and it's just a matter of finding something that allows a release without making things worse. Intensity can be a good thing.

Therapy-wise, I have been trying to notice when my guys have the roughest times as well as noticing the intensity of coping tools don't usually match the intensity of an emotion or behavior and therefore really take a whole lot of self-awareness and control, which my guys don't often have, to work. I'm wondering about finding activities, artistic and otherwise, that lend themselves to huge feelings. Something that is safe and doable but big.

The Sock Monkey ETC Assessment

This is one of my bags of monkeys in progress. I have piles of monkeys in various stages of assembly which is a very odd way for me to work. At first, I thought I was working several monkeys at a time for etsy store convenience, but then I noticed I have been drawn to my least favorite part of monkey making: cutting, sewing, stuffing and assembling. Usually, I work one sock at a time and I keep my eye on getting to the final touches and figuring out the monkey's story. I'm like a sculptor looking for the monkey in the sock and giving it a voice. I approach sock monkey making on a cognitive level. I know that sounds ridiculous -- I'm talking about SOCKS here, but that's how it is.

This past week, however, I am just a monkey-making machine and not so into thinking. I'm all kinesthetic in the monkey making, just getting into a rhythm of stuffing and stitching and that's all I want to do. I think I have 8 or 9 monkeys sitting around waiting for me to do my favorite things to them, but I haven't had the desire. Instead I grab another empty monkey and stuff some more or reach into my sock stash and start another one. My last supervision teacher would say, "That's diagnostic." I heard her voice in my head today while I was hand stitching a monkey crotch and realized how extra weird it is that I don't know why I am doing this.

It's not narcissism that makes me need to examine myself. I just think it's bizarre that people like me who are trained to make sense of artistic behaviors and have insight into creative choices can have moments of not knowing the meaning of their own need to make a pile of faceless sock monkeys. I don't know if it's just me being a rookie or if it's a necessary part of a therapist's job, but I find myself a great practice patient, because I can't help you if I can't help me and also I get some of my best ideas from experimenting with what works to keep me on target, so to speak. So, this is why I questioned myself about the odd monkey-making behavior today.

So, I am working with repetition and not a lot of thought. This seems to be a self-soothing thing to do, but I don't feel especially anxious even though I am about to start a new job next week. On the same day I start training at my new job, I also volunteered to teach a yoga class for families staying in town while their children receive cancer treatment and somehow that scares me more than anything right now, but not enough to change a lifetime of creative habits. I pondered over myself quite a lot today and as I traced the passing thoughts and emotions that have been running through my mind this week, I think I got why I'm stuck on creative self-soothing.

I just experienced the first father's day without a father, eleven months after my father died. Triggering, but I feel at peace with my father's death somehow. However, in addition to the holiday and anniversary, this time of year has not been my emotional favorite since my mother died; June is a month of regret. The end of June was when my mom received the fatal dose of chemo that destroyed her digestive system and caused her to suffer a long torturous medically-induced death. That wasn't supposed to happen. Her cancer was treatable. Therefore, this is the time of year that things could have gone very differently if only we weren't a family that trusts authority and doctors so easily. If a time machine fell into my yard today I would go to Junes past and save my family. Regret is not one of the most enlightening emotions in grief and it would make sense that self-soothing would be in order. This might also make my fear of teaching yoga to families of kids getting chemo feel a whole lot more scary than it really is. But, I am a facer of fears and experience so far has proven performance nerves are really good liars but poor fortune tellers.

I don't know what good it does me to come to this conclusion about why my sock monkeys have no faces this week. But it does leave me wondering now what? I don't believe in avoiding negative emotions, but rather honoring them. So, Dear Regret, I don't know what to do with you, but I meet you at the door and welcome you with whatever you have to share. For now, Regret and I have some sock monkeys to stitch and stuff.

In the meantime, ETC stands for Expressive Therapies Continuum and if you want to know more, read this: Expressive Therapies Continuum: A Framework for Using Art in Therapy, by Lisa D. Hinz.

The Value of Structure

Now that I have a job and a start date, I am overwhelmed with all of the outstanding and amazing things I wanted to do during the months I thought I might be unemployed. I'm so overloaded with potentially super duper fulfilling options, I'm not very effective at any of the things I had in mind. I am trying to do all of them at once or worse, I am wandering around between them just trying to decide where to devote my attention and not actually doing anything at all. Time wasted. That's the unfortunate side of too many interests.

