I love mindfulness

I don't have strict plans to continue this occupation.  I'm mostly curious if I'm at a point where I'm intrinsically motivated to continue or whether I need strict external motivation like set practice times to continue.  I guess I'm going to experiment with that a bit and see where I lie.  I believe that it will be easy to continue over the summer when there is more time, but the challenge may lie more in next fall when things get very busy again.  

I'd like to evaluate the reasoning of the Mindfulness with Speech Therapy students presentation.  I clearly understood the purpose of the study, to evaluate whether mindfulness is an appropriate tool to counter burnout and boredom in students.  The question was stated and understood as such.  Similar studies were linked and related to other professions both in the school and in the professional environment.  The presenter was clear on the topics.  I could have used a little more elaboration on the five facets of mindfulness.  The presenter just provided one example of each, but this wasn't the focus of the study and time may have prohibited it.  I don't recall assumptions being presented with the data, such as other changes in lifestyle that could have also skewed the results.  The presenter, although faced with data that was not significant, did provide a clear line of reasoning for why the trends were worth noting.  I can't say with certainty that the presenter's point of view showed sensitivity to alternative points of view.  I think the point of the presentation was to show that mindfulness helps students avoid stress and burnout.  I don't think the presenter considered how other factors could have caused that.  Although, she did point out the small sample size.  i am not sure what the question regarding implications is asking.  So I can't confidently provide an opinion on whether the presenter showed a sensitivity to the implications and consequences of the position.  

I think the flow and mindfulness are very similar, though mindfulness in this study was just meditation. Mindfulness can be applied to any activity though.  They both states where one is very focused and the perception of time shifts.  

Also, I think mindfulness is very closely tied to motivation and autonomy.  I think mindfulness can increase a feeling of autonomy.  In mindfulness, one focuses on how one's perceptions and habits to external stimuli affect one's internal state.  You can feel more autonomous and in control of your life when you realize that you have the ability to change how your perceive the world.  Mindfulness can shift the lens from which you view the world and help you realize that you are the driver of your own experience. You have the ability to shift how you relate to the sufferings and hardships of life.  Life is hard.  But, with mindfulness, you can see the hardships in a completely different light and learn to appreciate them.  In this way, we feel like we have the choice to accept them and move forward with grace and strength, or fight them and continue with an internal struggle of sadness and self-pity.  It isn't to say that we ignore the emotion.  We allow the emotions deeply, but without judgement of their meaning or attachment of the emotion to our overall personality.  

In this sense, mindfulness affect's one self theories.  Mindfulness teaches us to accept an incremental self-theory, by teaching us to not judge ourselves.  An entity theorist does just that - judges oneself and capable or not.  An incremental theorist evaluates oneself as having worked enough to meet the challenge or not.  The incrementalist does judge oneself in failure, but not in the sense of judging the self, but judging the action.  This goes a long way in shifting self esteem.  

The ol' guitar is squeaking a little bit more this week

I'm working on my guitar skills for the show and tell.  I am trying to learn a fun song everyone will enjoy... seems like my favorite songs are kind of old and moody.  Also, I'm trying to up my strumming game.  I have only been down strumming but today decided it was time to upgrade to alternate strumming with a pick.  It sounds pretty rough.  I'm not sure I'll have it polished by the first week of May.

Thinking about hope in relation to my occupation is an interesting one.  I think I carry this bias that hope is most meaningful to those in the most dire of straits.  The examples given in the paper are those recovering from severe depression, a CVA, and a very invasive orthopedic procedure as well as adjusting to life in a new country.  Those are all life events that really make you question your drive to move on.  My hope in life wasn't challenged by this occupation or lack of learning the occupation.  I didn't pick up this occupation to overcome something and my hope is tied up more in other occupations in my life that correlate more with my identity or the roles I play in life (like graduating school, teaching my children well, finding vitality in my body which is easily overrun and stressed).  When I face set backs in those larger goals, yes, my hope is challenged.  In playing the guitar, it's not life or death, if I don't continue with this it wouldn't greatly affect my self-esteem or self-concept like not graduating school.  Some occupations are just more meaningful than others and playing the guitar is an occupation of leisure, not an ADL, IADL, social participation, education or work.  Maybe that is saying I don't value occupations of leisure as much as other occupations.  That being said, if playing the guitar initiated flow or was tied tightly to my identity, then loss of the occupation would really challenge my hope and I would have to dig deep to restore the emotional, cognitive and spiritual aspects of hope.  

