Thursday, May 19, 2011

Balance

Yesterday, I listened to the new The Music Therapy Show with Janice Harris podcast, which was about balance between work and life. This morning, I saw a quick news report about Millennials in the workplace. A stat they posted during the story was that 34% of young people entering the job force stated that work-life balance is the top priority in choosing a new job. This seems to be a sign that I should follow suit and cover this topic myself.

First off, I feel I should define the word "Millennials." Millennials are the new generation that is just starting to enter the workforce. Millennials come after Generation X (starting around 1986 or so). As a Millennial myself, I feel I can give some insight into this age range. The following statement are generalities and may not be true for everyone, but seem to be a trend. For our whole lives, we've been told we're the best at everything. We have been termed the "Trophy Children" because every little achievement is celebrated. Because of this, we may have been coddled too much and may feel a sense of entitlement when we enter the work place (Heaven knows, I've been guilty of this). We are hard workers, though, and when given the right environment, we can thrive and be quite productive. If you want to read a little more on this new generation, find a copy of The M-Factor: How Millennials are Rocking the Workplace by Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman.

This idea of work-life balance seems to be a trend not being adapted only by Millennials, but by others. Self-care can be so important, especially in care giving roles, such as music therapists, nurses, social workers, etc. We seem to want to be a bottomless well of support and assistance, but eventually, we need to take care of ourselves. I've heard of several studies that show a correlation between burnout and poor self-care/coping strategies. If we want to keep doing our job effectively (and enjoy what we do), we need to refill our wells.

I realized pretty early on that I needed to refill, so here are some things I do to take care of myself. The first (and probably biggest thing I did), was change my schedule. I now work 4 10-hour days. I can see more people in one area, which helps me feel more effective, and cuts a day of travel out of the week. This also gives me one floating "mental health"/"domestic duties" day, where I can relax a little bit (right now, I'm sitting in my favorite local coffee shop) and take care of the things around the house that I feel to tired to do after a day of work. Usually, I feel this way regardless of whether I work 8 or 10 hours. Needless to say, my wife appreciates the work I can do at home on my day off. Usually, I take off Fridays, but I like to change it up.

As I discussed in my 4 P's of Coping with Windshield Time post, I do a lot of self-care in the car. It's important for me to process, especially. When I'm aware of my emotions and how they affect the clients I see, I can deal with them effectively. It's like treating the illness instead of the symptoms. I can deal with what causes my emotions instead of simply ignoring my emotions and pretending that other people can't see them.

The last thing I'll write about is taking time to do things you enjoy. I try to go for a run at least 3 times a week (not always fun while I'm doing it, but I feel better afterward). When I get a little spare time on a Saturday morning, I like to play my old Nintendo 64 (and laugh at how poor the picture quality is versus modern systems). Reading books, especially my Bible, are also something I try to make time for.

What are some things you do to balance your work and life?

Friday, May 13, 2011

Being Bold

Disclaimer: It was pointed out to me that this post sounds like it might be in competition with my current job. In no way do I desire to leave my current job. This post is my attempt to encourage advocacy through sharing one instance where I have advocated for my profession. 

Today, I met with someone about doing music therapy at the local hospital on my day off. I work 4 10-hour days to cut down on driving time and I thought, "Hey! I've got a day off, I might as well use it to get some more experience." So, a few weeks ago, I called up the manager of the pediatric center and told her about what I'd like to talk with her about. This is me being bold. It may not seem like it to some of you extroverts, but I did something which was contrary to my typical personality. First of all, I made the initiative to make the call. Second of all, it was a cold call. We had never spoken before. Lastly, I asserted myself as someone who can help provide a specialized service. It was hard for me to essentially say, "I would like to help make your services better." It's usually easy for me to downplay myself, but I couldn't do that this time. If I wanted to be taken seriously, I knew I needed to take myself seriously (another bold move on my part).

To my surprise, the manager was not only interested, but said she'd like to meet with me ASAP. When we were done talking, I called up her secretary and scheduled our meeting. Then I began researching, reading, and freaking out slightly.

The meeting was today. We met over coffee and it was a meeting genuinely filled with excitement and ideas. It turned out that she has much bigger plans than I initially thought (this time she was bold). I came in with the idea of just working with the pediatric and birthing centers. She was thinking bigger. We started talking about how music therapy can be more than a "treatment" for patients, but can create a supportive culture in the work place and even be preventative medicine on many levels. We discussed how music therapy can compliment medicinal pain treatments and, sometimes, keep medicines from needing to be used. As the meeting progressed, we became more and more excited.

We parted after about an hour with a follow-up visit in the works. She wants my resume, scope of practice, a job description, and access to some research articles. I left the meeting feeling very empowered and optimistic. I'm not going to quit my "day job" (not that I want to, anyway), but I feel that big things might be in the works. And it all came about because I decided to be bold, call someone I didn't know, and tell them I want to help.

If I can be bold, anybody can. I'm not an extrovert. I'm not overly sure about myself most times. I'm not entirely sure why I called, but I did and, if nothing else, I helped make someone else excited about music therapy. We'll see what happens from here on out.

If you have the time, post a comment about a time when you were bold (be it with music therapy or life in general) and how it worked out.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Memorials

As the end of May grows closer, I notice my schedule being inundated with a kind of appointment that usually shows up in force one time a year. Yes, my friends, memorial services are being planned and people want us, as music therapists, to provide the music for the event. I don't mind, really, because I believe my job is not to support only the clients in the time leading up to death, but also the clients' families and friends during and after the death. In nursing homes, where I have a lot of clients, people make friends, but the friends can rarely attend the funeral of someone if it means traveling outside the facility. Even if their physical mobility and mental status allow them to attend, they need to find someone to bring them, because most residents do not have a driver's license any more. The facility rarely has enough people working on a shift to spare some to make this trip and the families of residents often have their own lives that are dictating where to be and when to be there. This leaves the friends of clients at the facility, unable to have the closure and ritual celebration of life that often comes with a funeral.

As I'm working with activity coordinators in facilities, I often hear that people want a song or two that are simply reflective and will only be sung by the music therapist. This is understandable. Sometimes that songs that seem to connect to the level of grief of the residents are not songs that are well known. I always try to choose songs that express a level of grief and, when I do more than one, to connect to different levels of grief.

Throughout the year, I try to listen for songs that may be useful in my work with hospice, especially memorial services. I decided I would post a couple songs on this blog that may be useful to others that I feel are fitting memorial songs that people may not know very well, or know at all. When people don't know a song at all, I find, they listen to the words more closely, so the words may be that much more powerful.

Here are three songs I plan on doing at one memorial service. I may post some more as I see them. 

Oh, My Brother - Eddie From Ohio (album: I Rode Fido Home)
    I couldn't find a youtube video for this song. Really great song about supporting each other through hard times. Also talks about saying goodbye, which would be a good talking point if you speak before or after songs. Even if your loved one isn't here to hear it, it's important to say goodbye.
http://www.last.fm/music/Eddie+From+Ohio/_/Oh+My+Brother

I Find Your Love - Beth Nielsen Chapman (album: Look)
     From a whole album written after her husband died. This album chronicles her journey of grief and is really beautiful. Any song from "Look" would make a great memorial service song. In my internship, they did two community memorial services each year and the one I worked on used only songs from Beth Nielsen Chapman

Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World - Israel Kamamawiwo'ole
     He was a big guy with a big heart. I really love his music. This video was made after he died and you can see them pouring his ashes into the ocean.