When I worked in hospice, I prided myself on being able to disarm the patients and families I visited, many of whom did not want to see a hospice worker, and especially not a hospice social worker. This may or may not seem obvious...but the gist of it is that if you're in hospice, you are dying, and most people don't like reminders of that. And we come into your home at what is most often a time like no other - a time when adrenaline and desperation are coursing through you if you're a caregiver and a time, if you are a patient, when you want to save every small ounce of energy you have for people you love, not strangers. And social workers are the worst - we ask 'nosey' questions about coping, fear, support systems, and family history. But, I'm kind of funny and fun and I'm a good listener. And at that time, I tried my best to pace the personal questions in a way that didn't feel too much like a barrage.
One family I remember consisted of an elderly woman being cared for by her adult son. I called the son trying to set up my first appointment to introduce myself and help them connect to any resources that might be helpful for her care at home. The instant he answered the phone, I knew this man was pissed. Pissed about people coming into his home, pissed about her medical care, and pissed off at me for calling. I remember driving down Hwy 44 talking with him on my flip phone and something in his voice let me know that I could argue back with his pissed-offedness - that if I stood up to him and earned his respect, I could make some progress with him. And that's what I did. It was a risk. He wouldn't let me in that day, but he agreed that I could visit later in the week.
You know what's weird? His mom died later that very day (this happens sometimes in hospice- people get referred very late in their illness or they take a sudden turn as soon as they know they don't have to go back to the hospital anymore.) Anyway, I was the hospice worker who got called to that death. I thought, "Oh, shit. I hope the son will be ok with me." He was. It was like we were old friends when I showed up to help take care of the calls to the medical examiner, and the funeral home, and I was able to have credibility with him and provide comfort to other family members because I'd made this rather argumentative connection with him on the phone in the morning.
Overcoming barriers between people isn't always that easy. Some barriers run deep and won't be overcome by charm or moxy.
Another patient who let me into her home fairly easily was an 80-ish year old African American lady who was being cared for by her sister. Though the sister was pleasant enough to me, my patient was cold and non-communicative and I felt suspicion and dislike emanating from her. It might have been on my second visit, I asked this patient, "Are you concerned for your sister?" "Why would I be concerned for her?" the lady replied. This stumped me - I wanted to say, "Because you love her and she will be alone after you die." But, I knew I could not address death directly with this patient (lots of hospice patients do not want to talk directly about death, and that's OK.) So, I said something more simple but with a vague openness, "Just wondering if you are concerned this is hard on her."
"I'd like you to leave now," she said. "And you are not welcome back."
I can't say you could have knocked me over with a feather, but I was certainly stunned and hurt. And yet I knew a truth deep inside me (something that we have been grappling with much more overtly in the past couple years in St. Louis and in our nation). This had something to do with race. I didn't know what, I didn't name it aloud to my patient, but I knew it.
I called one of my hospice co-workers, who is black and told her what happened. I concluded, "I sometimes get the feeling that some of my older African American patients don't like me."
You know what she said? "They don't."
It was a good, honest lesson. She said, "Katy, you are a young white woman social worker. You probably seem nosey. As a social worker, your profession has the reputation of splitting up families, and you are part of the medical community and with Tuskegee and everything else, many older black people don't trust white doctors and medical professionals."
I've come to understand that my confidence in overcoming barriers between people is coming from a place of privilege. I am given certain leeway, and I am used to being seen in certain positive ways by our larger culture, if for no other reason than I am a white female. When my black patient didn't like me, maybe just because I was white, it was the ego bruise, I wasn't used to that because I am white. And what I needed to understand was that her not liking me was about deep pain, deeper than that moment, deeper than my life history and longer than her life history.
And this is something I understand because, though I'm not an expert in history, or sociology, or law, I am an expert in grief.
My very first social work internship, I helped teach the parenting class for divorcing parents in St. Louis City. We used to teach, "Anger is a tooth with two root. Fear and sadness." I actually think it's very true. In both these stories from my long ago hospice days, I was the recipient of anger - whether that anger was merited or not at me personally, it doesn't matter to me. But anyone who has ever grieved probably experienced the part of grieving that is anger - and that grief anger can sometimes not be comforted or changed. We are angry because something is not fair. Our loss isn't fair. What we've been through isn't fair. We are fearful more unfair things will happen. We are sad that unfair things have happened and can't be undone. We experience these feelings uniquely and individually, but it may also help us to know that the world of humanity experiences them also.
Have you ever had anyone try to talk you out of your grief or your anger? It doesn't work and it probably just makes you more mad or feel more alone. It's something I try my best not to do, no matter how uncomfortable it is to sit with someone's despair or rage. What I try my best to do is witness these feelings and perhaps this is the beginning of some healing.
Monday, February 13, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
Religion: Not sure where I'll end up, but having a good time getting there
Yesterday, my daughter and I had an adventure. Now, by standards of like Ponce de Leon, this was not very adventurous, but sometimes I feel like Kimmy Schmidt in the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and everything seems like an adventure to me. This one was a spiritual adventure.
At my request, we bundled up and took ourselves to a different church than our usual, went on to Strange Donuts (oddly, also religiously instructive), and ended out back at the church we've been going to for the past 13 year. This is the short story of how it happened, what happened, and what might happen in the future.
At my request, we bundled up and took ourselves to a different church than our usual, went on to Strange Donuts (oddly, also religiously instructive), and ended out back at the church we've been going to for the past 13 year. This is the short story of how it happened, what happened, and what might happen in the future.
But first, maybe we should go to the far past. All my life, I've had an active relationship with God. As I grew up, that relationship definitely went through several metamorphoses In my childhood, it was "God The Father" with a scientific twist. I didn't want to disappoint God and I wanted God to understand that I didn't want to be good just to get into heaven, but that I really, really wanted to do God's will. But, I also thought frequently, "Where did God come from?" "How could something ALWAYS be there?" I couldn't suss it out to make sense. In the college years, it was a kind of Arts and Sciences relationship with God (God, how can I pray to you when there really isn't a 'being' such as God. And what about religion as an instrument of oppression, patriarchy, etc. And what about the Holocaust?! And yet, in my gut, I believe in You...so I guess I will just be mixed up and avoid church). Then, in my late twenties and early thirties - my early years as a social worker- I saw so much human suffering and the most vulnerable people every day - I knew I needed a spiritual community and something that sustained me spiritually, so I began attending a Unitarian Universalist congregation, which, religiously stems from Judeo-Christian roots, but in practicality, it's a spiritual home for people who range from Buddhist, to Jewish, to secular humanist, to Christian, to pantheist. And since then, my relationship with God has been been daily in both mundane ways (Have you ever seen Fiddler on the Roof? I talk to God pretty much like an invisible friend at times i.e., God, do you think you could make my life lessons a little less jarring? Would that be so troublesome?) and also in mysterious ways that are beyond my ability with words. It's become unimportant to me whether the word God is what's used to name God. I use the word God, but I know a lot of people feel uncomfortable with that. Many of those same people experience deep in them something like I do: a knowing that there is something more. I call it God. I see it and feel it as Love, and I know it as Mystery and a Goodness Beyond Words.
So, that's the backstory. The current story is this: two things are converging. As my marriage was ending, I felt increasing curious about how Christian theology might fill out the meaning of my experiences of my marriage and the end of my marriage. So, I met a couple times with a Methodist minister I know. Also, I grew up Methodist, so the familiarity and frame of reference appealed to me. Not only that - I've been compelled, as so many of us have, by news, politics, intersection of religion with currents events, and I've been wondering how to be a part of the solution, even a small part, in this miasma of vitriol, anger and hate. The solution, for me is compelled by what I consider to be not only my civic conviction, but spiritual beliefs.