My cure for that is not adderall, but daily writing and it's pretty clear that needs to be a habit I renew real soon... as in the next time I wake up. Last summer I read The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I didn't like it, but I did attempt some of the exercises just to see what would happen. Cameron suggests keeping your creativity flowing through writing "Morning Pages," as in 3 pages of free writing every morning. So, I did it. What I discovered was not that I was more creative, but that I was more focused and able to set priorities throughout the day if I started my morning writing whatever came to mind.

What comes to mind when I allow myself to hold still are thoughts on what I value, what worries me and all of the awesome things I need to experience in this short little life. That sounds like a longer thought stream than it is. The truth is, I run out of things to think within minutes. Really, if you pay attention, you probably just think a few versions of the same thoughts over and over and it's harder to maintain that pattern if you're writing wherever your thoughts go. So, if I'm writing instead of getting attached to the same little handful of my favorite mind stories, there isn't anywhere reasonable to take that but to break it all down into little manageable chunks that I can actually accomplish in the moment. Day and mind organized with very little effort. Voila. So this is where I need to begin again. Time to dust off the old journal.

It would be nice to start my new life as a real therapist with some structure in my brain.

And along those lines, please direct your gaze to your right and notice the small survey on the side of my blog. Any recommendations for future ramblings?

And for the sake of images, one of the things I have been doing is preparing a new etsy shop. I have piles of monkey parts all over my desk right now. Here is the first one I completed. Shop opens when I hit 10 new monkeys with bios.

Zee, the mohawked tagger

Now That I am Graduated...

... it's time to reassess what the heck I am doing with my life. It's in these transitory moments that we may find ourselves saying to ourselves, "What's the plan Stan?"

Of course, the job search is beginning and I know exactly where I want to work and with whom, but whether or not that will happen isn't entirely in my hands. I'm choosing to pursue it full force anyway and investigate other options while waiting.

But there is more to graduating than finding a job I think. I'm also changing a way of life. I just got my spare time handed back to me along with that graduation leather-bound certificate that says, "your degree is in the mail sucker." It's like I got a new life back or a change in identity. It's weird. I'm inspired and confused by all this new time on my hands. So, first I checked my old resolution post and realized I'm missing a few things on the list that I will get to. No problem; that's easy, ready-made. The harder task is I need to replace my big-picture goal now that the degree thing is off the list. I have that degree. I will have that job, but I am not content without my eye on a distant prize. I'm not one to go for the hocus pocus, but in that single sense, I am a true Sagittarius, always aiming someplace. I have a hard time walking around without an arrow pointed.

One of the recent yoga class explorations has been "the false self." People define themselves by what they do, who they love, what they own, what others think of them... etc. but the true self is tat tvam asi. As a westerner, I have a hard time with just this, so I'm going with I am what I dream. I am where I point my arrow. Philosophically, I know that can get me into trouble, but watch how much I care... as in not at all.

This post is boring and self-centered, probably better for my private journal, but I'm posting it anyway for two reasons. The first is that I am more organized with my thoughts if someone else reads them and the second is that putting it out there makes me more responsible for my ambition. My brother was recently talking to me about keeping a dream board, which sounds like a The Secret sort of thing, which I think is pretty lame, but the dream board is a little bit genius.

It works like this, you write down your dreams where you can see and imagine them daily. Then they kinda become a part of your consciousness and you make shit happen.

My short term "professional" dream board would include:

• get an art therapist/counselor job (duh)
• take the licensure exam
• know DBT like nobody's business
• be a yoga teacher again
• refresh my Spanish skills, so I can call myself bilingual again and work with more people
• renew my membership to the local art museum and research my favorite pieces to increase art knowledge
• be able to respond to the question "What kind of artwork do you do?" with something more definite than "Everything, because I am a big art whore." In other words, I would like to feel I can do one thing well, even if I will continue to sleaze around with any medium.
• Keep writing

My long-term professional dream board would say

• work independently
• invest in a local space and make it into a wellness center including office space for holistic professional semi-hippy types like myself: expressive therapists, holistic counselors, etc. including a small yoga studio and gallery space. 

That's pretty ambitious for a struggling A.T. I think, because we're pretty ghetto with the cash, but since I need a challenge to feel alive, there it is. Bam. Out into the universe/blogosphere. I double-dog-dare you to publicly announce your dreams and see what happens. (Hmmm, that could be a blog in itself I think.)

Thanks for listening. Here's some art from the inside back cover of my journal... the folder will enclose a sort of dream board.

