Trendy-Teeter-Totterer

After 7 1/2 months of listening to Sound Therapy (a filtered music therapy for my tinnitus) for 2-3 hours each and every day, I stopped in mid-July when I didn’t notice any significant or obvious change. However, since then I’ve found my auditory agitation levels rising – and in retrospect I think perhaps Sound Therapy actually WAS providing tolerance (if not removing) the inner noise.

So, I’m back to wearing my trusty, very trendy lime green headset, only without the militant attitude. The self-imposed guard no longer holds a gun to my head demanding so-many-timed-minutes-a-day-recorded-just-so in my log. In fact, I listen only when sitting at the computer and don’t record the lengths of sessions. The filtered music seems more soothing this time around, perhaps because I’m perceiving it casually and recreationally, as an opportunity rather than a program mandated by the clock.

Which leads me to another thought: compartmentalization. In my opinion, it’s so easy to live out of tight, jewelry-box-like, self-dictated disciplines that squeeze the breath out of life (as I was doing with my earlier Sound Therapy experience). In reality, this kind of regulating and strangling, mandated legal approach leads to the one thing: burn-out.

There’s a teeter-totter balancing act involved between the performance parameters of goals/responsibilities on one hand, and childlikeness laced with grace on the other. I’m striving to strike that balance point this time with Sound Therapy: totter a little higher than before in the playful and confident (childlike) realm and a little lower in the responsible and dutiful (performance) realm. Maybe things will level out this time…right at that smoooooth(er) sailing, horizontal place where I maintain realistic hope.