New Year's Reflections and Visions

There is nothing intrinsically special about new years, but there is something psychologically special. Chronological dates have subconscious meanings to us, and so when there are conceptual 'new beginnings', even if there is nothing really special about the chronologically, they carry extra weight because we believe they do. As such, I figure I might as well take the opportunity to reflect on my past year and think about what I might want to put attention on or have as a vision or goal for the coming one.

With this new year, I'm going to start my practicum. That means seeing actual clients. I'm excited about that! I'm excited in specific, about getting to finally put what I've learned into practice, about getting to finally start learning the skills, in ways that just reading or infrequent mock practice sessions could never accomplish. And I'm excited and maybe a little nervous, to finally get the litmus test of if this career move was a good one. Everything I've experienced, and the opinions of the people who know me best indicate it will be a good fit, but the final test of that is actually doing it, and weirdly I don't get to do that until 2+ years into the program. Weird. But a lot about our education system is pretty weird, so I guess par for the course?

So there's that. There's been a lot of bumps, trying to get pregnant, appointments, medical procedures, all the stuff associated with having difficulties getting pregnant. Suzannah has been dealing with the brunt of it, and I'm running support duty as I can.

Despite all those challenges, it is wonderful getting to go through life with your best friend, which we both get to do. We started playing a game together called Clair Obscur, which is beautiful and has great music and an interesting story and world. It's fun getting to go on an adventure together, without having to leave the house. The fireplace is super cozy, it's going right now, and the cats are perpetually loving and super cute and cuddly. Overall I say: Life is good and I am full of gratitude for it.

In terms of my personal and spiritual development, I continue to push forward and grow and my state of general contentment and gratitude becomes more decoupled from the inevitable ups and downs of life as my sense of spiritual presence and awareness gets deepend and more integrated throughout my day-to-day goings-on.

What about new year's resolutions, plans, visions, intentions?

Well, the intention is to have a kid, but ultimately that is up to the universe and any benevolent intelligence behind it all that I would call God. I will do my part and accept what comes.

In terms of specific things, the #1 that comes up for me is I'd love to get into a habit of going to bed and getting up early, and finishing my morning routine by 8-ish so I can start my work early-on. So far this has eluded me, and I don't think Suzannah really cares about going to bed that early, so I'm not sure how this one will shake out.

For my #2, I'd like to keep my primary vision/goals/values front and center of my mind, and let them direct where I put my time attention and energy. I've already started doing this, but I want it to become more consistant and constant throughout the day. Part of this is making sure I have clarity on what that vision is, and it's compelling and intrinsically motivating, the other part is just remembering to bring it to mind regularly and letting it guide my decisions, plans, and actions. Everything else flows out of this one, and really it should be number 1, not the bedtime thing, which is rather small in comparison, importance-wise.

#3 will be, I'll say, the most obvious and immediate goal that comes out of having my Vision in my focus. It is having a constant integrated awareness throughout the day. Awareness of what? Hard to name it. Spirit, presence, God, Self, What Is, Truth, Love.

The rest are little specific things. I'd love to do more regular creative things, I'd love to have a more regularly timed daily ritual/routine, I want to become a really good therapist (maybe that's a bit premature for my first year, but at least get a good start on it.) I want to get better at staying focused and doing the things that really matter to me, and letting the unimportant things go, even when they seem urgent or important or sticky (metaphorically) in the moment.

I think I'll leave it at that for now. Maybe Suzannah and I will make some collaborative one's together this afternoon.

Wishing you all a happy new year, I hope it brings you good things, connection, peace, love, and expansion of your heart and mind.

-Isaac

Squirrels!

As I was sitting out in the backyard this morning, I saw a pair of squirrels chasing each other right in front of me, dashing in and out of the space under our shed where we think the groundhog is hibernating. Then I saw a third squirrel join in. It was quite cute, with them going under the shed in one place, then coming out another, jumping on the wood piles or fences. Then a FOURTH joined in! I haven't seen that very much, if ever, usually it's just two playing, and if there's a third it's doing its own thing. Then a fifth joined. Then a sixth. It was a whole squirrel family, out for playtime. They hung out with me basically the whole time, some getting quite close, occasionally standing up to check me out and make sure I was cool, but generally ignoring me. I've never seen that before, and was delighted. I wonder if my regular sitting out there has gotten them acclimated to me. I wonder if they are all from the same litter or something? I wonder if they were stealing the groundhog's food or peeking in at her.