The Sketchiness of Last Post

Okay, here is the final project I was working on last week for my Art Therapy and Social Action class.

The inspiration came from the first two principles of Buddhist Psychology: "1. See the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings and 2. Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection to all things" (Kornfield, 2009), a guided pair meditation of looking into the eyes of another to increase empathy, Hiu Lui Ng (making me realize the need for people not objectifying another and treating as object) and the artist Isaiah Zagar.

It's about getting to know one another through looking into another person's eyes and hearing his/her story, a social action of connection if you will.

I envisioned this as a large mural with hundreds of eyes and stories. My artistic response was a smaller version of the eyes and stories of people in my house. 

Still sketchy? Probably. My ability to write decreases with rising temperatures and beautiful weather I think. In the meantime, here's the trailer for In a Dream, the documentary about Isaiah Zagar. 

He makes me want to take a road trip to Philadelphia this summer. 

Do You See What I See? Integrating The Mind and People

Last night I returned from NYC where I saw a 2-day discussion between Jack Kornfield and Dr. Dan Seigel. Tonight I am taking a break from heart palpitations and possible aneurysm to make an extremely short post... practically a twitter-post to give you the word of the day: integration.

Integration because that's one of the things I learned about the last couple of days and two because I am integrating what I learned into the final push (and source of said palpitations and aneurysms) of finishing this grad school deal. Worlds collide.

This is my 10 minutes of art making for the day, which is part of a course final project and has to do with integration. No time to explain, but that's what's up.

Phase Uno of Larger Piece: Do You See What I See

Party on!

Boundaries of the Job & Crying in Class

Yesterday I had an experience that brought up an important question for me. Is there a limit to our therapist role? When we leave a place of employment for the day, do we go back to being Mr. or Ms. Could-Be-Anyone?

Here's what happened... I was on a train going to class and at one of the stops, a duffel bag flew into the train and crashed against the wall, followed by a man who fell over it and sobbing, banged his head against the walls and punched at the seats. Once the doors closed and we were all locked in there with him, moving at train-speed underground, he stood and said, "Please! Why won't anybody help me. My mother just died. I want to go home. I am going crazy. Please someone help me. I just need to get out of here," and continued by sobbing to god and begging for the reversal of time and return of his mother etc. with his arms waving all around. I don't know if what he said was true or this was a desperate attempt at sympathy for drug money, but true or false, this man was in a state of crisis. I didn't really care what he said. Everyone tried to look away. Passengers near him scootched to further locations and froze.

I didn't scootch and wanted to catch his eye and motion that he could sit with me. I don't know what I intended to say or do, but I felt like I needed to talk to him. His eyes were wild and weeping and although he pleaded to us, he didn't seem to see anyone. So, I stood up and walked over. Even standing right in front of him, it was as if he looked through me while he screamed for anyone to do anything to help him. I felt like a ghost, powerless and invisible. I touched his arm and asked what he needed and he told me a ticket for the commuter train. All I had was one dollar, but I gave it to him. He told me I was the only person who talked to him that day and went back to begging to the god who stole his mother. At the next stop soon after, he got off just like he got on, tossing his bag and then falling on top of it in tears.

I had an intense desire to follow him, but I didn't. I felt like I needed to do something. A person in that state shouldn't be standing near regularly oncoming trains for one thing. I felt like I had a duty to do crisis intervention right there all by my rookie self... Hello Messiah Complex.

While he was on the train, I felt perfectly calm, although unsure what to do in this public, fast-moving place. Once he left I was triggered to my own feelings when I lost my mom and worried that he was about to commit suicide. I felt like puking and bursting into tears all at once. So, I watched my "happy place" music videos and tried to use distraction skills I teach other people in order to keep myself together.

I made it to class, pregnant with sick and sad emotions, but keeping it contained, walked in and burst into tears in front of everyone. Totally not my coolest moment, but an important lesson in vicarious trauma and causing me to question if therapists have a duty to play therapist all the time. It also reminded me I carry my own shit closer to the surface than I would like.

On a happier note. This is my favorite distraction skill happy place video.

I have used "video therapy" as a crisis intervention with adolescents who were not acting unlike this man on the train. Sometimes with teens, "Have you seen the new Black Eyed Peas video? It has robots!" is a phrase that works... not a line I would have tried on train guy, but if you work with kids who have violent tantrums over minor frustrations, an IPod with videos is a great thing to keep in your pocket. It helped me not have a train tantrum this time.