If my occupation and I were a movie, I think it would be a cheesy love story about two people that were around each other lots and were platonic for a long time, maybe just a little flirty until they finalized realized how much fun they had and that life was better together.  I chose this analogy because it took a while for me to appreciate the guitar.  Also, I guess I see having a life partner and playing the guitar as not 100% necessary for survival but that they both make life more enjoyable in a deep soul-filling way.  Furthermore, both relationships and playing the guitar take some work and a bit of investment.

Lessons on Living

So I haven't played the guitar as much this week as I would have liked and when I finally picked it up, I struggled a bit with it.  My fingers felt awkward and slow.  It hurt again to really push the chords down.  It seems like it only takes a few days for those skills to leave me, which gives me a little more motivation to practice more regularly, even if not for the full hour. 

The information regarding Clark, Ennevor and Richardson's (1996) work relates to my new occupation in a few different ways.  I'm not incorporating this occupation into my life as I recover from a disability.  However, learning the guitar is embedded in my personal story.  I think it sticks out as an occupation unlike most I've done and excelled at before.  I don't have any other music related occupations in my life.  All other stints with musical instruments have been short lived.  So, it could be a turning point if I continue to which I ascribe meaning if it becomes the moemtn I started viewing myself as having slight musical ability (since I've always ascribed myself has having none).  

As I move forward with the occupation and if I choose to embed it into my daily life, I could make a  story about myself with this occupation in mind.  I don't have anyone coaching me through this and helping me evoke insights about myself but I do think that I can identify the symbolic dimensions of increased ability to perform the occupation and I think I can shft my personal identity and reconstruct it to include this occupation without help from an OT.   

In Lessons on Living, More Schwartz seemed to identify strongly with the occupation of social participation.  It seemed to me that it was his most meaningful occupation and he said that once he wasn't able to interact with others, he felt that would be a great signifier of the decline in his quality of life and perhaps it would be time to end his life then.  Once diagnosed, he spent his last months on the planet connecting with others, showing his love and compassion for others, and connecting and forming new relationships.  In his last days, he mentioned he took up a spiritual practice (meditation) to help him address the hard moments ahead so that he may find purpose and peace with the process.  He was able to shift his view or perspective to take on a larger one of being the ocean and not the wave - which exemplifies the idea of meditative thinking (versus calculative).  Despite his painful and trying time, he showed great resilience by not hiding from the topic of death but openly engaging in conversations about it.  He found a purpose in educating and raising awareness to the progression of the disease and spurning conversations around our nation about the process of dying.  All of these techniques made the process less painful and more personally satisfying, I'm sure not only to him but to all those he touched.  

Autonomy and Control

I'm just strumming away at my guitar.  I know I'm making progress but now as I watch other's play I'm completely amazed at their ability.  It has a brought a whole new appreciation to music.  

I haven't infused my occupation into my daily routine, per say.  I just play when I want a break from computer work.  But I think I waffle between autonomous and controlled motivation.  I began the class feeling controlled to practice.  Now I play because I enjoy it but there is the looming external pressure of having to for this class.  At this point in the semester, however, I understand that I probably could get away with not practicing an hour a week.  But I still have the motivation to do it.  I do find enjoyment in the activity.  It's relaxing to sing and play and recreate songs I love (as battered as they are).  The test will be when the class is over.  However, I think there will still be social expectations to practice from my family since they've come to expect it as part of our home or "place".  Specifically, it is part of the room that we spend most of our time in together. 

The Half Man, Full Life video was pretty fascinating.  I can't remember the man's name (Jesse?), but he determined to be fully engaged in life.  He did this through occupation - owning a business and installing satellite dishes, opening a thrift store, marrying, having a child, driving....  I think what related most to occupational science was his form, function and meaning to functional mobility.  Doctors thought it was in his best interest to have prosthetic legs because that was what he was physically missing.  But the reality, as he pointed out, was that they were way too cumbersome.  "Legs" didn't have meaning to him, but mobility and fitting in did.  The prosthetics inhibited his mobility instead of freeing it and while he may have looked a little more like a typical child, he could not move like one and struggled with other occupations like toileting.  While great in concept, the reality of the prosthetics was completely different.  He preferred other modes of moving himself through the environment and did so with great ease, doing things most could not imagine him physically capable of.  

