We seem to be spending a lot of time at the Halloween store. We can't wait for the all the fun of the spooky season!

Vista Elementary

This month I pulled Bella from Sunset Elementary and put her in Vista School, which is a charter school for elementary students. She, along with cousins Devin & Savannah, is enjoying the experience there much more than at Sunset. She gets to have dance class, computer class, musical theater, art, choir, and 2 other classes 2-3 times per week. This is handy for me, because I've had Bella in dance class on an extracurricular level since she was 3. This is a much more affordable way for her to have the chance to learn dance.

El Salvador

What can I say about El Salvador? I can say that going there gives me an immense appreciation to live in the US.

When we first got to El Salvador, we went to a shopping center. It was weird to see a large amount of people wearing soccer jerseys that were royal blue. We later learned that the national Salvadorian soccer team was going to be playing an international game that night. The soccer tournament was on TV that night. Our apartment had 16 units in it. Across from us there was another apartment building, housing another 16 units. Many of the houses had the soccer game blaring. The Salvadorian team scored 2 goals that night. The reason that I know that is that when a goal was made, the surrounding game-watchers in our neighborhood roared! Horns were honking, fireworks were booming, people were hollering.... It was actually really fun to hear. I loved the patriotism that the soccer game seemed to provoke. It got me thinking about how we don't really have a national sport in which most everyone get involved and how cool it would be to have something like that.

Tonight I was kind of frustrated for a couple of reasons. I am frustrated that people tell me that it doesn't matter if your an LCSW, LPC, or a LMFT it's all pretty much the same. I feel confused because I talked to the head of one of the youth facilities, who told me that I will be able to do much more in this community with an LCSW. However, I have a negative stigma about social workers, and what was said in class today about social workers doing more with administration just solidified that for me. I'm not interested in administration, I'm interested in personal growth and well-being for myself and anyone else who'd like to join me. I really want to teach classes (seminars) about parenting, inner sentences, group therapy, individual therapy.... It's just that the limitations with staying here and trying to get a degree are not optimal.

It was also strange to me to talk about termination today, because I've never officially terminated my relationship with my therapist, though I haven't seen him in about 8 months, and before that it was more than 6 months. He told me 8 months ago that he had to go to his storage to get out my file. I thought that was cool that it sounded like he thought I was done, too. I don't know what to make of the fact that we haven't officially terminated.

I started my motivation assignment. I did notice that I use have to and need to in regards to work and responsibilities of being a mom. I talked to my employee about it. We’re both still a little confused on how work is not a need. It’s also interesting to hear those extrinsic phrases when other people say them. I’m amazed how often they’re used. I hear 'I need', 'I have to', 'I should' a lot in society. It’s been useful for me to take responsibility for my actions by taking the choice and want phrases in. I find it a bit freeing to be more mindful of using words like 'I choose to', 'I want to', 'I'd like to', 'I'm willing to'. I'm excited to continue this process.

It was interesting for me to see that my issues with religion are still coming up in the group settings. It came up for me on many occasions in my other group experiences. I was thinking about it a lot over the rest of Monday night and throughout the day on Tuesday. I think what comes up for me is that I’ve never been able to fit that cookie cutter LDS stereotype that is somewhat encouraged in the LDS society. As a teenager, I felt like I made some great decisions and that I would be “blessed” for following the doctrine I bought into. When I feel triggered in a group setting about religion, it often comes up for me when I sense negative energy towards my beliefs. What I think I need in regards to religious views is mutual respect for my choices to believe in the LDS church. I feel disrespected and labeled when people slam the church. I can think to myself, “How do I know if they are really being negative towards the church?” I’m putting my perspective on what they’re thinking. I guess I really wanted to believe that I could be that cookie cutter LDS woman, but through life experience I’ve been awaken to reality and that sometimes that stereotype absolutely doesn’t fit. I’m just not sure why I choose to personalize when people bring up religion? It’s possible that I’m playing out my inner sentence when I feel triggered during group about that subject.

What could I work on in group? What specific goal would I want to work on? I would like to work on my harsh tone & my empathy levels. I've had feedback from my sister, Steffanie, my employee, Ali, and from other various sources that I have a "tone" that is maladaptive. I'm not sure what I can do in a group setting to work on this, but I think it would be beneficial since it hasn't gone away after these many years. I get it when I start getting irritated or frustrated or basically can't get things to go "right".

Last night was a bit uncomfortable for me in my psychotherapy class. I volunteered to have a mini-individual therapy session. I felt awkward and silly. However, it was probably useful for the fact that I realized that I still occasionally slip into that old inner sentence of sacrificing to be of worth. I found that as I'm about to go move into an apartment and rent out my house I'm feeling like I'm sacrificing my house and everything that I've worked so hard for. I thought it was cool that with my body language I was doing a downward scooping to say that I was downgrading, but that when I scooped down I aslo scooped back up a little bit. Thank you to Sheryl for picking that out! I guess it's a pattern I go through in life. I get in a sad situation for a while, but then I pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again. I'm like a pheonix yet again in my life experience. This will be cool to see as it progresses.

Things that bring me joy or that give me hope: The things I enjoy would be going to the park with my daughter, dancing with my husband, vacations, dancing in general, discovering new music that touched my soul. I have toyed with the idea of opening a dance club here in St. George once my business sells. I think it would be awesome to be involved in the 2 things I’m most passionate about…dancing and music. I go dancing with Gusevery time we go to a bigger city. We will also be starting ballroom dancing lessons next month! How fantastic is that? It’s really useful to be in touch with the things that refuel myself. I get burnt out if I'm not taking care of myself through these types of enjoyment activities.

My current goals: I’d like to have my master’s degree, sell my business, buy a better home, sell my current home, & start a career that’s in my field. However I have one scary word: Economy. All of these things give me some anxiety. The economy issue has really done a number on my well-being. I’m working on some stress reduction techniques that will hopefully be useful for things I cannot change, so hopefully I'll find some peace in all of this.

One problem I've had was which major to choose and what I wanted to do with myself as a career. Internally, I felt like I was being churned up. I had a hard time finding congruence. It didn’t help that I really wasn’t in tune with who I really was back then, 10 years ago, either. Another problem I had is my x-husband that was cheating on me. That was extremely difficult to face. It was difficult to find congruence then, too. Mostly because I always told myself that if that ever happened to me, it would be the end of my marriage. I was determined not to get divorced. I fought my inner sentences that kept saying, “You can get this right” and “You can make this work”. Another problem I’ve had is trying to find where I belong in church. I’ve felt on the outside, like a disease. It was hard to feel like I belonged with the people in my religion, who promote eternal marriage and I trashed my eternal marriage. The pattern that I see is this sentence that says, “If I sacrifice enough, I will be of worth.” That was my old sentence, which still flares up now and then. My new sentence that I work hard to run with is, “I am.”

I enjoyed learning about characteristics of effective counselors. I think that being an effective counselor definately has to pull out a full length mirror & check out some of his/her own stuff. After talking about the code of ethics, I called my sister and talked to her about the things my therapist does/doesn't do. It was interesting to get more information on his personal techniques.

After class today, I've found that there are many avenues to counseling that I might pursue. SUU will be offering a course in fall of 2010 that might work for me, but they're only going go have about 15-20 people in the program; and that's hoping that the program can be passed through and accepted. There's a possibility with this economy that budget cuts might impede the program from developing. I'm not real interested in Social Work. I don't know if LCP is what I'm really interested in either. I really love what Steve does in his career and would really love to pattern my work after his.

I'm taking this intro to psychotherapy class, tonight was the first night. I talked to Sheryl Poole and to a couple of other people in other classes and have gotten their opinions on high school counseling. From what I've heard about it, I'm afraid I will feel disappointed in the lack of meaningfulness in high school counseling. I want to make impact in my career, and I'm afraid that counseling teens on what high school classes that they need to graduate and what colleges want to see might not give me the satisfaction and the depth that I'm looking for.