Being Proactive

I got a lot done today!

I also forgot a couple of times what day of the week it is.

Heh.

It is not often that I have the luxury of forgetting what day of the week it is, but I did today.

It was sort of nice to just do the next thing in front of me and let go of the results.

Life goes pretty smooth when I do that.

I am happy to report I got up and went to yoga.

Two days in a row!

And despite having the next few days “free” in the mornings, I won’t make another yoga class until Thursday or possibly Friday.

The classes available don’t quite fit my schedule.

A schedule that does have a few time slots of delicious opening, but that I have made some time to see friends and do lunches, grab coffees, catch up and connect.

I’d rather connect with friends right now than worry about making another yoga class appear in my schedule.

Suffice to say.

I am glad I went though, it felt good and I felt good for going.

I also did meet with a lady today and do the deal and I got a lot of work done to apply for the paid internship that I have been researching.

Namely.

I updated my resume for the position and I reached out to two supervisors to write me letters of recommendation.

Both gave me a resounding yes they would be happy to do so.

That felt really good.

I’m about half way done with what the application requires for the internship.

There’s a lot they want to see.

The rest of it is a matter of sitting down and doing some writing and figuring out a mission statement for myself and my vision of a private practice.

Fortunately, in my last semester one of my classes, Integrative Seminar, made a big point about this and I feel like all I have to do is go back through the notes I took to be able to give the internship what it’s looking for.

I also have to do a business plan.

That feels a little more challenging, but they have some templates and I’ve been reading over everything and I believe I can come up with something that will do the job.

It is certainly good practice no matter what comes of it.

I do feel good about the internship though, my friend whom I spoke to about it really felt that I would be a good fit and after speaking with her, I feel the same.

I also have to acknowledge that in the 8 days since I found out the internship that I thought I would have had fallen through I have done a lot of footwork to find a new one.

I have researched and reached out.

I had a coffee date to sit with my friend and find out if it was a good fit for me.

I reached out to two supervisors for letters of recommendation.

I also reached out to the woman who I was going to intern with and asked her if she still had any interest in renting out office space to me.

I don’t know that it makes sense for me to rent my own office.

In fact.

I don’t think that I could afford it.

Hell.

When I look at what’s available on craigslist as I navigate through my current living situation, I can’t afford what’s out there to rent, let alone a full-time office space.

The best bet for me is to do what my friend does, she shares the office she works out of with another therapist.  She’s in her office two days a week with clients, the other five days the licensed MFT is using it.

I figure that the woman who was going to supervise me does have office space availability, I mean she did when we talked and unless something has changed she probably still does.

Thus the email inquiry.

I also asked if she might still want to supervise me, but under the auspices of the internship who would pay her the rent on the office and pay her a fee for supervision and then the internship with take out admin fees from my account and whatever is left over would be my paycheck.

It will probably take some months before I even get money, but if I do it right and I work at it in a steady way, I could be making a decent amount after about half a year.

Not enough to quit being a nanny, not by far, but enough to help pay the bills and maybe go down to part-time nannying instead of full-time.

Of course.

I also have my school program coming up to contend with.

I have been thinking it will be much like my Masters degree the last year of it, working pretty much full-time as a nanny for my current family, seeing clients after work, and then doing my homework on the weekends.

I will slowly accrue hours.

And that will be alright.

As long as I’m not stagnating.

It’s work, but work towards an end goal.

And I really like being a therapist.

It feels good and right and it feels like this is how I bring more love into the world.

I saw the Mister Rogers movie, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” today with my person.

It was so good.

I was so happy he persuaded me to put aside our recovery work for an afternoon and just go duck into a movie theater and watch an amazing movie.

If you haven’t seen it, go!

It was astounding.

And I grew up watching Mister Rogers, so it felt especially poignant.

I also appreciated it and the principles of spirituality, basic child psychology, inclusion, and love that he was obviously basing his life work around.

It was a beautiful movie and I left feeling hopeful and happy that as things progress it’s all going to work out.

I just have to keep love in my heart and be honest in my person.

I have faith I can do that.

I really do.

One More Thing

Gotten.

I picked up my third practicum review from the supervisor at my site.

All fives, the best one could score, and two “fours.”

To tell you the truth I wasn’t expecting anything less.

My supervisor has pretty much given me the same score from the beginning.

I’ve not had any interactions with him, he’s not discussed my progress, and this time I had even fewer notes about my abilities than before.

It’s not a problem.

And it is.

I’m not getting the kind of training I feel that I need to really become the kind of therapist I want to be.

I am a good therapist.

I can say that without qualms and I will become better with the more clients I see and the more experience I get.

But.

I’m not being trained at this site, there’s really no theory being used except take what you like and leave the rest, which is good, up until a point.

I was talking with my therapist about this today and what it was like to work with my other supervisor who was amazing and taught me so much that I am still in awe of the experience and I realize, already missing him.

He was hard to show up for because I had expectations about myself and wanted to show him that I was capable and smart and good.

He got all that and he reflected back honestly where I needed work, where I needed boundaries, where I was doing well, where I could grow and how I could do that.

My current supervisor does not do that and I had the feeling today when I picked up my evaluation that I won’t be there all that much longer.

Oh.

For a little while yet.

Or maybe with fewer clients.

I just sense that I need to be getting more and I’m going with that gut feeling and I’m going to start actively looking for a private practice internship.

There are somethings I need to do, get on the list serve at CIIS and look for supervisors taking on interns.

Reach out to people I am interested in working with.

The professor I reached out to last night got back to me and let me know that she was not taking any interns at the moment, but were she I would be at the top of her list.

She also said that she would forward my name on as an intern to any supervisors she thought would be a good fit.

She encouraged me to look into private practice internship and gave me the impression that I was indeed on the right track doing so.

My therapist said the same thing, she felt that it wold best serve me and gave me some resources.

I am excited.

I am in a place of transition and I am completely ok with the clients I have now and the schedule I have, but I realize I could be better served, learn more and have better guidance elsewhere.

I am so grateful for my practicum site for all the flexibility it has and for the wide range of clients I have gotten to see, the diversity of cases has been awesome.

I also appreciate that I don’t have to do a lot of paper work, that’s been pretty big, I just am recognizing that there is more and that I feel confident at this point exploring my options when I am well situated where I am.

I don’t have to leave, I can explore and take my time and find a good fit.

I just need to look about and ask questions and see who may be available.

I have two other former professors I would love to work with and I think  I will reach out to both of them.

There.

Just reached out to one.

Excuse me while I draft another quick e-mail to the other.

And done.

That felt good.

Very proactive.

And that’s what I have to do.

Take little actions and see what happens.

What my therapist remarked on today is that I don’t sound anxious.

And I’m not!

I’m excited.

I feel like I am moving forward in a positive way and although I don’t know the exact direction I’m going or what door to go through next, I feel like things are unfolding.

And really.

All I have to focus on is what I need to do next to get all my paperwork into school.

This Saturday I will have my group supervisor sign my paperwork.

I will be taking all those signatures and the evaluation to school with me the next weekend of classes.

I will hand them over and find out what I have to do next.

I will need to get my therapist to sign off on my year of therapy, which we discussed today as well, and she’s all set to go.

In fact, now that I think of it, I might as well bring that paperwork into our next session.

Then I can have the last evaluation, the signed forms from each supervisor, and my therapy sessions covered and done.

I’m sure there’s some little bit of paperwork that will still need to get sussed out, but I feel very confident that it will.

Very confident.