Boredom schmoredom

I spent lots of time over break playing the guitar and I started to feel intrinsically motivated to participate. If my plate were a little clearer, I think I could really invest a lot of time into playing.  I love music and I love learning to play different songs.  I've been honing in on Country Roads and Jolene because they both have basic chords and only 4 or 5 in the whole song.  I started playing bar chords (Bm and F) with some proficiency but it takes me a while to position myself into the chord.  My finger tips on my left hand continue to callous over.  

This song exemplified the view of the one participant who never experienced boredom in Martin, Sadlo and Stew's (2006) study.  This participant had a positive outlook on life, a developed sense of humor, and involvement in many interests.  She lived in a ALF, which some in our culture would view as terrible - especially given the aging in place movement, but she positively adapted to it and was content to spend her days in her small room and occasionally visiting with family or out in the main lobby.  Cantor and Sanderson (1999) quoted Brickman and Coate's 1987 work, that "happy people know what they want and are doing it."  This describes the song perfectly.  They singers are participate in activities they like to do.  Cantor and Sanderson listed the idea of a "right way to participate" as a lingering issue in research.  It is understood that different people carry different values and therefore participate in life differently depending on what is meaningful to them.  The writer of the song incorporates activities that our society would consider as a waste of time and that was a concern of some participants in Martin, Sadlo and Stew's study - that they were wasting time.  However, the writer of the song does not view them as a waste of time.  It's all about perspective.  Finally, the song jests about participating in solo activities that many people would find "boring."  Participants in Martin, Sadlo, and Stew's study found being alone as a precursor to boredom.  However, the writer of this song jokes about preferring to be alone and being content with that. 

Capo rhymes with ... Tape-ooo

I trimmed my nails this week!  I've been keeping them trim so I can better press down the strings... this a change in personal factors to accommodate my new occupation.  I also took the time to google what a capo is and now my music is a little more in key.  The capo is the long clip thing that you put over the neck of the guitar.  

This is probably something I should have noticed a little sooner in my journey because it totally changes the pitch, making the strings higher.  I sound much better now.  

The main resource I need to commit to playing the guitar is time.  I'd guess that is a personal resource.  I also need a guitar (material) and capo! (material) - things we already owned, and part of the reason why I took up the occupation.  I also like to have internet access (material) to look up chords on random songs.  This isn't necessary but is something that enhances my experience.  A personal resource I need is a level of dedication and persistence to the occupation.  If I had a guitar teacher, I think that would be a social resource.  If I had guitar teacher, it would probably lessen the amount of dedication (personal resource) I need to bring because there would be an external driver to practice.  Although I don't have my husband supporting me by teaching or pushing me, the fact that he now picks up the guitar and plays it more is a social support in another way... kind of like a social acceptance  where we are affecting one another indirectly.  All of these things (minus the lack of time) help to ease my participation and therefore facilitate persistence.  

I do lack a clear goal with this occupation.  I guess my only goal is to accommodate the class's demands (an external and not personally driven goal).  Gollwitzer and colleague's research suggests that if I don't create a goal once the class is over, of practicing an hour a week or mastering a song, I am unlikely to achieve my goal of learning to play the guitar.  That research also supports why I haven't really been doing lessons from the lesson book and have instead been setting goals of learning a song.  I find I work better with my own goals and rather than working through a lesson book where goals are not self-created.

In King et. al.'s Resilience, the authors organized factors affecting resilience into three categories: personal factors or characteristics, social support, and a third and less important (for lack of a better word) category- a philosophy of self-acceptance.  Similarly, Cantor and Sanderson's 1999 work said that three resources were needed to persist in participation in occupation when adversity arises.  According to King et. al., personal characteristics are things such as effective problem-solving skills, good coping abilities, and positive view of self.  Social support is supportive families and communities (parents that function well, friends, peers, mentors that promote our ability to cope with life's challenges).  The final resource is an ability to learn from themselves and accept themselves.  Cantor & Sanderson differ in their "resources" in that they do not consider an ability to learn from life or create a philosophy as a distinct resource.  I would ague they likely would categorize this under the "personal resources" category, similar to King et. al.'s personal characteristics.  Cantor and Sanderson also include social support as a resource, however Cantor and Sanderson add a third resource - material or tangible resources.  This was mentioned in Resilience as something that promotes participation - access to medications, wheelchairs, etc - but not given its own category.   