I also noticed that the squirrels had pretty different tails. one looked like it had a chunk taken out of the side, by a lack of fur in one location, another had a tail that was generally scraggly and thinner than the others, with very little fur at the end. I imagine it's better in winter to have a nice poofy tail they could use as a blanket and door for their squirrel nests, so I hope the scraggly tail one is all right. A squirrel's life must be tough. Regardless, they were playing on the warm sunny day and getting along, and I counted it a blessing to get to witness it.

That's all for this one. Next one maybe I'll talk about New Years.

Bergin and Garfield, Libraries and Due Dates

Hmm, again, a lot of time has passed since my last post. 20-ish days? that's almost three weeks! Kind of crazy to think it's been so long. It feels like a flash.

I've been working with intense focus for the last few days trying to read and take notes on the interlibrary loan book that was due back yesterday. Bergin and Garfield's handbook of behavior change and psychotherapy, or something close to that. It was a really fascinating book, for me. Basically, a bunch of experts in the field wrote chapters summarizing the current research in their respective areas of expertise. They all had a researcher bent, but many also had a practitioner lense, and so the chapters contained nuanced summaries of the best research in the field on various topics, among which I was particularly interested in the chapters talking about the characteristics and skills of the most effective therapists, elements and approaches that have the most robust research, which approaches work best for which issues, suggestions for psychotherapist training, and a nuanced explanation of the research and how to read and understand the research.

If you are just reading the popular articles or youtube videos talking about 'how to be a good therapist' you are not getting the whole picture. I think that's true for quite a lot things. Nutrition, healthcare, goal-setting, etc. There is a difference between catchy phrases that people use to try and sell you on their product or program, and the research itself, which often doesn't lead you to the same conclusions the people who are trying to sell you stuff are reaching, if you actually read the source material.

Research has significant limits on what practical information it can actually give you, and good scientists make that clear. Salesmen typically don't. All that just to say, it was a great read but I definitely ran out of time, and by the end was just quickly taking pictures of chapter summaries to read later. Thankfully I planned for that eventuality and prioritized the chapters that were more important for first. That being the case I'm grateful for the artificial time deadline of the return date, and it kept me focused. I'm looking forward to going over my notes and summarizing them further to help cement the most useful information into my brain and make it easier to recall later, and stop worrying about the research question of "what can I do to make myself a good therapist" because I have as much information on that as I can reasonably get via research, at the moment. Now it's time to put it into practice.

I've got a little more I want to talk about, but this is already a long one, so I'll split it up into a second post.

Social Media Maven, Cat Pillow, Hairy Person

OK y'all, it looks like my blog is BLOWING UP. I'm talking about 10, 15 views per post. What is going on? I'm used to 1-4 views. Maybe the tracking algorithm is broken, or it's a bunch of AI spam bots. I've specifically set the blog to not show up in search algorithms, so I don't know how new people are finding this, if they are. In any case, if you are real people, um, hello! Welcome! I hope you are well, though with the world crazy as it is, I understand you may not be. 

I hope these posts give you a little vibe of having tea with me in front of the fire with some cuddly cats, as I am actually doing now with my wife and a family friend who's hanging out in our house while she gets a blower-door test/energy audit for her own house (cold time of year to do it, though I also want to get an energy audit for our houses, try and reduce the energy costs.)

In any case, it looks like my last post was November 21st, and that is... just under three weeks ago, so I've got some catching up to do, post-wise, but that is expected, as I just finished my last week of classes for the semester Sunday. There was travel, final papers, etc. to focus on. Now I've got several weeks to catch-up on other stuff, which is a delight and I'm excited to get some work done on various other projects, including this.

Gotta go to a haircut right this minute though, so that's it for this one. I know, pretty boring post. maybe I'll add a picture of the fireplace and cat I'm talking about, when I get back.