So it’s been like an entire month and I haven’t blogged, which I guess kinda shows how I’ve been doing lol. September was pretty rough mentally and I don’t think I could really point to the reason why. I don’t even know where to start to describe the headspace I’ve been in. Being in your 20s just kinda sucks, starting your career kinda sucks and everything is weird. I’ve begun teaching flute sectionals at both of the high schools near me and one middle school and it’s honestly as difficult as I expected. Starting anything new, understandably, makes me anxious about all of the small petty details (like how to sign into a school). On top of that, I’m finally starting a job that’s related to my college degrees. At the beginning I had big time imposter syndrome (obviously it still creeps in now, but I’ve been working through it more). I was worried I’d have nothing to say to these young flutists, or worse, I wouldn’t know how to say them. I can play flute and do a lot of advanced things with it, but putting that into words is super hard for me. And I was struggling, still am honestly. It wasn’t until I was talking with my therapist that I kinda realized a way to think about it that allows me to have grace towards myself.
I’m doing a specific kind of therapy called EMDR therapy, and the first part of that is identifying this big ultimate negative belief you have and want to change, then what to change that belief to and finally the memories or events that have anchored this negative belief in your brain. At least that’s my barney-style way of thinking about it. One of those memories for me, unsurprisingly, was my comp exam, which I talked about on here. We were working through it and it occurred to me that everyone is learning (duh). In that moment of my comp exam, I was still learning. When you’re learning you make mistakes and struggle. No one is going to think you’re stupid because you’re learning something. Everyone in that room was learning. I guess it was a way for me to see that those professors are just people too, not some scary entity that is judging who I am based on a stupid exam. This realization was part of what has made me feel better about what happened and is also helping now with imposter syndrome and flute teaching. Believe it or not, teaching is something you have to learn too. I learned to play flute and now I have to learn how to teach it. I might not explain things really great the first time or make any sense, but it’s through trying to actually teach that I’m going to learn how to teach things better. It kind of sucks, because learning to teach is something you’re basically doing in front of people who may or may not expect you to know what you’re doing. Learning flute was basically just me and my teacher. Learning to teach is me in front of 7 high schoolers. But just keeping in mind that I’m learning to teach right now is helping me be nicer to myself which is always good 🙂
Now, even though I’m starting to feel more comfortable about teaching, it doesn’t mean I’m in love with doing it. I do enjoy it a bit more now than the first day I started. It’s still really hard. I’m having to push through my anxiety and inner critic telling me that I’m not doing a good job, or whatever (that these high schoolers and middle schoolers are 1000000% judging me and think I’m lame). But it’s getting easier. The most helpful thing for me so far has just been planning and TONS of research. I plan out what I want to teach to each section of flutes I’m teaching based on what I think they could need- anywhere from my 6th graders making a sound to high schoolers learning double tonguing. I have been scouring the internet for ways to teach different things and how to make it fun as well. Then, embarrassingly, I’ll try to find some time before I go to teach to sit down and pretend to teach…aka I’m teaching a wall. But this kind of helps me put things into words without the pressure of eyes being on me. If it takes me a bit longer to figure out of to explain something, it’s fine because it’s just a wall. There’s also been a learning curve of how to deal with a group of students. Majority of the teaching I have done has been one on one in a private lesson. This is anywhere from 7-20 (yes TWENTY) flutes at once who are all at different points in their flute playing. I have to figure out how to aid everyone, while also not boring others. And just plain getting them to shush because they’re very talkative 🙂
As a fun? side note, my very first day of teaching sectionals to the schools, there was a bomb threat….so I’m in the middle of teaching and we all had to evacuate in the rain and got drenched. Then a ton of students, understandably went home, so the second sectional that day was just 2 flutists. My anxiety thought of many things that could have gone wrong that day, but not one of them was because of a threat lol. And yes, it was just a threat. Everyone is completely fine, it was just a precaution.
That is most of what I’ve been up to the past month. Struggling a lot as I do and teaching flute. I also have started nannying/babysitting a little 3 year old boy twice a week, which is honestly pretty fun. He’s a really great kid and lots easier than a lot of toddlers I’ve watched. I’ve been doing lots of painting, which is a lot of fun for me. Taking care of Piper (who apparently gets bad seasonal allergies now and gets allergy shots :'( ), as well as my parents and sibling’s dog giving them hair cuts and things. And of course, plenty of boba runs. I love the boba shop here that opened up so much.
Another big update! I got off my SSRI and started an ADHD medication. Half my immediate family has ADHD and I have a lot of symptoms as well, so I finally saw a doctor and she was super cool and is letting me try and see how they work. I’ve only had them for two days, but I think it’s going to be better. I’ve at least gotten so much more done these past two days than I probably have in the past couple months. I don’t really think it helps my anxiety a ton (though I have sent emails easier with them– usually sending emails makes me pretty anxious lol). But it has helped my motivation or ability to get up and do stuff, as well as my focus. Sometimes I’ll just be sitting and I’m like “oh? my brain is empty?” Weird stuff.
That’s all I’ve got for today as an update. I’m not making any promises, but hopefully I’ll be keeping up with the blog better 🙂
by juniparker