Who am I

Last week I found myself picking up the guitar almost everyday because it's just a fun break from school work... it began to replace the moments I would have chosen meditation or yoga instead.  So, I'm not advancing really but I'm enjoying it. 

As much as I hate to admit it, I do think that societal ideas played a role in choosing my occupation.  I didn't choose the occupation of yodeling.  That would be weird   Guitars are universal and easily understood and accepted in my society.  Plus, we already had one collecting dust.  If I gain enough skills that I feel confident I could share it with others (aside from my immediate family) and that was something I wrote about being a goal in one of my first blogs.  But I don't want to share it in the "watch me perform" way.  I don't see it as a tool to creating an identity of being "the musician" that wants to draw an audience.  I'd never be comfortable with that.  I'd rather have the skill so I can create an environment of peace or joy that music brings and facilitate that joy in others.  I suppose that goes along with the identity I want to ascribe to myself already - one that helps others find peace, joy, grace, and a better connection with self - at least those are my goals for teaching yoga and (hopefully) providing therapy in the future.  And yes, that is dependent upon feedback from society because I can tell when I've taught a yoga class that achieved my goals by the feedback I receive watching the class and then talking to students afterward.  

My posting of a video last week was an experiment in the I versus the me.  I recorded probably 4 or 6 times before I decided that it was "good enough" to share.  The I was playing the guitar while the me   judged on the I's performance.  When I play by myself, however, I'm not sure the me is very present. I mean, I don't do strange things like play the guitar with my toes, but I don't make sure my clothes are clean or that I'm playing brilliantly.  I guess it depends on how you define me.  I do observe but is the me solely observing or is it observing plus placing judgements based on societal expectations?  I observe my progress, change in finger strength or stamina, etc. but I'm not sure if I've compared it to societal expectations.  Has my I perceived my me?  When I'm alone I'd argue me isn't around a whole lot.  But when I tried to record a song, I felt a some stage fright (me) creeping in and affecting the way I performed the song.  This made me reflect on Hasselkus's chapter on place.  Maybe we all need a place or corner where the me isn't really around and I can create/explore/exist without as much social pressure, allowing a most natural expression of self.  

Entity versus incremental self-theories

I think that I apply the entity theory to some of my physical skills because I see the physical body as less malleable that the brain. For example, I've never believed I had unlimited potential when it learning gymnastics.  I don't carry the same type of body as those that typically excel at the sport.  I do believe I could learn some skills but I don't think I don't think the potential for advancement is that high.  

I apply the incremental theory most other things in my life - growth in my mental, emotional, spiritual, social skills.  My ability to learn, parent, play the guitar, practice and teach yoga.  It seems that our GAs our based on this theory, that we can always better ourselves and aren't stuck it our habits or ways of thinking.  

I think that my occupational choices have been influenced by theories I have about myself.  For example, I used to run a ton and I carried and entity theory that I "was a runner."  I was "built like a runner" and therefore was pre-destined to be a runner.  It was a natural skill for me, I experienced few setbacks, and it became easier with more practice.  Eventually, however, I reached a peak and felt I couldn't get much better than that.  I think this is common for a lot of athletes.  The gains you make in your skill become smaller with more practice as you reach the limits of your biology/mindset.  At that point, I ran to maintain the skill but didn't continue to challenge myself and eventually I lost my drive to continue it.  I can't blame it on lack of dedication or practice - I was a college athlete and ran everyday.    Even as a mediocre college athlete I was still a much better runner than most of the rest of the world and found safety in that knowledge.  I never had a major "test" to my identity as a good runner.  But once I completed my college career, I dropped the occupation fairly quickly.  I could see myself pick up running again one day because I recall fondly the flow state I achieved when I was really fast and competent at the skill.  Right now, the challenge is too high though and my skills are way too low that it would take months of practice to get back to the flow state.  Interestingly, even though I haven't run in years, I still identify as a runner or with other runners.  

