Sunday, April 26, 2009

Exit strategy


So today, as well as the last 4 days, I have been sitting at home on my rump in front of a computer screen preparing for exit. I couldn't be more bored with my life and could not be more insecure about exit. I have gone over and over these questions and tried my best to remember every blasted detail of my client and still, I feel like I will go into the room and they will laugh me out of there and take graduation away from me. What is wrong with me? Why do I think like this? Why do I doubt my own abilities and mostly my own progress in the program. I feel so insecure today that I can barely stand to be with myself.

I just wish I had any faith at all in what is going to happen in that room. I feel like I will present my client to the best of my ability and they will spend the next 48-50 minutes shaking their heads, rolling their eyes, and wondering what you do when someone has spent 3 years in the program, been named commencement speaker, and now you have to fail their sorry behind! Why can't I just be remotely calm and confident about this?

I have noticed through this process that I have some pretty drastic core beliefs about myself. Core beliefs are things you figure out using Cognitive Behavioral therapy where you finish the sentences of...

I am ______________.

People are ______________.

The World is _______________.

So my answers, after about 5 years of therapy, are still pretty distorted. Mine are:

I am unworthy.
I am a fake.
I am stupid.

People are always looking to hurt me.
People are judgmental.
People are scary.

The World is F'd up.
The World is unfair.
The World is always looking to attack me.

I think that it is pretty sad that I have worked hard in my program and in my own therapy and those are still thoughts that plague me from my past. I am sad for myself today and maybe having a bit of a pity party but you know what I like about my blog, it doesn't mind!!!

Say a prayer for Exit on Tuesday at 1:30 Pacific time if you think about it. :)

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Deeper



Lately I have had such huge growth in my personal life that I have been craving going deeper with Jesus. I have been a Christian for many years, 13 years to be exact. My relationship with him has been all over the place through grad school and through some personal trauma. Tonight in class we were learning about the correlation between Psychology and Theology and it was a breath of fresh air and really caused me to feel hungry for Jesus.

I am craving time in prayer, my word, fasting, discipleship, church, etc... It has been somewhat of a 3 year "dry" spell. I have been in relationship the whole time but something in me has really felt lost in where God was in this plan for my life. I desire to help people because of HIS love and HIS healing of my heart but something was not quite connecting. As I sat in class tonight, I began to tear up and feel strongly this hunger and pain of desire. It will be interesting to see where God takes me now.

Next step, learn Spanish


I will be honest, I am somewhat frustrated by the amount of Spanish that is spoken in my direct environment. For example, when I order lunch at a place and they get my order wrong because the menu is in English and they don't understand what you are ordering but I also am fairly tolerant when it comes to other situations like when people need mental health care services. In saying that, I have decided to make myself more marketable and to be available to help people who really might need the services by learning Spanish.

I have no idea what I was thinking in high school, (except that I was from rural Indiana and NO ONE really spoke Spanish) but I took several years of French as my foreign language. Now, here I sit living in Anaheim and man can I order a ham and cheese in French but I can't really get along in the world of Spanish. I was looking online today on jobs that are listed online for therapists and sure enough, almost 50% of them required someone bilingual in Spanish. This kind of scares me to be honest. Although I believe I can certainly learn Spanish but will I ever feel proficient enough to conduct psychotherapy sessions in Spanish, I am not sure.

I am going to start learning after I PASS exit and we'll see how it goes. If anyone is proficient in Spanish and is willing to help me learn, let me know! :)

Excited for the future


The future is exciting to me today. I graduate with my Masters in 3 and 1/2 weeks and there are so many things that are uncertain right now. I wonder about so much and yet there is an excitement in me that I can't contain. A few things I am excited about...

-- I wonder when I will get pregnant and if I don't, who my adopted child will be

-- If I CAN have children, I wonder what they will look like and be like

-- I wonder where I will work

-- What population will I be doing therapy with?

-- Where will we travel to next?

-- What will happen in Anthony's job and dreams?

-- What will my new nephew be like and how often will I get to see him?

-- What will Britt's baby look like and will it be like Britt and myself?

-- Who from the program will I stay in touch with and be friends with for a long time?

-- Will I still live in California?

-- What will my friend's lives be like in a few years?

-- What is it that God really wants to do in my life?

-- What is going to happen with my weight loss trek?

-- How am I going to incorporate my passions for therapy, scrapbooking, music, fitness, nutrition, and dancing to make my life fully fulfilling?

I think that is just a splash of the questions and excitement I have about being done with school and looking forward to my life. I am excited aobut my career, passions, life, family, and marriage so much right now.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Speaking...what that means to me


A few weeks ago I was given the honor of a lifetime for me. I was asked to speak at our hooding ceremony when our class is hooded for our Masters Degrees. That is such an honor for a couple of reasons. First of all, because my class is full of great people who have worked really hard and are excellent therapists and so to represent them as a class is such a great thing. The second reason is due to my own personal pain and growth through this program and how hard I worked to stay in it and focused when my world was crashing down.

For the first time in my life, upon achieving something great, I finally feel like I deserve it. I feel like to have me speak at this ceremony is deserved and is an honor and I will not shoot holes in it for myself but celebrate every single moment of this journey. I will be speaking on May 7th and I have "written" my speech in a sense and feel really ready to deliver what I believe God wants me to say. I am so excited and feel so happy about this achievement and for once, it can't be stolen.

I am 4 weeks away from Graduation and in the homestretch of all of my assignments and projects so keep me in your prayers over the next couple of weeks as everything comes to a close. :)

Getting to know me, Question #4



I would describe each of my brothers, sisters, or cousins when we were young this way:

Hilliary: The thing that I remember most about my oldest sister is that she was way into music. She had so much music and posters on her wall that it was hilarious. She would listen to her music so loud and my mom was always sick of it. She would play one song over and over and make you hate that song. She was pretty much to herself and always a little bit angry. I am sure that it came from a lot of painful things as a kid but also from her love of angry hair bands. :) I wanted to be just like her and wear my hair with tons of hairspray in my awesome perm and tight roll my jeans. She was my hero for so many years.

Tasha: I do not really have a whole lot of memories about Tasha since she grew up with my dad and step-mom. I remember she was really cute and had little glasses when she was little and when she came over to play we had tons of fun!

Brittany: Britt was an absolute handful, wait...was? She is a total handful. She always had something funny to say or do and often believed she was someone or something else like a ninja turtle or power ranger. She loved wrestling and was way more of a tom-boy than the rest of us. She was so cute with her blonde hair and blue eyes and you would find it hard to find cuter. I can't believe she is going to be a mama soon! She was very devious as a kid and really liked to use foul language that she had learned either around the house or from tv. This caused her problems once school started! :)

Matt: My cousin Matt is my Aunt Gale's oldest child and he was really kind of a loner when we were growing up because he was the only male grandchild which was probably hard for him. He was really into Star Trek and Star Wars and all things science fiction. Mostly he was just really quiet and played by himself. He and Hilliary are only a couple of weeks apart in age.

Amanda:Amanda has always had a ton of energy. She is my Aunt Gale's youngest and she has always been very young at heart. She always knew how to have fun. I remember her being really into Barbies and dolls in general. She was very spunky and fun to be around and really hasn't changed much if you know her!