Training for Counselors, Therapists, Coaches, Students, and Educators

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I trained at (MAIIADS) Minnesota American Indian Institute of Alcohol and Drug Studies. It is something I have been doing since approximately 2004 yearly. And several years prior.

It is not such a big deal. We were not keynotes. We covered three breakout sessions. ‘We’ is myself and a long-time friend.

On Wednesday we went in to work with the kids group. Approximately 30 kids. I started by talking about how art is healing and you don’t have to be an artist to use art for this purpose.

We introduced most to ink pens. They were a very attentive audience considering it was a wide age range. From 8 years old to probably early teen.

They were a great group and appeared to enjoy the session. Some were proud of their work. Others were critical and a few others wadded their art up and threw it in the trash. All was okay and still healing.

The next day we were told by a parent whose children were in to listen to the elders panel that they were bored, so began to color and quietly colored the rest of the group—hearing that spelled success.

That parent also told us that her children enjoyed the group and their paintings.

Then on Thursday:

We talked long-term recovery

Many years of discovery

Most were counselors

Some educators

Lecturers

All lovely

Author note: A Clogyrnach is a sestet stanza with lines of 8, 8, 5, 5, 3, and 3 syllables that uses an AABBBA rhyme scheme.

We had two other great groups of people on Thursday. Our first breakout would be at 1:00 p.m. Right after lunch.

It was interesting however as we had eaten a big breakfast late and didn’t go to lunch or we would have known that lunch was running late. So, we were sitting in there with 2 people at ten minutes to the hour.

We thought we may have a small group and that would be okay. They never know how many people will attend what breakout as they have 4 breakouts for each time slot.

Peggy and I talked about if we get a small group that just means we can retire! We got excited about that idea.

The work for the money is not the motivation for this endeavor. The motivation is getting to see old friends and new ones and sharing what we have learned in our 46 years of recovery.

But gradually more and more people came in until we started with about 45 people in the auditorium.

We started the group with a quick exercise demonstration and invited everyone to join in. Right after lunch and auditorium seating, we may put some people to sleep. Sleeping is okay but the snoring would disturb the audience and interfere with our presentation!

So my three favorites are one for balance, one for chest muscles or pecks, and one for wrinkles. They are great. Exercises my mother taught me as a kid. And my favorite part is looking out at the audience as they are making faces for the wrinkles exercise!

When we finished the group some people responded with comments and questions. All positive. We were told later by others that they enjoyed our presentation. Success.

~

We had an hour between sessions, so we did a little shopping and visiting with friends. I bought a towel set in my favorite color — purple, with a Native American design. We then went up to get an acupuncture treatment.

My treatment was for my neck problem which has been bothering me for more than a week now. The treatment was for 30 minutes and then we were off to our next group.

~

We talked to the adults now about the importance of art in healing. We introduced them to the ink pencils and asked them to get inspiration from my cousin's art that he sent me. I told him what we intended and that I would send him photos of the work from the class if we could use his art.

This is what he sent:

And this is a couple of what I returned to him from our class:

The class was fun and they were very attentive and all the art pieces were great! I caught pictures of about a dozen and then missed a few that finished and left early. The adults all finished on time with a few completing their work early and just a couple stragglers!

We drove home feeling like we had accomplished what we intended and felt good about our work and our recovery.

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First published by Mindful Mental Health on medium.com