So, that led me (and my daughter) to the rock and roll Methodist Church yesterday. She looked at me early in the service, as the band was rockin' out and said, "we're more uptight than this." But twice during the service, she whispered, "I really like this, do you?" I did. The message, pivoted on a quote from the Sermon on the Mount, but it broke down the Bible verse into interpretation and emphasis - it gave choices, and emphasized both/and thinking (rather than either/or thinking).
Afterward, of course, my daughter didn't want to go to a second church service in one morning. What 11 year old kid does? But, I wanted to go directly to our 'home' church and see how that felt. So I bribed her with Strange Donuts and off we flew. The man at the donut counter asked us what we were doing and when I told him, I also asked if he grew up with a religion. "Catholic," he said. "But I don't go anymore. It's interesting that I'm studying at a Jesuit school." We laughed and talked for a few minutes about Catholicism. And as my daughter and I walked out into the wind and cold, she said "That's weird that we had such a deep conversation in the donut shop." I said "Stick with me, kid." Because truthfully, I have weird, deep conversations with people in passing all the time.
And then we entered our familiar, old church. The sanctuary where we've spent holidays, watched baptisms (Unitarian style), taken part in Youth Talent Shows, and Christmas Pageants. Not to mention all the 'old' faces - the people we've seen age, the children I've seen grow, the characters I've come to have so much affection for. This is the weird part to me - not deep conversations, but to find myself contemplating a religious crossroads, to wonder if I'll take a step toward a further metamorphosis in my relationship with God? Or will it be a different iteration of my relationship with the church?
Walking and talking and laughing and learning with my daughter, I felt and feel joyous and grateful. We are together in a country where we can choose our religion, where we can disagree and talk and wonder with people we know well and those we've just met. We can change our minds! We can walk down the street with the wind whipping the hair in our faces and practically skip with the energy of it.
And, I don't know what will happen next. And, I treasure both the freedom and responsibility of that.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
this week in grief therapy...bargaining
I think a lot of people, at some point, have encountered information about the 5 Stages of Grief, outlined by Elizabeth Kubler Ross in the her 1970-something book, On Death and Dying: 1) Shock/Denial, 2) Bargaining, 3) Anger, 4) Depression, 5) Acceptance. There are other theories of grief and many of them are excellent resources, but hers seems to be the one that is most commonly dispersed in funeral homes, through hospices, in the self-help section of the book store. I admire her work so much - she was one of the pioneers of the hospice movement in the U.S.
Anyway, it is commonly thought that there is some kind of order to these and that a grieving person should proceed through one after the other and end up in the place of healing and wholeness - acceptance. But anyone who's ever endured a great loss knows that even if these are the stages, they don't go in any order and you can move in and out and through these stages sometimes in one day and you might end out at the end of that day in shock and denial. This is no failure. It just is.
This week, I've been thinking about the bargaining stage of grief, in part because of an exercise I am working on for myself - a grief timeline. If you are in a self-reflective phase, for whatever reason, you might get something out of this too. Just create a timeline, like you did in grade school, and hashmark your line with a date/year and small notation like, "June 1979, pet fish died." Anything that you want can count as a loss - car accident, loss of job, moving, being diagnosed with asthma. It can be big or small and there's no 'right' thing to include on your timeline. Sometimes it's helpful to see patterns or gain a big picture understanding of where grief has fallen in your life.
When I was working on mine, and I got to my high school years, I reflected on the way I grieved the breakup with a high school boyfriend (a lot of tears and U2 songs being played over and over on my "boombox". Damn the rewind button.) A large part of my grieving was what I now consider "BARGAINING" in the stages of grief and all of it awesomely high school style - "Maybe if I wear this outfit to the party, he'll realize he likes me again", "maybe if I flirt with this other guy at the party, he'll realize he likes me again", "maybe if I ignore him totally, he'll realize he likes me again". I held an unconscious belief that something I did would have control over his actions and reactions. It's not even humiliating to think of it now (though maybe it should be), because I see how we all bargain in grief even when the stakes are much higher.
