Neko Sensei

Our two cats, Ume and Reiko, are so very cute, and sweet, and cuddly, and affectionate, that I have rarely felt as much love for something in my life. They were curled up in a ball into each other, nestled for warmth this morning, Ume nuzzling into Reiko, rolling back her head for chin and belly scratches. They have so much trust for me. That level of trust and openness engenders a surprising amount of love. It's interesting how vulnerability can end up being so powerful. I feel like they are teaching me about bhakthi, (divine love, devotion): if I can feel somewhat near that level of love for the rest of God's creation, or for God itself I would be a great devotee. And so it is a pathway into that feeling of love, that can then perhaps be generalized or cannalized.

It's also a pathway into gratitude, that I have such sweet companions with me all day long. It makes me deeply appreciative for my life. And it makes me think about loss, as well. I think about how they will almost certainly die before I do, and what a loss that will be, and it reminds me to pause and take time just to connect with them, give them head scratches or bump my head against theirs. To live well in the moment, not just for future goals.

It teaches me that we can feel love from each other, feel presence and attention. If I am doing something on my phone, they are not as happy, even if I'm petting them. But if I bring my attention fully to them, maybe bring my head close to theirs, they start purring like a motor. Not just humans, but animals, and plants, can feel our love, and respond to it like a flower opening to the sun. It's a gift you can give to others, and it ends up being a gift for yourself as well, because letting love flow through you to others, that love is experienced by both.

Preparing, Cleaning, Celebrating

 What do I do to prepare for my practicum and internship? This is the question on my mind. I asked my supervisor if they had any suggestions, and they pointed me to a training. And then I've been doing some deep dive research, or rather continuing the research I'd started a while ago about what makes for a good therapist. It's the same question I had as a teacher. Is there anything one can actually do, to measurably get better? There was an unfortunate dearth of agreement scientifically on that topic. Lots of people giving their opinion, but nobody really doing good practice-based research. It seems so weird, because what could be more important than training good teachers? I suppose some of the important things are structural as well, but even with that, it seems like everybody has their own perspective and is ready to argue for it rather than put aside their assumptions and test what actually works.

Now, of course there is research on effective teaching methods, but honestly, I think the problem is MUCH more about effective classroom management, and how to teach that. How can you train teachers to create a good classroom environment and culture?

Maybe this was more important for me because this was the area that I struggled with the most. But I think most teachers are put in an environment that really pushes them towards burnout, and does not support them in their development as teachers, which is related to the burnout. This is a serious problem that is perhaps more important than almost anything else, as this is the place where our future generation is being formed, but people seem to be generally ignoring it. Above and beyond the academic lessons, one would hope children learn good character while at school as well. How to get along with others, resilience and tenacity, how to handle big emotions, failure and disappointment, cultivation of compassion and empathy, how to lead a happy life, and positive values like honesty, integrity, humility, being of service to others, courage, etc.

I wanted to do this for children because of how important I thought it was, but I just could not avoid extreme burnout as a classroom teacher. I was miserable. And yet I kept doing it for around 5 years, if I include my student teaching. I just didn't seem to be the right temperament for what is needed in a classroom teacher. But that doesn't change how important I think it is, or my desire to contribute to that, in some form. Whatever form I can actually do in a sustainable way.

In any case, that was a bit of a digression. The point is, I've been doing the same research for psychotherapy. And, both sadly and happily, there is a good deal more research on it than for teaching. Sadly because teachers deserve it too, happily for me. It's still in its infancy, but their are at least people working to answer the question, what can we do with therapists to actually and reliably improve their outcomes with clients. Interestingly, it follows some of the same thinking that I figured out myself, namely using the concepts of deliberate practice from Anders Eriksson's research to apply to therapy and therapists. As well as studying the outliers, those therapists that do significantly better than others, and looking for common elements among them. 

So I've got a bunch of really interesting books on those subjects, that I'm looking forward to going through (and have already started going through, can't help myself, despite my need to focus on my coursework). I'll share a pic at the end here, of some of them.

Aside from that, my big dream goal for this break: tidying up the house putting everything away and finding home for things that don't have a place, and then going through and getting rid of stuff I don't need or want anymore, decluttering a bit. I've found I can set time limits for each step in the process and time myself and I become much more efficient and focused, and can get rooms done in a much more reasonable period of time, so I have actual hope for being able to do this.

