Taking My Own Advice

One of my goals of trying the 30 posts in 30 days challenge was to get writing regularly again.  You see how well that worked out.  The phenomenal thing is that I finally feel like I have time to write again.  During my little hiatus I decided to take my own advice.  I decided to remember that life is meant to be lived and not endured and that a person can’t profit from  a risk if they never take a chance.  I decided to take a chance. As much as I love private practice, I did not enjoy my day job.  I love the patients I saw but the job itself- not so much.  So,   I quit my W-2 job and decided to jump full into private practice.  This means I am relying totally on myself to make enough money to live.  This is  a scary proposition but worth it to do what I love.  

Hopefully, I will have more time to be creative and relish all that life puts before me. 

Quote

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.” 
― Jonathan Safran Foer

I saw this quote today and something about the words touched me.  Sometimes, I feel exactly this way.  I feel there are so many possibilites and so many paths not taken.  The real tragedy, I think, would to not dare to live at least one full, amazing life.  What barriers are you putting up to living the life you can imagine.  Tear those barrier downs.  Then you can think about the path you are taking and revel.

Choice

I've decided that my choice is to do what I love.  I believe doing what I love, living my passions will bring me contentment and happiness.  Sometimes I put obstacles and barriers of my own making into place and it gets in the way of fully living my journey.  I feel like I have to earn good times and getting what I want.  It turns out that I don't.  Sometimes life is hard and sometimes I make it harder than it needs to be.  Today I am going to choose to not put up fake barriers.  Today I am going to choose happiness.  What are you going to choose today?

Really Random (totally non-relevant to anything) advice for Today

Be open to new things I say.  We have opportunity to learn each day.  Sometimes we get so set in our ways that we forget to be open.  It seems that people may worry that if they take in new information and learn that it I somehow a reflection on them not being good enough.  Instead of listening to new information we become defensive and miss out.  Learning and adjusting our thinking with our new knowledge is an amazing gift we have – don’t waste it.





I most recently learned that it is not a good idea to put shower gel in the little foot spa I have at home.  It is one of those little things that you put your feet in and it bubbles and warms your feet.  I thought  to myself “why not put a couple of drops of shower gel in there.”  This was not a good idea.  I turned my back for less than a minute and there were bubbles EVERYWHERE.  There were lots and lots and lots of bubbles.  The bubbles were pretty, which I noted and enjoyed, but an absolute mess to clean up.  (Which is a bit like some of life really.  Things can be beautiful and messy and a pain to clean up.)  It was like the only one time in your life (for me it was with my roommates in college) where you run out of dishwasher soap so you think what would it hurt to use a bit of regular dish sink soap instead.    You quickly learn that is not a good idea when over half your kitchen is saturated with bubbles.  It was kind of like that.



To sum up my totally random ramblings of today:  Bubbles are pretty and are to be enjoyed.  Also – be open to learning new things – it is one way to grow and embrace joy in your life!

Why I Care that May is Mental Health Awareness Month

I want people to speak about Mental Health.  There is too much stigma and shame attached to mental illness and mental health.

If I could get people to do one thing, I would get them to speak up about mental illness.  This comes from a very personal place.  I grew up with a mother who had a severe mental illness.  Her behavior could vacillate from very normal and appropriate to outright bizarre. 

 Let me give you a couple of examples of bizarre.  These are only a couple examples of pretty consistent,constant behavior during her bad times.  During one of my first two years of high school there was a parent’s night where the parents go to all your classes and the teachers talked about their curriculum.  My parents went and during the time when my French teacher was talking, my mom stared at the ceiling.  Stared at the ceiling and sung her ABC’s loudly because she had a thing about listening to gossip.  In her mind the teacher was gossiping so my mom had to show whoever that she wouldn’t listen so she was disruptive.  This is bizarre. 

Let me give you another example.  At one of my band concerts my mom passed notes to the person behind her that said things like “I know you why you are here.”   She was sure most of the people around her were trying to trick her and cause her trouble.  This is bizarre.

No one talked about it.

Outside of our family no one mentioned my mom’s actions to me.  Maybe (read maybe as definitely) they talked about how weird she was behind her back but that isn’t necessarily helpful.