I've worked with so many people over the years who bargain even long after the person they loved so deeply has died. "Maybe I should have insisted he go to the doctor sooner", "maybe I should have stayed home that day instead of going to work", "Maybe I should have pushed her harder to try that one experimental chemo."
Bargaining is futile and so human. I think people who normally feel a great degree of control in their lives are more susceptible to bargaining because the cold, hard fact that something so important is out of our control seems nearly unthinkable. I also see bargaining as being related to feelings of guilt and responsibilit, i.e., if only I could do something different, if only I had done something other than I had, if I am better, more, different, I could have or will prevent this loss. It's a terrible place to be.
About a year ago I went to a grief training in St. Louis, given by David Kessler, who co-wrote Elizabeth Kubler Ross's last book with her, On Grief and Grieving. He said, that if we had any control over the life of the person who died, they would still be with us. I just want to repeat that - "If we had any control over the life of the person we love who died, they would still be with us."
It is difficult in this life to discern when we have control over something and when we don't. It is difficult to know whether the thing we think we want would ensure a good outcome for all. How much difference does one decision make? Would the experimental chemo have cured mom's cancer? Would she have gotten 3 more good months, or 3 more months more sick than ever?
An expression that gets used a lot these days is, "It is what it is." I think that's a mantra of letting go. But in a wise and gentle way, one of my young clients had something else to say about how she is, at times, able to let go of her bargaining and second guessing and at times of the pain of her grief. She said, "When I go to a dark place, there are a lot of questions. There are only questions. I have to look for solace. I look for that in my friends and family who are living. And I find it."
Like I said, bargaining is natural and more natural to some of us control freaks than others, but if you are stuck in that painful place right now, I encourage you to reach out to someone who cares about you and let your connection to them be a light out of the cold and dark.
Anyway, it is commonly thought that there is some kind of order to these and that a grieving person should proceed through one after the other and end up in the place of healing and wholeness - acceptance. But anyone who's ever endured a great loss knows that even if these are the stages, they don't go in any order and you can move in and out and through these stages sometimes in one day and you might end out at the end of that day in shock and denial. This is no failure. It just is.
This week, I've been thinking about the bargaining stage of grief, in part because of an exercise I am working on for myself - a grief timeline. If you are in a self-reflective phase, for whatever reason, you might get something out of this too. Just create a timeline, like you did in grade school, and hashmark your line with a date/year and small notation like, "June 1979, pet fish died." Anything that you want can count as a loss - car accident, loss of job, moving, being diagnosed with asthma. It can be big or small and there's no 'right' thing to include on your timeline. Sometimes it's helpful to see patterns or gain a big picture understanding of where grief has fallen in your life.
When I was working on mine, and I got to my high school years, I reflected on the way I grieved the breakup with a high school boyfriend (a lot of tears and U2 songs being played over and over on my "boombox". Damn the rewind button.) A large part of my grieving was what I now consider "BARGAINING" in the stages of grief and all of it awesomely high school style - "Maybe if I wear this outfit to the party, he'll realize he likes me again", "maybe if I flirt with this other guy at the party, he'll realize he likes me again", "maybe if I ignore him totally, he'll realize he likes me again". I held an unconscious belief that something I did would have control over his actions and reactions. It's not even humiliating to think of it now (though maybe it should be), because I see how we all bargain in grief even when the stakes are much higher.
I've worked with so many people over the years who bargain even long after the person they loved so deeply has died. "Maybe I should have insisted he go to the doctor sooner", "maybe I should have stayed home that day instead of going to work", "Maybe I should have pushed her harder to try that one experimental chemo."
Bargaining is futile and so human. I think people who normally feel a great degree of control in their lives are more susceptible to bargaining because the cold, hard fact that something so important is out of our control seems nearly unthinkable. I also see bargaining as being related to feelings of guilt and responsibilit, i.e., if only I could do something different, if only I had done something other than I had, if I am better, more, different, I could have or will prevent this loss. It's a terrible place to be.