I have evolved into a more incremental self-theory, especially about everything beyond my physical skills.  I see the ability to parent better, increase patience, become a better person, and increase my compassion and in that aspect all of my social occupations feel like they will only get better with time.

I do believe I hold the capacity to become a guitar virtuoso... or at least really competent, even though I don't come from a "musical family."  I was going to use the excuse that maybe my hands/fingers aren't big enough to a great player but a quick google search proved me wrong - there are a few famous guitar players with small hands.  So really, in my mind, there isn't anything holding me back except my dedication and resources to learning the new skill.  And resources beyond time aren't even an issue because most of the best guitar players were self-taught The Secrets of Self-taugh, High Performing Musicians.  As an incrementalist, I believe that any set backs I'll experience are only due to a lack of dedication or time spent practicing.  I understand, however, that entity theorists may struggle with this more as they may see a set back as a sign that they aren't meant to play the guitar or don't hold the inherent skills to do so.

Flowy stuff

This is where I stand in my song.  The entertainment value of the video lies in my son more than me... 

It's nice to have a little song to play when I want a break from the lesson book.  I realized I need to practice my body mechanics more, both strumming from the wrist and properly placing my thumb on the back of the neck  of the guitar.  

I have experienced flow and I do think I have an autotelic personality so I find it in my life often.  I could write about finding in it writing or running, yoga or gardening.  However, I'd like to argue about the experience of childbirth as the most intense period of flow I've ever experienced.  I gave birth to both of my children without any pain medications so I was very present and engaged in the process.  While I think many in developed countries with the technology to mute or ignore the stages believe the process to be one of hormones and no real action on the mother's part, I'd argue that is not true.  A mother can choose to be fully engaged in the process, allowing the pain, working with the body and sensations, and mentally accepting instead of fighting the process so the body can metamorphose into another shape.  All of the characteristics Csikszentimihalyi and Nakamura describe were present for me during my experiences... focused concentration on my actions in the present moment, merging of action and awareness, a sense that I knew how to respond to the whatever happened, distortion of temporal experience, and finding the experience intrinsically rewarding.  I know the last part seems strange, given that it is the product of the experience that most seek.  However, the experience awoken strength and abilities in me I never knew I carried.  It was the most empowering thing I've ever experienced in my life and if I could experience childbirth again (without actually having a third child to then raise) I think I would do it.   

I carry low skills in the guitar realm (see video above) and also I think low challenge.  I realize that I could challenge myself more with this but I'm not actively trying to create more anxiety in my life.    In order to create flow, I'd need to challenge myself more but also build my skills because without the skills I'd just give myself more anxiety or other un-motivating mental states.  I know musicians often experience flow but I've only heard of them being highly skilled musicians.  I think I heard of flow a few years ago from a podcast... maybe this one TED Radio Hour Maslow's Human Needs.  

I have an autotelic personality.  I am often striving to learn more and take on more challenges, despite not always having the resources to accomplish them at this time in my life.  I'm a persistent bugger, and as far as self-centeredness, I feel like my husband would be a better judge than me :).  It was interesting to read how this actually isn't in everyone.  I guess I strive to find occupations that provide the opportunity for flow.  But I also think I understand myself and my energy patterns closely so that I can match the challenges I know I'll face through the day with the skills (energy and focus) I have through the day so that I can create more flow.  I think I've just thought of this as efficiency but maybe it's optimizing flow through the day?

Space and Place

I'm close to getting this song down!  I keep telling myself that when I get my chord transitions a little smoother then I'll upload a video.  I don't often play for more than 20 minutes at a time, as I find I still don't have the finger strength to hold down the strings effectively for longer than that.  