 

As a child, I knew that something wasn’t right.  I even knew my mom was in emotional pain most of the time.  This means as a child I really questioned most adult’s intellect because couldn’t they see something was wrong.  I believe my mom and in turn my family suffered for far longer than necessary because of shame and stigma attached to Mental Illness.  I know there are millions of others that suffer similarly.

Maybe if my parents or family had any idea about mental illness, the services out there, and the medication available or even had a name for what was going on, some of their pain would have been alleviated.  Her family was amazing in that they accepted her for who she was but they also had no idea how to help the situation.  Maybe if people spoke up there would be less stigma.  Shame and stigma come from things being hidden and being buried like something is so wrong it can’t see the light of day.

Mental Health is important.  Taking care of your mental health, wherever you are on the continuum, is not shameful.  My mom eventually received help after many years and found the right mix of medication.  She always struggled with mental illness but it stopped being what defined her.  She was a whole person who happened to have a mental illness.  I hope other families are able to speak up and not suffer in silence.

Speak up and tell your stories.

End of Ultimate Blog Challenge

At the beginning of April I decided to participate in the ultimate blog challenge of 30 posts in 30 days because I like competing with myself and because I felt like I was lazy about getting posts up.   I completed a lot of blog starts but not so many finishes and I felt like I wanted to finish some.

I ended up with   26/30  posts (counting this one.)  Not so bad.  There was a moment last week where I thought “I’m not going to make my goal, I better do a bunch a quick posts.”  Then I thought, “why?”   The 30 out of 30 was a goal I made up for myself.  (It was a should but since shoulds are all made up there is no reason not to change it.)   I have had an exceptionally busy two weeks and I decided balance and down time were more important than completing some random blog posts.

I believe this is something for all of us to remember.  First, goals are flexible.  Yes, it is great to reach a goal but it is about the journey not the destination.  Many goals are not meet at all cost goals.  Two,  taking care of ourselves and finding balance is more important than reaching an arbitrary goal.

Thank you to everyone who read my musings this past month.  My hope is I am energized and will post regularly!

Happy May Day Tomorrow.

Sparkling

Happy Beginning of the Week.


How about you make tomorrow (or Today) a sparkling day.  Stop saving all your special outfits and your anticipated activities for a special day.  How often do we save something so we have something to look forward to.  Why?  Live today.  I have this blue shirt I love to wear.  It has sequence on it and I don't think a day has gone by that I've worn it and someone hasn't said "you look sparkly."  Well, why not.  I was going to get my hair done - why not celebrate.  I wonder how great today could be if you just decided to sparkle and celebrate.  

So totally random I can't even say

This is a totally random Julie post which has nothing to do with mental health at all and really no redeeming value in the order of things.  However, I am trying to do 30 posts in 30 days and it is Saturday so I'm writing anyway.  (See~make your own rules and don't get caught up in the shoulds ~just saying.)


I was flossing my teeth (yes, I'm trying to be dental smart after so many years of being dental not smart) and I have to use floss that is attached to a plastic pick thing.  I cannot stand the feel of floss on my fingers.  It just grosses me out to no end.  I have no idea why but it is true.


I also am really disgusted by wet toilet paper.  One of my aunts used to work with two year olds in a daycare and one of her activities was to make "clean mud."  Basically it is lots and lots of toilet paper which has been watered down.  Kids could then play in it like it was mud.  I just...no.   I worked with the older toddlers in the room next to her and I would have dealt with paint all over the place or a table full of water before that any day.  I can't imagine a scenario where I would voluntarily deal with wet toilet paper.  It is creeping me out writing about.


Floss and wet toilet paper bother me but I can work in a dialysis center and see people's blood circulating next to them and I don't bat an eye.  Just like me you probably have words you just don't like and can't stand hearing.  I wonder where our idiosyncratic dislikes come from? 


What are your intense dislikes?  What disgusts you that other people wouldn't even notice?


See, a totally irrelevant to life post.  You may now be thinking this is a minute of your life you will never get back. I probably should be sorry about that but I try not to get caught up in the shoulds.