About a year ago I went to a grief training in St. Louis, given by David Kessler, who co-wrote Elizabeth Kubler Ross's last book with her, On Grief and Grieving. He said, that if we had any control over the life of the person who died, they would still be with us. I just want to repeat that - "If we had any control over the life of the person we love who died, they would still be with us."
It is difficult in this life to discern when we have control over something and when we don't. It is difficult to know whether the thing we think we want would ensure a good outcome for all. How much difference does one decision make? Would the experimental chemo have cured mom's cancer? Would she have gotten 3 more good months, or 3 more months more sick than ever?
An expression that gets used a lot these days is, "It is what it is." I think that's a mantra of letting go. But in a wise and gentle way, one of my young clients had something else to say about how she is, at times, able to let go of her bargaining and second guessing and at times of the pain of her grief. She said, "When I go to a dark place, there are a lot of questions. There are only questions. I have to look for solace. I look for that in my friends and family who are living. And I find it."
Like I said, bargaining is natural and more natural to some of us control freaks than others, but if you are stuck in that painful place right now, I encourage you to reach out to someone who cares about you and let your connection to them be a light out of the cold and dark.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Endings, Beginnings, and Ferris Bueller
People who know me well know why I haven't been blogging this year. And several people have been asking me for several months to start writing again. As for me, I've wanted to, but also haven't until now, felt that I was ready. I guess I'm ready as I'll ever be, but I am feeling trepidation. I'm nervous for both personal and professional reasons - personally, I've always used my own life experience to weave into whatever it is I'm blogging or writing about. I got divorced this year. The pain of that, the nuances of the end of a marriage, and the deep changes that take place in a family are vulnerable not just for me, but for others in my family. If I choose to write about these things, it is my intention to do so in a way that is respectful of their sense of privacy and their healing.
Professionally, I have trepidation, too. There is an idea in theater of the "fourth wall" - breaking the fourth wall is when the character on stage speaks directly to the audience. I think of Ferris Bueller turning to the camera and saying to the audience, "How could I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like this?" As a therapist, there is a fourth wall, too. Most therapists don't tend to share much about their personal experience and there is an idea that the less a client knows about their therapist personally, the more effective the therapeutic relationship might be because the client will project their own issues on the therapist and through that projection can work through and heal from childhood wounds. So, by writing about my personal experience, I run the risk of my clients who might read this, feeling that they know too much about me.
I am a therapist, but I write this blog because I am also a writer, poet, and storyteller. I hope that sharing my experiences, thoughts, struggles, wonders, hopes, will help the world (and me) in some way - to help people understand one another better. To help us feel connected to one another and ourselves. And to offer courage. One thing I've learned about myself is just how anti-authoritarian I am. I don't believe that the therapist is this all-knowing wise person with ANSWERS. Maybe some therapists have some answers, but I believe one of the purposes of my profession is to help people find their own answers. Each person is the ultimate authority in his/her own life.
So, thank you for bearing with me through that long-winded introduction.
I got divorced this year. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you would not wish divorce on your worst enemy. In a generic way: 1) the legal process is nauseating - breaking a family down into measurable days and dollars, 2) there is the end of the hopes and dreams of two people who came together in a hopeful way to get married in the first place - the grief of letting go, 3) the changes to the greater family tradition/structure - holidays, birthdays, the annual camping trip to the lake, or whatever...all of that which impacts not just the two people who are divorced, but the whole family.
And I feel like I must share this to go on blogging/writing, because it will deeply influence my writing - what I write about and the lens through which I look at our human experience.
Many, many people express to me that they are happy this year is over. The election process was an excruciating one in our country, regardless of how you feel about the outcome. As a country, we are looking at many cracks in our social and political fabric that need healing. As a world community, it feels like there is more distrust and fear than ever. And that is not to mention the personal struggles that each of us face.