In general, I'm feeling very grateful for my life. The additional time and space I have from not trying to do so much at once. The feeling of being on a good path work-wise, and my current spiritual and personal progress, it all feels like it's in a good place, and I'm remembering back to a time... maybe in my early twenties, when I realized life had stopped sucking, overall, and I had thus achieved what I thought was an impossible goal. But I then realized, that wasn't where I wanted to stop: I wanted to get to a point where life was generally actually good, positive. I feel like I'm there now. So I feel deep and vast gratitude for the universe, Great Spirit, God, whatever you want to call it, the benevolent intelligence in my life that has guided me and supported me in fulfilling those prayers.

Of course, that's no place to stop either, the new goal is to continue for things to get even better, which I already feel happening and don't see any upper limit in sight, and to spend more time now helping others, which honestly was my main motivation from the beginning, even when I was deeply suffering. I wanted to becomes something good, so that I had something good to offer to others.

OK! that was a longer one. But I actually have one more short one in me, so see you again soon.

The next few weeks. Sprint to the finish line.

 I'm almost done with my school work for this semester! One more big assignment! And some more readings, which are functionally optional, because there are no assignments based off of them.

Tomorrow I pick up Suzannah from the airport and Sunday her sister's family comes to visit for a week. It will probably be a bit hectic that week, but I'll try and get the paper and mock crisis counseling session done and recorded, or at least the recording and getting started on the paper. That's Thanksgiving of course, so there is cooking and cleaning the house for their arrival. That next weekend is a friends wedding up in Chicago, so more travel, and then the next weekend is a Bat Mitzvah for a niece in Philadelphia. That same weekend the final paper is due and classes end. Then I've got a good long bit of time off, several weeks, to spend some time with Suz and friends and take care of loose ends before my internship starts.

So, things are about to heat up for a bit. A sprint, so to speak, and then the sprint leads off the edge of a cliff and I get to free fall for a couple weeks with less structure and externally imposed goals. Hopefully Suz and I will do something fun, and probably I'll spend some of the time on my own studies, preparing for the beginning of my internship and starting to see clients. Exciting!

OK, I'll end this post here, since I've got to write another one.

See you in a few minutes.

-IO

Kitties, Flurries, and Firewood

 This weekend was full of fun chores, in that I finished my paper before the due date, so I had time to go into some of my optional quality of life enhancing tasks, such as tidying up various rooms in the house and chipping away at my long list of useful, short, but not strictly necessary tasks. It feels good getting to check a bunch of stuff off my list. It's maybe a little bit of cheating, because most of the tasks are easy and quick, but many do add various quality of life improvements, and they all reduce my feeling of overwhelm, when I look at my task list and notice it just keeps getting longer and longer each week.

Part of that is I think I need to remove some of the things from my "this week" list, and do them later. Part of it is there are things I've done a while ago and just forgot to check off, or that I've waited so long on, they are now moot and need to be deleted.

But a bunch of them are just quick simple tasks, and so it seems like more work to move them off my list and then move them back on at a later time...

In any case, it felt nice to not just bailing water out of a sinking ship to keep it above water, but actually making some improvements to the ship. In the Eisenhower priority matrix, that would be the "Important, but not Urgent" quadrant, where much of the most impactful action takes place, because it is preparing for the future and the long haul.

It snowed yesterday, which was magical, our first snow of the season. it was so big and fluffy, it looked like the cottonwood seed fluff that blows around during summer. And there was a little bit of snow dusting the ground, this morning. Needless to say, it's time to winterize the house, Suzannah made sure all the hoses were unscrewed (we burst a pipe last year because we didn't get the hose unscrewed soon enough, so we were trying to be extra careful this year) and I turned the heat tape back on for the water shut-off valve in the garage. 

The frost has really made the trees accelerate in their shedding of leaves. The last week saw some of the most beautiful colors going on. Just walking under a maple tree at this time of year is like color therapy, they are amazing.

We get to run our fireplace now, and are thoroughly enjoying it. As are our kitties. Super cozy. We're trying to keep it cooler this winter to save on the heating bills, and part of how to do that is use firewood and stay right in front of the fireplace, which is where we want to be anyways.

OK, I think that will do for now, I've got another paper to get started on, and then helping Suzannah set up for her father's 80th birthday!

Deliberate, Purposeful, Ironic.

 I had a little aha moment the other day. I've been researching what could actually make me a better therapist. Seems like again the idea of "deliberate practice," Anders Erikson's famous research that has been often touted as the "10,000 hour rule" for mastery, came up. Deliberate practice is about much more than putting in the time. It's about how you practice, and there is a good amount of nuance to it. And unfortunately, it doesn't translate directly into more complex things like teaching and therapy. It works better for things like chess and music and sports, where there are very clearly defined outcomes being measured, and very clear skill paths that coaches can lead people along. For most jobs, it's more complex, or perhaps just has less energy and time being put into seeking seeking excellence. There is a general rule of hard work though. Those who are willing to work harder and longer, tend to do better. And even in professions without deliberate practice wisdom, there are always those that perform way better than others, so there is still a pathway to mastery. However, that falls into the realm of "purposeful practice" which is basically as good as you can get when you don't have a well defined field and pathway to mastery that coaches have been refining for a while.