Happy Saturday.

Being a Therapist

Today I was thinking about my favorite thing about being a therapist.  I am constantly amazed at how much I love it.  It is an unexpected surprise because back in the day I thought I would grow old working at an agency specializing in child welfare.  That is a person that I almost don't recognize now.


I was listening to someone's story earlier and I was struck of how much of an honor it is to witness other people's struggles and stories.  It is humbling and awe inspiring (and no, I'm actually not exaggerating) to share these moments with clients.  It is so important for each of us to be heard and to find our voice and I get to help people with that.  I am humbled at how brave so many clients are with taking that step to be vulnerable and say "I want to be known" and "I am worthy."


I have so much joy and so much appreciation of all of you who allow me to go a short time with you on your journey.  Thank you.

Random Thoughts being an LCSW

I just read this short blog post on a clinical social worker’s real mission.

http://blog.acswa.org/clinical-social-work-news/clinical-social-works-real-mission/ 

After reading it I thought about the struggles social workers have and with what a person looking for a therapist gets when they choose a social worker.

When you are looking for a therapist you will see all sorts of initials after people’s name.  If you are not in the field you may have no idea what they mean.  Within the field there is a sort of hierarchy of who is “better” based on credentials.

I am an LCSW which means a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.  In Illinois, an LCSW has a Masters Degree in Social Work (MSW), at least two years post MSW experience under another LCSW and then passes a national board exam.  I love being a social worker but I know that many people have no idea what that means.

In effort to be taking seriously I think that someone who is a social worker may try to make sure people know they aren’t a caseworker.   A person might say they are a therapist rather than a social worker.  (Though for some of us using the word therapist rather than social worker is a much harder transition.)  I get where that desire to differentiate comes from.  I know I can get frustrated when helping someone with transportation at my dialysis job and someone says “that’s what social workers do, they enjoy it.”  (Yes, that has been said to me.  More than once!  I don’t actually enjoy it.)  The thing is that finding transportation is vital for a dialysis patient because they need to get to dialysis in order to keep living.  (Side note:  If you are ever looking for a volunteer activity or to help someone – consider driving a dialysis patient to and from treatment.) Even though it is vital, I think “I have so many more skills than this.”  I feel guilty thinking that though because part of social work is helping people overcome barriers.

I think it must be about finding some balance.  I enjoy the clinical aspects of therapy but my world is consistent with being a social worker.  I believe there is some need for encouraging social justice.  I believe that are concerns and problems are not just internal but are often a result of larger systems from our relationships, to our families, to our neighborhood, cities, cultures, spiritual system or anything that we are part of a larger structure.  I guess I’ll be both a social worker and a therapist and continue working on better integrating them into one identity.  Just my random thoughts.

Totally Random Friday Fun

Random Activity for today…

Need to procrastinate?  Want to stimulate your mind? 

I learned some new words today and used them in sentences below.

I can say without any hesitation I do not suffer from Porphyrophobia.  It is one of my favorite colors.

I have a favorite story on the internet that used the word Ubiquitous.  Now I know what it means.

I wish I was a Deipnosophist but a lot of times I just seem like I’m rambling.



Fridays and Words are almost always
good reasons to smile.



Now you have something to do and most likely you can learn something.  Go to dictionary.com or other internet place and look up the words you don’t know. 

You’re welcome.



You are enough!

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Christopher Robin to Pooh

I have this quote in my office.  More than once someone has told me they read it and remembered they were stronger than they sometimes think.  Don’t sell yourself short.   This isn’t about enduring obstacles.  This is about achieving potential.  This is about jumping in with both feet.  

This is about soaring.  You are more.

Totally random post…

Robert Frost’s Poem:  Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171621

I have always absolutely loved the last stanza of this poem.  I have actually thought that if I would ever get a quote tattooed on me (which I’m guessing I never will) it would be the lines “…But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”

Sometimes there are just sayings or lines in songs that touch something in us – even if no one else gets it.  The things that resonate us tells a lot about a person.  I’m not always sure what.

Grab on to those things that resonate with you.  They are who you are.

See.  Totally random.