I have moved around a bit and as I reflect on those places that I've lived (northern NJ for 18 years, the jersey shore for 1 year, southern VA for 5 years, Boise 1 year, Stanley 4 years, and Pocatello 4 years) significant emotions come to my mind as I look back on each of these places.  Each was a container for really specific experiences in my life that shaped me into who I am.  I look back on each place with mixed feelings because my memories are of both hardships and growth mixed with emerging self-identity and beautiful friendships.  I have always been someone that finds spirituality in nature so a lot of my memories involve exploring an area in a physical way through hiking, running, skiing, kayaking, etc. and specific seasons in that place, like the fall in VA with the leaves turning along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Even driving yesterday through my neighborhood brought on a flood of emotions I can't really describe except it felt like spring because of the warm weather and I was transported back in time to the spring my son was born 3 years ago.  

I think that the transition from space to place is gradual, but it doesn't take long.  For example, hotel rooms that I've stayed in over night don't carry a sense of place to me.  They were typically a means to an ends.  But hotels that I've stayed for a weekend are definitely a container of experiences.  Last spring our family spent a weekend in Missoula because my husband had a conference.  Our friends were staying in the hotel with us so we got to spend time with them, play in the pool, and play along the river.  We all also progressively got a 24-hour stomach bug while we were there.  Also, my husband won a cooking contest and got to meet Steven Rinella, an idol of his, and my daughter split her chin at a park there but I was watching my friends kids also and didn't know where the urgent care was so we never got it stitched and her scar is still palpable.  There are a ton memories, both elating and horrifying, associated with the 72 hours we spent at the Holiday Inn in Missoula.  So I'd say it's a place for me, especially since we are going back to the conference again this year.

I practice playing the guitar in our living room.  It's the space where most of the action in our house takes place, aside from the kitchen.   So it's a place with lots of memories already.  The memories aren't defined by the guitar but by times we've all been together there.  Even within the room, however, I had a tendency to practice in my chair at my desk.  It'd be interesting to practice it in a different corner to see how the new space shifts the way the occupation takes place.  

Spirituality and all that jazz...

I have occupations that have enriched my spirituality.  They including parenting, yoga, meditation, gardening, outdoor explorations like hiking, hunting, rafting.  And yes, my spirituality has enriched these occupations.  It's hard for me to decide which came first.  Like we've read in other works, such as Wiseman's paper on occupational development, it seems to me that the relationship between spirituality and the occupation has been interactional.  They growth together, because of each component.  As I first started writing this, my response was that my spirituality and playing the guitar are not connected.  However, my one and only song, has a spiritual message and some days if i'm open to it, it resonates deeply with me in a spiritual way.  This thought makes me think that anything can be spiritual if we are open to it.  If our mind is in the right place.  Similar to maintaining mindfulness while performing a simple or ordinary task, if we set our mind to the right place any activity can be conducive to a meditative or enlightened state.  

I think it's a great thing that spirituality is included in the OTPF.  It is described under client factors alongside values and beliefs.  It is described as "the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, and to the significant or sacred" (Puchalski et al., 2009, p. 887).  I suspect that a lot of people are not highly spiritual.  I wasn't a few years ago.  It is not something where  I expect everyone to be on the same page, just like values and beliefs.  Not everyone carries strong convictions but for those that do carry them, everything in their life is revolves around them and the values, beliefs, and spirituality should not be ignored.  

Plot twist: I'm not a guitar genius

Holla friends!  This week I've practiced for another hour.  Though it was broken into 20 minute breaks at the end of my day when all brain power to do serious cognitive functions had fizzled.  My daughter officially know the words to Three Little Birds, so there's that?  She refers to it as the song about the birds.  I have noticed that each time I picked up the guitar my muscle memory for chords grew stronger.  It takes a sustained 30 minutes with the guitar to have faster chord transitions but the chords themselves are fairly strong.  A, D, E.  What else can I play with those chords?  I feel the stress of a busy week this Sunday and I know my motivation to practice this week will be weak :)  But maybe once Thursday rolls around I will have time.  I find that this occupation takes the time I would usually spend doing yoga/meditation.  That is disappointing because I know I get a lot more mentally/ emotionally  physically from those practices but it's hard to find time for everything!

