A Not So Simple Pep Talk

As I was making chocolate chip pancakes for my daughter Sunday morning (combining three out of 6 items this child eats - eggs, milk and chocolate), and listening to Weekend Edition on NPR, I heard a giggly kid's voice on the radio.  The Kid President was being interviewed.  As his brother points out - it's a self-appointed position.  Have you ever heard of this guy?  He's awesome!  Here's a link to his YouTube video - 20 Things We Should Say More Often:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5yCOSHeYn4

What I love about this kid is how he clear he is about what people can and should do. He says, “This is life people… you got air coming through your nose… you got a heart beat… it’s time to do something”   His message is about hopes and dreams and making life more awesome. 

Some days - like random Tuesdays or after the Seahawks lose the Super Bowl, or in the middle of breast cancer treatment or when we visit  mom and we notice that she's really getting forgetful, or when our child has a terrible temper tantrum before school - we need a pep talk.  The Kid President is great at pep talks.  I love the idea of a pep talk and there are so many people out there who are inspiring and innovative and are offering through YouTube or books or their websites or blogs, words of encouragement and wisdom that help us put one foot in front of the other on a hard day or they might help us do something courageous and bold on a day we are feeling good.

Yet, I know there are days when lots of us feel un-inspirable (I made that word up).  We feel cynical.  We roll our eyes at pep talks.  A hospice patient I once worked with was threatening suicide.  He was in his nineties and bedbound, but I had to assess him for suicidality.  I climbed right up in bed with him and shouted in his ear (he was hard of hearing), "Are you planning to kill yourself?!?"

This is what he said to me, "Are you one of those goddamned do-gooders?!?"

Here's what Parker Palmer says that I really like:

For me, the ability to hold life paradoxically became a life-saver. Among other things, it helped me integrate three devastating experiences of clinical depression, which were as dark for me as it must have been for Jonas inside the belly of that whale. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, was the question that came time and again as my quest for light plunged me into darkness...understanding of paradox came to my rescue. Eventually I was able to see that the closer I move to the source of light, the deeper my shadow becomes. To be whole I have to be able to say I am both shadow and light.

From my own life experience and from working with people who are grieving the loss of someone they love - a simple pep talk often feels empty...when they hear things like, "he's gone to a better place" or "at least he's not suffering anymore", this feels empty and flat.  Yet, at the same time, grievers long for comfort.  Maybe that's how we all are - part of us wants to be comforted and part of us wants to wallow in our bitterness.  It truly is a paradox.

Maybe life is simpler when you're a kid, but maybe not.  The Kid President, for example, has osteogenesis imperfecta - his bones break easily and he's had more than 70 breaks in his life.  So, while his message is simple (you can make life awesome!), he knows about this other side that Parker Palmer talks about...that we all have light and shadow.

To paraphrase, Brene Brown, hope is a function of adversity.  We can't have hope unless and until we face hard times.  Hope is a learned cognitive response - it is not an emotion.  We can learn real hope that is beyond a simplistic platitude, but it takes great patience.  Patience to sit through the hard times and our own eye rolling.  Patience to earn our own hope:  there are hard times but we are strong enough and the good times do come again.