My music and other animals

Now things seem to be speeding up. My baby is no longer a baby, she crawls and spins and pulls vases over. My involvement with web site design seems to be increasing, I have about 5 sites being spun like plates at the moment. I’m beginning to understanding the procedure of setting up databases and tables but fear the worst when they go haywire.

I’ve discovered Drupal and am thrilled with the ease in which I’ve begun to rebuild the Solution Focused Approaches website. I may secure more webspace and mysql to run my own wordpress blog to redesign the layout.

One thing at a time though, sleep first after my nights, have a nice day with little Ellie and then soem more design. 

With a very promising year galloping by it’s difficult to keep up. My baby is now a toddler (time for stair gates and health and safety), I’ve got numerous web applications in the making as well as building my first Ruby on rails application (care of Agile rails development).

My preparation for the April conference is at a slow pace but I usually pick up closer to the date, I’m hoping to open a campfire discussion room during the conference for those who are unable to attend.

I’ve maintained the steady development of the solution focused website and it’s getting some positive feedback

SolutionFocusedApproaches

My own experimental music site is slowly developing, but my music creation has slowed right down at present, there are plans to work closer with a songwriting friend of mine.

I have set up a live discussion room using campfire and I will mainly leave it open to guests to discuss anything really but mainly web development, music and solution focusing.

Okay that’s it, time to go to day job!

So what are the principles of Zen that we can we draw upon in our everyday practice and approaches, how can these principles influence the way we work with individuals? As a practitioner we have been the recipient of many hours of theory based on the concept of the practitioner being the expert aiding the patient in identifying their problems or worst still digging deep to find a problem as the cause of their current distress. The practitioner’s ego has been bloated for many years through these methods of education and westernized concepts of expert led “therapy”. Although I think the majority of practitioners have applied these methods of therapy through a genuine desire to help the patient through a recovery process, there has been too much pressure placed on the practitioner to be an expert in the field of aiding recovery.

First of all I need to apologize, I apologize to anyone who practices Zen Buddhism, anyone who teaches Zazen meditation and such like, I apologize for using the concept of Zen as a brand for a “product” even though there’s no product to sell. The connections outlined in this text between Zen practices and Solution Focused Practices are meant to draw upon the culturally positive ad thought provoking response to the term Zen, which should be taken as a compliment and not as a cheap gimmick with no true connection.

The term Zen and the Art… has been used many times in Western culture to draw comparisons to our association with the term Zen and spirituality, tranquility, enlightenment and mysticism. Search Google for the term Zen and the art came up with dozens of uses such as, Zen and the art of quilt making, Zen and the art of …. , initially my influence was Robert Prissg’s book Zen and the art of motor cycle maintenance as well Zen and the Art of Archery. These pieces of work draw upon the association we place on the Zen Buddhist practices and self-enlightenment.

So why have I used the phrase Zen and the Art of Solution Focused Practice? Well, it really begins with my journey, my learning experiences as a Mental health nurse and my need to improve the way I work with individuals, (I refer to professionals here as well as clients). Like many people I trained through University and became a Mental health nurse, working within the local acute hospital on the Acute admissions ward and then within Neuro-psychiatry and presently with the Crisis Resolution team.

Throughout my training and early experiences as a nurse I drew upon the knowledge, practices and protocols I had taken for granted to develop the therapeutic self with the hope that this would inevitably help the patient with their recovery. I guess being immersed within this knowledge base and the common practices of problem analysis, as well as allowing the ego to assume I was enlightened in the practice of therapeutic engagement had temporarily stunted my ability to truly gain enlightenment. Luckily, I was introduced to the concept of Solution Focused Brief Therapy and so I was able to take a different route on my journey which has influenced my desire to guide others and help publicize the practice.

During my holiday i’ve given myself the task of identifying the relationship between the Western cultural view/interprutation of Zen Buddhism and Solution Focused practice as part of my job. This is not your typical R and R activity I’m sure?

I’ve got an interest in the two practices and have the challenge of investigating the links further ready for a conference I’m speaking at. The common views of both practices are that they are beautiful in their simplicity, which leads me to believe that any presentation on the topic should reflect the simplicity, or is that a cop-out?

Just completed the fastest subscribe and blog post, now it’s shower time and off to work on a cold sunday morning. I think I’ll link this blog site to my main music site later on this week.

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