In my last blog that I posted, January 2016, I asked:"how will you show up for the year?" 2016 didn't give me too many choices...life happened and it happened fast. So, my answer to the question in looking back over the year is that overall, I showed up awestruck - in Webster's that means, "filled with a feeling of fear and wonder." With the wind knocked out of me, I was vulnerable in ways I'd never been before. I felt great pain, but I also received great help.
When I wrote in my journal this morning, I thought about what I want for 2017 and maybe this is what I want for my whole life - and that is to live free. What I most mean by that is to speak my truth - sometimes my truth is telling my story, sometimes my truth is sharing my hope and strength, sometimes it is saying 'no' even if someone else doesn't like it. Sometimes, it is playing hooky from school.
As hard as this year was for me, I can't say that I wish it away or regret it. This for each of us, is our one precious life. Each hour, each day, each year adds up. Maybe it will give you courage to know that I went through horrendous grief and I am okay. I love this life. And, as Ferris Bueller says, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Onward, Friends. I'll see you in 2017.
Professionally, I have trepidation, too. There is an idea in theater of the "fourth wall" - breaking the fourth wall is when the character on stage speaks directly to the audience. I think of Ferris Bueller turning to the camera and saying to the audience, "How could I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like this?" As a therapist, there is a fourth wall, too. Most therapists don't tend to share much about their personal experience and there is an idea that the less a client knows about their therapist personally, the more effective the therapeutic relationship might be because the client will project their own issues on the therapist and through that projection can work through and heal from childhood wounds. So, by writing about my personal experience, I run the risk of my clients who might read this, feeling that they know too much about me.
I am a therapist, but I write this blog because I am also a writer, poet, and storyteller. I hope that sharing my experiences, thoughts, struggles, wonders, hopes, will help the world (and me) in some way - to help people understand one another better. To help us feel connected to one another and ourselves. And to offer courage. One thing I've learned about myself is just how anti-authoritarian I am. I don't believe that the therapist is this all-knowing wise person with ANSWERS. Maybe some therapists have some answers, but I believe one of the purposes of my profession is to help people find their own answers. Each person is the ultimate authority in his/her own life.
So, thank you for bearing with me through that long-winded introduction.
I got divorced this year. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you would not wish divorce on your worst enemy. In a generic way: 1) the legal process is nauseating - breaking a family down into measurable days and dollars, 2) there is the end of the hopes and dreams of two people who came together in a hopeful way to get married in the first place - the grief of letting go, 3) the changes to the greater family tradition/structure - holidays, birthdays, the annual camping trip to the lake, or whatever...all of that which impacts not just the two people who are divorced, but the whole family.
And I feel like I must share this to go on blogging/writing, because it will deeply influence my writing - what I write about and the lens through which I look at our human experience.
Many, many people express to me that they are happy this year is over. The election process was an excruciating one in our country, regardless of how you feel about the outcome. As a country, we are looking at many cracks in our social and political fabric that need healing. As a world community, it feels like there is more distrust and fear than ever. And that is not to mention the personal struggles that each of us face.
In my last blog that I posted, January 2016, I asked:"how will you show up for the year?" 2016 didn't give me too many choices...life happened and it happened fast. So, my answer to the question in looking back over the year is that overall, I showed up awestruck - in Webster's that means, "filled with a feeling of fear and wonder." With the wind knocked out of me, I was vulnerable in ways I'd never been before. I felt great pain, but I also received great help.
When I wrote in my journal this morning, I thought about what I want for 2017 and maybe this is what I want for my whole life - and that is to live free. What I most mean by that is to speak my truth - sometimes my truth is telling my story, sometimes my truth is sharing my hope and strength, sometimes it is saying 'no' even if someone else doesn't like it. Sometimes, it is playing hooky from school.
As hard as this year was for me, I can't say that I wish it away or regret it. This for each of us, is our one precious life. Each hour, each day, each year adds up. Maybe it will give you courage to know that I went through horrendous grief and I am okay. I love this life. And, as Ferris Bueller says, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Onward, Friends. I'll see you in 2017.
