Thursday, June 22, 2006

Some Points...

Yes, for once, I am posting during the week. HA! Lately I have had to share my time with more activities than in the past.

I won't say "I'm busy," because we are only as "busy" as we allow ourselve to be. "I'm busy," is an excuse; if you want an excuse, use it. But I don't need an excuse.

I won't say "I don't have time," because last time I checked, we all have the same amount of time. I have 24-hours before I will hit my next calendar day, what do you have?

What I WILL say is that I have found myself with priorities right now that are coming before my blogging, and I have CHOSE for it to be that way. And right now, I am fine with it that way.

Let's face it, I'm at least still blogging weekly...it just happens that they are normally on the weekends though...HA!

Tonight I just want to put some points out there that I have thought about lately, or realizations that I have come to lately.
  • I have learned that what can make a working atmosphere unbelievably AMAZING is when you are working around people that are AMAZING. Sounds pretty obvious, but let me tell you: When you work with genuinely caring people the workplace setting is so welcoming. What is the icing on the cake is when this workplace setting is a setting you find yourself in as a learning experience. Let's say for example, an internship. Having genuinely caring people to work with in that situation can make the learning experience great! And to top it all off, these professionals you find yourself learning from are GREAT at what they do! Such a blessing!
  • Do you know what is one of the BEST words to hear out of a client's mouth when you are a beginning therapist is? "Exactly." For a beginning therapist who is trying to validate what a client is saying and/or feeling, hearing the client respond back with "exactly" is like winning the prize at the end of the race!
  • So far, therapy hardly tends to go "as planned" in the sessions...and you know what, that has been GREAT! HA!
  • I'm building a caseload of clients now and it is SOOO cool as I am real excited about my "regulars" so far! Such potential! Like it honestly brings a smile to my face thinking about them, and it brings an excitement to my mind thinking of the challenges we can work through together in our "partnership" (which is our counseling experience together).
  • Our overall supervisor at my internship has said this week that as she and the other therapists have talked about our group of interns they have this semester, they have all noted what a great group we are and how they can always tell when the interns are really interested in being good therapists. They said we all seem so interested and dedicated and seriuos about our learning experience there. Now that is just as encouraging to here as hearing the "exactly" from the client!
  • Can I tell you just how much BOTH of my internships have made me aware of how "quiet" I am when just beginning to work with new people. My goodness, you would think I was a different person for those of you that know my "talkative" self. But honestly, the more I think about it, I do not see it as I am "shy" because I don't MIND talking, it's just like I have a thing for taking everyone in first and "figuring" people out, so I know how to interact with them. I have a think for figuring peoples' personalities and taking as much in as I can before I start my part of the interaction. Part of me doesn't like this because I often feel that the impression that I am giving off to the others around me is not an impression that I want, but I still can't get myself to "warm-up" any quicker with people, even when I find myself frustrated with myself because of how "quiet" I come off at first. HA! HOWEVER, having said that, I CAN report that this week I have seen my "normal" self is coming around and I have begun to interact more and more in my typical ways with my co-workers. I like when that side of me is showing!
  • When working with the severely mentally ill I will say this, it is AMAZING how simply hearing a person talk can change a person's impression of an individual. When an individual who is mentally ill does not say a word, the uncertainity of the unknown can cause a state of fear, especially when the mentally ill individual is a rather large gentleman. However, the initial feeling of being "scared to death" of a person can be so quickly diminshed by simply hearing the individual speak, because the certianity that speech elicite can tell so much. For example, one can then get somewhat of a sense of how functioning they truly might be based on if their responsive speech made sense or not, or if it was an appropriate reponse. Let's just say I had this experience this week and now I don't find myself as fearful around that individual anymore...HA!
  • My last point is what has basically driven my ability to blog tonight (besides what was mentioned in my first "point"). Basically, I have found that I appreciate my internship so much right now because not only does it represent a place that I look forward to going to each and everytime because of the AMAZING people I work along side with there (including the staff and my fellow interns), but I also have greatly appreciated this internship because when I am there I find myself totally focused on my internship. I don't even think about my life outside of the internship typically. And honestly, I have found that to be such a blessing because many times I have found myself heading off to my internship in a bad mood, or just "down" because of frustrations or other stressors in life and then when I get there, I forget all about it, and typically when I am driving home, I am in a GREAT mood from having been there.

So what am I seeing so far this semester? That I really think my LONG aspiring education career dream of "counseling" truly is something that I think I will love and possibly end up being pretty good at. Well, I suppose we'll let my supervisors/clients decide that, but in the mean time I'm LOVING each minute of it!

One last thing that has been on my mind is a fun "list" of like a somewhat "Top Ten List" of funny things I have experienced with my internship thus far. I don't know that I'll end up with "10" of them, but right now I have two that I thought about the other day and I think they are pretty funny, so maybe I'll come up with that list and post it on here soon. I mean in all honesty, do you think I could be enjoying an internship so much if there wasn't SOMETHING fun and funny about it!? ;)

No comments: