The Art of Curiosity

This weekend I went on a retreat with all the core faculty and new students to kick off the beginning of my Marriage & Family Therapy program to Fort Casey on Whibey Island. Fort Casey is a military bunker right on the beach. It was an amazing place to have a retreat. I could hear the waves crashing in the night.

So picture this: 32 to-be therapist and 6 professors/therapist all in one location for a whole 24 hours. You can image there was ALOT of conversations, questions, uh-huh'ing, head nodding, responsive listening and the like. It was really, really fun and I got to know better alot of the students that I will be spending the next 2 intense years with. It also completely confirmed to me that I am in the right place and my learning is going to be exceptional at SPU. We call our professors by their first name and you can truly tell that they really do care about who we are and about making us educated therapists.

The first day they had us bring a symbol that represented us in some way. After much thought I decided to bring the Free To Be You and Me album. You can see my reasons here in a post I did about just this childhood shaper of an album. It was fun to see all the other things people brought. We had a bon fire that night right on the beach and it was raining of course! We did a bunch of other stuff too that I won't bore you with but overall, I think it was such a great experience and will really make it easier to connect with everyone in class since we had a time to get to know each other in a more relaxed environment. There is a lot of diversity with the students in my cohort and I am excited to get to know everyone better.

Something that was said has really stuck with me. Tina, one of the professors said that as therapist you need to know how ask good questions and we will learn the Art of Curiosity. I loved that and I pray to learn that Art really well so that I can make my space with people a sacred one. I can't lie, this whole new chapter of my life is feeling really intimdating right now. I am so looking forward to it all but I am nervous too. I think that is how the start of a new adventure is supposed to feel, right?!

The saddest part of the whole trip was that I forgot my camera. I was half way to meeting with the girls that were going to carpool with me when I remembered I didn't have my camera. So sad for me and my blog, right?! My camera phone had to be a subsitute which is terribly dissappointing but here are some pix all the same.

On Saturday they had the most fun Kite Festival I have ever seen. This is when I was especially sad to have left my camera. Scott and I were tempted to go check it out today but I was too lazy on my last day of freedom. Anyway, it was so amazing to see so many beautiful kites flying there next to the ocean. I think in some ways it was symbolic of my new beginning. (How nerdy am I?!). These pictures do not do the justice of the site of all the kites. It was so amazing.