Music and the Brain

Today the assistsant medical director of my hospital discovered I was the music therapist. He very much values music therapy and was sharing with me today about how he is collaborating with a professor in the conservatory of music at UMKC to teach a class with. Let me back up, our hospital is a teaching hospital and he is the Chair of the Department of Psychiatory at UMKC. So he trains lots of medical students. Well, he went on to say that next year he and this music faculty (a music composition professor, not music therapy) are going to have a class called Music and Medicine. He asked me if I would come and speak to the class. What?! For real?! Medical students, and me, talking about music and medicine? Scary.

Then I shared with him my thoughts on music and psychosis. (*See below, short explanation of what I e-mailed him upon his request). And he wants me to present at Grand Rounds. I told him I was just in the beginning stages of my ideas and really had not researched or learned much about it. He said I didn't have to worry, because it wouldn't be until next year anyway, because Grand Rounds is filled up through June. (Wait, just thought of this- I thought we were going to be privatized in July, so how can I do Grand Rounds in a year? Hmm, whatever).

So, I wonder what I will learn in a year. Is there anything out there to learn, or is this new stuff that hasn't even been researched? Either way, this is a great opportunity. Very scary, but still a great opportunity.

*In my 7 months here, I have run into a few patients that are excellent musicians and are high functioning enough to share that when they play the guitar their mind is free from racing thoughts and they feel calm. In a couple of lower functioning patients with psychosis, I am amazed at how delusional they are in a non-music setting, but how they engage in the music by singing and dancing, showing no response to internal stimuli. My challenge is wanting to figure out what is going on in the brain, and if/how I can facilitate live, therapeutic music interventions to reach functional outcomes. These are just my beginning thoughts, and I have hardly even begun to learn more and dig into the research and neurology of it

20 Years Younger

Yesterday someone at work was commented on how much weight I'd lost. She knew I had been losing, but was very dramatic when she saw me yesterday, saying that she almost didn't recognize me. Then she said that I looked 20 years younger. Seriously, twenty? Do I really look like I'm 3?

HAHA.

The Year 2018

I was typing the date today to generate the census report for the patients in the hospital when I accidentally wrote 2018.

Whoa. Two thousand eighteen is so far away.

Oh wait, it's only ten years.

Wow.

Will that be the only time I type 10/16/2018 to generate a census report, or will I be here in ten years on this date doing the same thing?

Those were the thoughts going through my head. At first I got excited about the thought of what I'd be doing in ten years, because it most likely would involve me being a mommy, which I so look forward to. Then the unknown soon hit me with fear. What will I be doing up until that ten years? Working here, at a different job, will I have gone to grad school, will I have my own little piano students or music therapy clients, will we live in a new house, a new town, will Thumper be old and have no energy left, will Chad's job still be bringing home the bacon? So many unkowns, and that's okay, because God is in control and these are not things I will have to worry about.

But you know what I can predict about myself in ten years? I will be 50 pounds lighter than I am right now. :)

Attention-Seeking Behavior

Tonight I was spending some quality time bettering myself as a music therapist and learning the song You've Got a Friend. Usually, my sweet Thumper dog follows me around wherever I go in the house, and tonight was no exception. When I first headed downstairs to the piano, he bounded down because he thought I was going to take him outside. When I didn't, he whined, then came and laid by my feet, or paced up and down the stairs, sometimes peeking at me while looking down (so cute when he does this). All while still whining, but I didn't want to get distracted by having to take him outside and then wipe his muddy paws off because it had rained today. So I ignored him. Well, next thing I know, here is my sweet dog, shredding tissues at my feet. He had gone into the bathroom to get tissues, which he loves to do but he knows he can't. Yet, he still brought it to my feet. I don't know if dogs have this amount of insight into their actions, but it seems that Thumper was doing everything he could to get my attention just so that I would let him have what he wanted and needed.

Why can't the vegetables that I need to eat come and bother me until I can't ignore them? Or the amount of water I need to drink? Or other things I need to be doing, like reading the Bible and spending time with God. I guess it wouldn't be as meaningful if it was all done for me.

Fear

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. ~2 Timonthy 1:7

I must confess, I fall into fear sometimes, which affects my actions. Typically, my personality isn't one to be timid or to let others take control. But let's say, maybe, just hypothetically, there might be a situation where someone is extremely volatile and could react very aggressively. So out of fear, I pull back, and placate the person, instead of being firm. But why do I do it? It's not like me to give into someone, to not let someone get away with something that's wrong. But, I was scared. So, in this hypothetical situation, I am grateful for others who are strong and stand firm. And I see that nothing actually happens. It was worse for me to not do anything, and the person actually did what was supposed to be done, in an appropriate way. And to think I was fearful of what might happen, so I was going to let the person get away with something, which does not help the person at all.

So, hopefully I will learn, next time, to not be fearful. Maybe the situation won't turn out so great, like it did, hypothetically, today. But I know that it's better to be strong than to be fearful and timid.

So I wonder what other situations and areas in my life I pull back from doing what I know is right, just because I'm scared. What about you?

Lessons Learned in Weight Loss

It has been apparent that God is using my weight and weight loss journey to draw me closer to Him. Here are a few lessons I've learned so far.

• I do not deserve it

o A vast majority of the time, I am amazed when I look at the scale each week and see it dropping. I am humbled and sometimes feel like I don’t deserve it, because I have never had a ‘perfect’ week, usually in how I have eaten. I could always have had better self-control or made better choices. Then sometimes I get mad about being rewarded for this negative behavior by the number on the scale dropping.

o But then I realized that the most loving thing God did for me was something that I did not deserve. All of my sins were washed away when God’s own son died on that cross, because of my sins, and to save me. That’s astonishing.

o 1 Peter 1:24- He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

o Romans 5:8- But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

• I am free

o I am NOT a slave to food. Even though I struggle at times, thinking that I must eat something, or searching to put something in my body even though I’m not hungry. But I’m free. The battle has already been won, and it’s not something I have to fight.

o Romans 6:6- For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

• I can only be satisfied by Jesus

o When I mindlessly eat or walk into the kitchen wanting to put food in my mouth, I will never come out satisfied. God has showed me that it is Him I desire, and I cannot be satisfied by the food. The following verse resonates most with me now, even though there are more relevant verses. You see, I LOVE sweets, that’s probably my biggest weakness. And it’s amazing how God uses something that is tangible to me, that I know I really like, and shows me that His words are sweeter than that.

o Psalm 119:103- How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

• My body is not mine

o 1 Corinthians 6:19-20- Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

• Overeating and eating foods that are not nutritious for me in excess is nothonoring to God. First of all, my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. God LIVES in me. Second of all, my body is not mine to do with as I please, and it is dishonoring to God to treat it like I have in the past.
  

Introduction

I thought I would never create an adult blog, or maybe not until I had kids at least. I've done xanga in the past, but sadly, the people there seem to be dwindling and so I wasn't motivated to keep that up. And I have my blog and page at blogtolose.com which is great. The community there is so encouraging. But I would rather keep those posts about my weight loss.

Also, I've never considered myself one to enjoy writing or journaling. It just takes too long and I'd rather talk to someone. Well, just recently I finally realized that by writing things down it really helps me to think things through and internalize my thoughts about what I have learned. This has happened at blogtolose and with e-mails to my dear friend in NYC.

So, given that I realized I like to blog/journal and I don't want to get incredibly personal on blogtolose, I decided to start a blog on blogspot. I'll probably duplicate my posts that I write on blogtolose, as well as include other thoughts and experiences going on in my life irrelevant to weight loss. It should be fun.