Learning

After a month off, I started back at ASU last week.  I was not very excited to start back up.  You know how when you're experiencing something, it is hard to understand how you feel about it, or how it is affecting you until you get outside of the experience and take a step back?  Well once finals were over, I was so relieved to have a break,and while living a few "normal" weeks without school, I realized how stressful it is to be in school. 

The fist semester of my Master of Counseling (MC) program, we didn't learn much about how to be a counselor.  We learned 5,000 things we could get sued for. We learned psychological theories from Psychoanalytical to Post-modern. We learned how to analyze results from a study and make sense out of the numbers and stats.  We learned about psychological disorders.  We learned about prevention and consultation.  All good things to know, but none of them tell me how to counsel someone who is coming to me looking for help. 

This semester, I had to drag myself to my first week of classes because I didn't want to be immersed in busy-ness and stress again.  But I was pleasantly surprised when I attended each class.  First of all, I have 4 classes instead of 5, which is a great change in and of itself.  Secondly, all my classes involve application of knowledge.  Not just the book stuff--memorizing court cases and stats formulas, but real stuff that we can use in counseling, and in our every day lives. 

In Psychological Testing, we are taking 6 different Psych tests, and our main paper is doing an analysis of ourselves based on the test results.  Fun, huh?  I can't wait to learn about myself, to see what the tests are like, and to figure out how to apply test results to a real person.  In Pre-Practicum, we are learning "helping skills" and will do three mock counseling sessions with another student, where we will practice counseling, and we'll be videotaped.  Then we have to transcribe the videotape, and for every thing we say, we have to label what helping skill we were using.  Hands on!  Real stuff!!  In Career counseling, we are also taking tests and practicing counseling.  In Group Counseling, we were broken up into groups, and we have 2 group facilitators that will hold group therapy with us each week for the 2nd half of class.  We'll be doing some psychoeducational sessions (learning mindfulness and how to cope with stress) and some psychoanalytical sessions where we delve into personal issues.  Again, useful, applicable knowledge.  I can't wait to learn all this stuff!  I am so excited to experience group therapy and to practice counseling, and to do all this stuff!

So now I am happy to be back in school.  And I am determined not to stress about grades.  I do not need to get a 4.0 GPA--I don't know why I put that pressure on myself!  It doesn't matter.  So I am going to try really hard not to worry so much about the tests and projects.  I am learning that stress is part of life, but you can either dwell on it and wallow in it, or you can acknowledge it and choose to be happy despite it.   I may need reminding of this in a few weeks, but for now, I'm going to try really hard to enjoy school and friends and family and choose not to be stressed out.   Life is good, if we can choose to let it be good.