BRAINS!!!!

ATC for Awkward Love Swap
Watercolor
February 2011

I've had brains on my brains lately. Oddly, this is due to figuring out how and where I will pick up CEUs for my RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher). I am attempting to make these CEUs count for more than just teaching yoga and apply to something that can also be used in therapy... perhaps, so to that end, I just purchased tickets to a workshop in New York on meditation and neurobiology. I also did some internet searching and found this useful site: Yoga Spirit. It provides lectures for download (some free) that count for CEUs. Again, I purchased some that will be useful for multiple purposes: The Power of Language in Relationships, Yoga for Depression, and Meditation, The Doorway to Who You Are. I love it when yoga stuff and therapy stuff overlap and it happens. All. The. Time.

However, my question to myself lately has been, "Self, is this yoga stuff good for marketing your little personage for a job or does it make you sound a little fruit loops?" Let's be honest, in certain circles, art therapy is already a little crunchy, so putting yoga on top of that may be a flying leap overboard on a resume to some places. Maybe. I don't know. But that's a little off topic. This post is about BRAINS!

So now that I am going to this thing in New York, which isn't cheap and requires some traveling and hoteling, I feel like I want to go into this with questions deeper than, "huh?" I need to beef up my brain on brains (and Jack Kornfield) so I have some self assigned reading and rereading before the end of April. I won't bore you with the details (feel free to bore yourself in the additions to the blog bibliography).

I will leave you with my advice for brain anatomy for the artistically-minded: The Anatomy of the Human Brain Coloring Book. Learn by coloring. It's still tough to memorize, but way funner than flashcards.

Page from my coloring book

Resolutions and Professional Responsibility

I'm a day behind on blogging and still trying to figure out where I want to go with this today. I have a schedule of things to write about in my mind and today/yesterday is a blank page. I feel like I should be writing about resolutions of some sort, but the mood strikes me not.

I am not a New Year Resolver. I see it as a set up for failure and disappointment. I am, however, a Birthday Intenter, which has worked well for me. Unfortunately, I have been forgetting to do that the past two or three years, because of this grad school thing. It's like a 3-year resolution that consumes all other goals and possibilities... a little... possibly... okay maybe not... it's really just been an excuse. I am still perfectly capable of other improvements. I forgot to set intents this last birthday too, but since it wasn't that long ago, perhaps a New Year Intent would be an okay exception.

And for visual appeal purposes, here are some randomly placed photos of an old expressive therapy class assignment about being/doing/understanding expressive therapy.

Here's how this relates to my art therapy journey. I firmly believe that all therapists have a duty to practice what they preach. And art therapists have an additional responsibility to also regularly feed their creative sides. I would not want to go to a medical doctor who smokes, never exercises and eats chili fries and valium everyday for breakfast, because if that doctor said, "Hey you really should consider blah blah blah for your health," I'd think something along the lines of "You're a stupid hypocrite" and that sort of thinking just doesn't foster a good doctor patient relationship. The same goes for being a therapist. If one is telling others how to care for their mental health and find fulfillment in life, one must be doing the same work. Along those lines, I often review anything that could possibly be lacking in my own self care and adjust as necessary.

But self care improvements make bad birthday/new year intentions, because they're not especially awesome. In fact, they're just plain BORING! Intentions are most possible when they are something you want to do anyway. Birthday intentions got me into yoga teacher training, riding my bike 150 miles for MS, taking drum lessons and even buying a house. They were things I already wanted to do, but might have put off without setting the intention. None of those things were necessary; they just made my year extra cool. Happy birthday to me.

As mentioned earlier, I believe art therapists have the additional responsibility to also practice regular creative expression. We're living The Dream after all. So today I ask myself, "Self, in what way will you be living The Dream in 2011?"

It's important to also keep in mind that I am graduating soon and hopefully (fingers crossed) getting a job, so my dream has to be doable and not of the buying-a-house caliber this year. So, five ways to live the dream this year...

1. Take a class at the junior college, adult continuing ed. group or somewhere in either ceramics or painting, because I've never had professional training in either and they're classics.

2. Restart my etsy store, because it helps keep me artistically active and provides minimal income (extremely minimal!).

3. Participate in this, because I just wanna.

4. Donate one quilt, because I just noticed these all sound really selfish and a little balance is in order.

5. Go on a trapeze, because Jung said, "What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Here is the key to your earthly pursuits." I miss the swing set.