The final five areas for committed action in February!

Before I start on my main topic, I will share this link to cartoonist Liza Donnelly talking about her work, and how it has been 'her saviour'. My favourite cartoon is the one where the child says: 'I'm staying together for the sake of my parents'. I meet a few children who do this in my work as a therapist. Its something I was pretty good at too, as a child.

A week ago I posted an update of my progress so far, with eight of the thirteen areas of change I identified at the start of this blog, Doing What Matters. I promised to address the other five areas in the near future, which I will do now.

Barbie's magic castle

Therapy

Therapy refers to my work as an art therapist, both as an art therapy (AT) educator, and as a therapist for an NGO working with children and families; mainly those who have experienced trauma and/or grief. Since I am already doing both these jobs, my aim is to keep improving my practice, and to extend my knowledge and skills as much as I can. The photo of the Barbie castle is one I chose for our program review at the end of last year, to reflect what I love about this work. I found the castle abandonded by the side of the road (from a garage sale) and this is part of its attraction. Open it up and all sorts of amazing things start to happen, or at least to become possible. (And I never had a Barbie when I was a girl).

On the teaching front, we are facing huge challenges at the moment in terms of developing our skills to cope with changes in teaching delivery, using electronic systems for example. I have been rewriting one of my courses for this year to include a reflective blog for students, to write about theoretical approaches to AT and their artwork responses. I am looking forward to seeing how this works in practice, and I am excited about it since it parallels what I am doing here to some extent. In fact, one of the reasons for starting this blog was to trial my ideas for my teaching practice.

In relation to being a therapist, I am trying to incorporate Acceptance and Commitment Therapy into my AT practice as much as possible. This seems to be particularly applicable to working with teenagers. Bringing in new approaches keeps me interested and hopefully improves my practice, and outcomes for clients.

Fruit bowl - I Phone photo 1

Home

On the home front, I am frustrated by the February heat and humidity, and it is at this time of the year that our decision not to have air-conditioning is most severely tested.  I am doing very minimal cleaning, organising or anything much that involves movement, unless I have to. Like August, the tail end of winter, February is when we are over the heat, and this summer in particular has been so destructive and wild, it hasn't been much fun at all. I have hardly even been to the beach.

But anyway, in relation to home, I am noticing how much I enjoy being home and doing things around the house. Often these are creative, such as making things for the home, or just for the fun of making. Preparing good food in the hot weather is challenging, so I am planning to make lots of salads in the next few weeks. On Friday night I made buckwheat and chicken salad, with avocado, mango,  pistachios and pomegranates, and I didn't even cook the chicken. (I bought a cooked chicken). We are eating fewer take-aways than we used to, and when the rest of the family had take-away the other night (curry, as usual) I didn't want to eat it, so I had a mushroom and spinach omlette.

I had fun with my i-Phone the other night, downloading some photo apps which make some instant effects possible. The fruit bowl is an example, using Hipstamatic. Here is another one of me, using crazy Photo Booth:

I Phone photo 2

lightning flash PFX Weather and I Phone



emotional growth

The image above, in which I added stormy weather effects to my photo, seems like a good one for emotions. Using the weather to describe our emotions can be really useful - weather is something external we are all affected by and it is more tangible in some ways than an emotional state. The weather is not something we can control - it just 'happens to us'. I have noticed less anxiety being around recently, and whilst this may change, I am enjoying it while I can. It may be to do with meditation, which I am managing to practice virtually every day. Sad feelings come up sometimes, and tend to stay around for a while. I am trying to stay with these feelings, and not distract myself - it doesn't usually work anyway.

I have also noticed myself laughing more often, which is a good outcome.

communication

The main area of communication is the blog, which (clearly) speaks for itself! I have had a chapter accepted for an e-book on Australian art therapy, which I submitted just before Christmas. In my own world, communication could always be improved. I am often torn between the need for open expression, and the need for order, and clear-headed decision making. Sometimes I wish I was more outspoken, sometimes less. Perhaps that makes for a happy medium, I'm not sure.

spirituality

This seems almost like an afterthought, which it probably shouldn't be. I haven't honestly given it a great deal of thought. Its a hard thing to think about, even harder to write about. I should do some artwork about it, and see if that helps.

more later.