Dawn Ferrara

This week, I had one of those fabulous “A-ha!” moments. I relived one of the most stressful activities of graduate school – the dreaded video supervision! I finished grad school more years ago than I will tell you but I recently decided to take the next step and become a counselor supervisor. I love the mentoring process so becoming a supervisor seemed like the logical next step. I happily paid my money, signed up and went to the first session. I immediately got that “first day of school” feeling. A former professor was teaching the course which only added to the déjà vu! I learned there would be video involved but I tried to ignore that fact and embraced the process. Finally the day came to make what would be my video presentation.

I have to admit, I am all about technology. I am wired up, hooked up and linked up with more devices and sites than I can keep up with. If texting had been around when I was younger, I would have been that kid sitting across from the counselor because he/she has a 10,000 a month text habit and the parents are freaked out. I’ve so enjoyed the blogs from my fellow bloggers about the pros and cons of using electronic communications and social media with our clients. As great as technology is, it continues to present new ethical and practical challenges as we incorporate new ways to communicate into our professional practice. So, when a client recently asked me about Skype, I found myself face-to-face with my own challenge.

Vacation….one simple word that conjures up thoughts of sleeping late, lazy days, and for me, time away from cell phones, computers, text messaging and email. This year, as my vacation approached, I became more and more focused on the idea of relaxing and, as I told a friend, “doing nothing in particular.” The idea of “doing nothing” seemed irresistible. So, the day finally came and I began my vacation. Sleeping late and just hanging out. Sounds like a winner, right? I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote: “One can never pay in gratitude: one can only pay ‘in kind’ somewhere else in life.” Those words and a recent conversation with some graduate counseling students reminded me of how much the growth of our profession relies on that paying in kind.

We’ve all heard the phrase “use it or lose it”. Last week, that phrase took on new meaning for me. The day started out innocently enough. I couldn’t find my car keys. I looked high and low – under the sofa cushions, in my purse, on the table by the door. I even looked in the dog’s crate on the off chance that he took a liking to my key ring. No luck. When I had reached the point of panic (I was so late for work), the keys miraculously appeared…on the table by the door where I had looked not five minutes before. I chalked the experience up to being rushed and went on my way. Later that day, I was talking to a colleague about a routine matter and, in mid-sentence, I drew a blank and could not finish my thought. To be honest, forgetting something is not that uncommon for me. I am the queen of Post It Notes and if I don’t write something down, it flies out of my head as fast as it entered. But twice in the space of a few hours? I have to admit that part of me started to worry just a little whether these moments of forgetfulness were normal or an indicator of something to be concerned about. Being “of a certain age”, the specter of forgetfulness has become a bit more salient.