In any case, there's some promising work on that, in counseling, which is cool, though it's still in its infancy. And it is anything but an 'easy way to get great' since effortful, often unpleasant practice is a key ingredient. I kind of want to try to learn something in a more standardized field, so I can get a sense of what deliberate practice feels like, in an unambiguous way. But I already feel strapped for time, so I don't know if that will happen.

Anyways, that's a far too long preamble. The "aha" was simply that, if I wanted to get better at using my time well, the principles of deliberate/purposeful practice should be applied. Which include getting a baseline read of performance and tracking outcomes, so you can get a sense if what you are doing is actually leading to improvements. It's also important to delineate what specific elements are holding you back or need improvement. What I will be doing is a far cry from deliberate practice, but I can at least hope for some purposeful practice. Seems like a better approach than blindly flailing around, though even that has surfaced some nuggets of wisdom.

OK, that's all I have time for, since I didn't use my time super well today. Hah! Irony. 

Schrodinger, Siestas, Ship Sayings

You ever get that feeling, in the afternoon, after having eaten a bit too much, where you just want to nap, or play a game or watch/read something light and entertaining? I'm feeling that hard right now. Do I take a nap? Do I crank out some push-ups? (That seems bad for the already unhappy digestion). Do I just power through? Maybe I do some tidying. I love tidying. Putting things where they belong, or finding a place for it. A place for everything and everything in its place. I think someone said that was a nautical saying, for how you have to organize a ship. I find doing that very satisfying and soothing, and sometimes even energizing. Slightly physical, intrinsically motivating, high priority but not high enough to take up my prime energy & focus times. Sounds like a plan.

OH, you're here, listening to my thoughts. I guess I should give you an update. The practicum site is moving along nicely, everything has been approved, I just have to get my insurance (which I'm not supposed to get until December, so it lasts through the whole of my internship) and I'm all set. So looking forward to actually practicing. 

I love all the stuff (OK, not all of it. But most of it at least) that I'm learning, but it's so intellectual. I know I'm not going to be able to do much learning until I am actually working with clients. Which is unfortunate, because I would love to go into it knowing I'm adequately prepared, but I'll learn on the job like everyone else. I am also excited to hopefully confirm that I really enjoy this work and have found a good career for me. Perhaps a little bit nervous, because it is still possible I will find out I was dead wrong. That would be a quite unpleasant surprise. So looking forward to that schrodinger's cat being resolved as well.

OK, that's enough, off to my next thing, have a good week y'all!

-I Out

Secondary Trauma, Sunlight, Self Care

One of the classes I'm taking is called "Trauma and Crisis Counseling" (or something close. I may have the order of words backwards). As such, you would expect it to be maybe a bit hard to read some of the readings. 'Secondary Trauma' is something people who work with Trauma victims/survivors encounter, where they get trauma symptoms themselves. Similar perhaps to how people who watched too much media coverage of certain traumatic events ended up with trauma symptoms themselves.

In general, humans have wonderfully sensitive, empathic nervous systems that can feel the distress of others. But if they are experiencing empathy, holding hands and going through traumatic experiences with others, it can backfire in that way.

Last week and this week have been about abuse and IPV (intimate partner violence--domestic abuse) and learning about it is a little heartbreaking. I haven't experienced enough to constitute secondary trauma, but after sitting for a while, reading about it, I feel the need to decompress, spend some time out in nature, read something uplifting or meditate. The need for "self care" that is frequently stressed in my textbooks make sense in light of this.

I also wonder if I will be able to muster empathy and compassion, if I'm dealing with the abuser? Especially if they are unrepentant. There is definitely a part of me that just wants to say, "No, that is wrong. You need to stop doing that." But I don't imagine that would be very effective.

Despite this, I'm getting excited about my upcoming internship. It's right around the corner, and I'll finally get to start actually doing what I've been in school for these last years. I'll finally get to start actually learning how to be a therapist. The info is interesting, but it is so useless without practice. Like so many parts of our education system, it's quite poorly designed, for actual learning.

I'm not sure if I can upload this properly, but I want to share a beautiful light show I saw this morning. it was a little beam of light, peaking through our curtains, sunlight through windy trees. I want something like this playing in the corner of my computer at all times, accompanied by windy nature sounds and relaxing music.