Learning to play the guitar fits differently into the various definitions of occupation Hasselkus lists.  In regards to Clark et. al.'s definition of "the ordinary and familiar things that people do every day" I'd say that playing the guitar is the least familiar part of my day lately.  But it is ordinary in that our culture would recognize it and apply meaning to it.  According to Yerxa, occupation is "engagement in self-initiated, self-directed, adaptive, purposeful, culturally relevant, organized activity."  For me, this occupation still derives its initiation from external sources (school).  Is it organized?  It doesn't seem to be.  I have little structure around the practice and just commit time when it seems appropriate and free and I play what interests me, not any sort of prescribed lesson (although I have access to a lesson book if I feel like working in a more structured way).  I wasn't sure what Yerxa meant by adaptive. I looked up the word and the OED suggests "fitting, or well-suited to someone" which I think makes the most sense in this case.  I buy it.  It fits me.  I'm going to skip Femke and Clark's definition cause it really has no meaning to me.  I'm going to address the definition give my Law, Polatajko, Baptiste, and Townsend though.  I appreciate the part of the definition that includes the social component.  "Occupation is everything people do to occupy themselves, including looking after themselves, enjoying life, and contributing to the social and economic fabric of their communities (productivity).  This definition comes close to describing the why of occupations in my life.  I recently began to notice that I don't engage in occupations unless I see a benefit to my family.  For example, I engage in yoga because I derive emotional regulation from it as well as physical benefits (hopefully longevity) and these are things I do for myself by also largely for my children and husband, friends and family.  I engage in so many occupations with the hope or goal of community, social engagement, and finding my role in this world.   

Playing the guitar is a doing but not a being for me yet.  I am not a "guitar player." It is a becoming in that I see the potential benefit and potential abilities in myself.  Finally, it has the potential to create belonging in the way that I described above.  I see this greater benefit of the occupation being creating a space for family time, or further, using the guitar in playing mantras in a yoga class.  These goals revolve around a social component of creating a social experience.  If I was sick and needed an occupation to lift me up and help me do, be become and belong, I'd still pick yoga.  In a heart beat.  It defines so much of my life.  Playing the guitar, not so much.  But maybe it could work itself up the ladder to a higher rung in meaning in my life.  Not there yet.  Maybe next week.    

My first foray

After a $3 investment into a new E string, my husband's guitar was ready to play.  I don't mean to give the impression that he knows how to play.  He played with it for a little while before we met and it's been collecting dust since.  Along with the guitar came a book and CD on learning to play so I'm feeling pretty set.  We had gone over tuning last week along with some you tube videos so I spent 30 mins on Saturday doing a lesson out of the book, which was about all I could stand.  Then later in the day I found a website with easy songs to play and began teaching myself to play Bob Marley's Three Little Birds, which has only three chords.  I'm still slow at the chord shift and my extensors in my left hand started cramping a little bit, but this was way more fun than the lesson in the book.

Right now playing the guitar has very little meaning to me.  When I pulled it out to play though, my kids swarmed and started strumming it.  I grew up without music in my house and I've often envied those that had music and singing in their homes.  Not in the forced piano practice way but in the impromptu let's join together around this lovely sound way.  I think if I were to get there with my practice and with the occupation, yes it would hold deep meaning for me.  But right now, if Reker and Wong's proposition holds true, then I'm at the side that's yielding more meaning from societal expectations.

I set myself up to practice my occupation for one hour yesterday.  This took calculative thinking.  I got everything out, including a timer and the book.  But as I mentioned above my kids essentially attacked me and the guitar.  My initial response was to tell them to get away from me so I could do my **** work.  But as I paused and thought for a moment, I was reminded that part of the reason I want to learn to play was for them.  That turning them away would actually inhibit the meaning I hope to derive from the activity.  And that their curiosity and exposure to music and sound is something I want to cultivate.  So I let them strum away for a few minutes, which eventually they got bored of anyway.  I think this might be the difference between calculative and meditative thinking?  The calculative is sticking to the plan and the meditative is looking at the larger picture of the meaning of the action.  Could the difference between calculative and meditative thinking be the difference of a pause and reflection of the greater purpose?

I expect the proportion of calculative and meditative thinking to change as (if) I become more proficient with the instrument; more calculative now thinking about how to do the occupation and more meditative later as the process becomes streamlined and my mind can move elsewhere.

Here's a video of Camas... She wasn't as rough on the guitar as Henry.

Let me know if the video works for you... I can't see it on my Mac or iPhone but I'm wondering if it works for those on PC.  Thanks!