Hello, friends! Happy Friday! How are you all doing? As for me, I had a summer off from school (one month vacay, whoohoo!) and now I am back to the grind! Y’all, can you believe it? I have begun my second year of school! I am a second year OTD student. It is wild to fathom this, but at the same time, I feel like I have been in school for forever. I write to you as I am on a flight back to San Diego to see one of my favs, Maverick City Music tomorrow (though my flight is delayed, smh). So I’m basically live blogging through the sky. 😂 

I just wanted to jump on here and quickly reflect on my week! Honestly y’all, it has been a whirlwind of emotions. Though I am used to grad school being all-consuming, I felt so overwhelmed in how much information was being thrown at me and how many academic/social responsibilities I had coming my way. I had given a presentation to the first years glorifying resources I utilized throughout my first year to keep myself afloat (shoutout to the Passion Planner and the Finch app), but I could not find the motivation and the drive to follow my own advice. 

Wednesday night, I truly tried to hold myself to my “productivity standards” and “be productive,” but that was short-lived, as I was gifted with a pounding headache instead. I tried to work through it, but only found myself more frustrated that I couldn’t focus (DUH I had a headache and it was nearing bed time!). In efforts to be on top of it after being burnt out by the end of last semester, I was pushing myself to adhere to productivity standards that truly was not that serious to uphold at this moment of the semester. After acknowledging that part of this lack of concentration I had was also because I was still coming off of summer mode, I had to reset, check in with myself and remind myself to #givemyselfgrace because the perfectionist, Type A in me was already creeping in and I was not here for it. I put a lot of pressure on myself to retain everything that I had been exposed to these three days because this semester is the semester that is HUGE for me since I am taking all of my practice immersion courses and beginning my doctoral classes. This semester is the foundation of my future practice where I finally begin to fall into one of my occupational identities as an OT. That is a lot to think about!

My motto this year is to #giveyourselfgrace. All I can do to thrive is to know that I’m doing my best at any given moment. This year is much different than last year because I am slowly starting to see the puzzle pieces of OT come together. Yesterday was the first day in which I actually felt more relaxed, more comfortable, and more ready to take on the academic year. We had our first peds lab and was introduced to the topic of documenting an evaluation for a kiddo. The thought of documentation is intimidating to me, but the fact that I had the opportunity to really start to integrate the knowledge that I acquired throughout my first year made me feel powerful! My brain was definitely stretched, but it felt very reaffirming to know that I had some clinical reasoning (though very limited) to implement and apply to a case study. Where did my newfound sense of calm come from? By having a heart to heart with myself and reminding myself that I’ve done hard things before and it will be just okay! I #gavemyselfgrace by acknowledging that I’m meant to be here, I am doing the best that I can, and that I have a beautiful journey ahead of me that I’m meant to be on despite how overwhelmed I may seem or feel. 

So, I am making a promise to myself for this year. This year is going to be a year of tremendous growth for me and constantly learning how to #givemyselfgrace even when I feel that I don’t deserve it. Not only will I be continuing didactic courses, I’ll be starting fieldwork, spearheading my capstone project, and getting off my parents’ health insurance (lol I’m sad about that). I wrote this hashtag down in my weekly to-do list to keep myself accountable and challenged to remember this simple thing. So friends, I hope that you all are touched by this reflection and can too #giveyourselfgrace in your hardest moments as we all go through life transitions. 

Peace and love, 

Irene