Monday, January 11, 2016
2016...How will you show up?
Last week was a long week. With my husband out of town on a work trip, I had my hands full with work, kids, house, year-end paperwork, aging pets (who poop on the floor right as I am walking out the door to get to work), and whatever else comes up. I often feel like a drill sergeant: Did you pack your homework? Do you have your Girl Scout sash? Brush your hair. Wear some deodorant. Have you done our thank you notes from Christmas yet? I get sick of myself. We needed some fun, but fun that didn't take too much energy. At least, that's what I needed.
So last night, we watched School of Rock, with Jack Black - a movie none of us had ever seen before. It was the perfect mix of silliness, personal catharsis, and rock and roll. But it also happened to fit perfectly into this blog, which I'd been working on earlier about HOW WE SHOW UP. Here's Jack Black showing up hungover to his first day substitute teaching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbF4qz_-PCM
Another interesting story about 'showing up' comes from The Moth Radio Hour's most recent, https://beta.prx.org/stories/167147, which includes a funny and good story from Nadia Bolz-Weber (a Lutheran minister), who tells about how she tends to show up to large gatherings of Lutherans (and plane flights) and how she 'showed up' anxious and panicky to a precarious, international tourist bus trip down a mountain pass. It's worth listening to.
In my private practice, I'm paying attention to how people show up. I don't mean if they are wearing sweatpants or a business suit, but how they show up mentally. Most people show up in consistent ways, mentally/emotionally. Here are some I've noticed: 'prepared', with notes, questions, writings; vulnerable, ready to be open; passive, with the idea that something I do or say is the answer to all their problems; like a student, wanting to learn something; full of stories, longing to just talk out and tell the story of what's happened in their life since the last time I saw them; skeptical or defended, uncommitted, wanting to feel better, but not sure they want to go too deep.
There is no right way or wrong way to show up to therapy. Or life. But many days we don't even ask ourselves how we want to show up. To our day, our work, our family, a holiday party. We show up in the same old ways we always show up. We are irritable, we are hopeful, we are suspicious, we are exhausted, we are angry, we are playful, we are naive, we are curious, we are know-it-alls.
A dynamo woman I know introduced me to a wonderful poem a few years ago, and I know I've written about it before - Summons, by Robert Francis. She and her husband used it as a reading at their wedding and I love it in part because it reminds me that showing up the same way is a way of sleeping through life. And being willing to see everyday things like the moon with fresh eyes is a choice that makes my life more rich and full. Here it is:
Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.
When we just show up without choosing how we want to show up, we are asleep to our own life (or like Jack Black, hungover). We always have a choice to wake up and show up. We have a whole new year ahead of us. 2016. It's the morning of January 11. How will you show up today?
So last night, we watched School of Rock, with Jack Black - a movie none of us had ever seen before. It was the perfect mix of silliness, personal catharsis, and rock and roll. But it also happened to fit perfectly into this blog, which I'd been working on earlier about HOW WE SHOW UP. Here's Jack Black showing up hungover to his first day substitute teaching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbF4qz_-PCM
Another interesting story about 'showing up' comes from The Moth Radio Hour's most recent, https://beta.prx.org/stories/167147, which includes a funny and good story from Nadia Bolz-Weber (a Lutheran minister), who tells about how she tends to show up to large gatherings of Lutherans (and plane flights) and how she 'showed up' anxious and panicky to a precarious, international tourist bus trip down a mountain pass. It's worth listening to.
In my private practice, I'm paying attention to how people show up. I don't mean if they are wearing sweatpants or a business suit, but how they show up mentally. Most people show up in consistent ways, mentally/emotionally. Here are some I've noticed: 'prepared', with notes, questions, writings; vulnerable, ready to be open; passive, with the idea that something I do or say is the answer to all their problems; like a student, wanting to learn something; full of stories, longing to just talk out and tell the story of what's happened in their life since the last time I saw them; skeptical or defended, uncommitted, wanting to feel better, but not sure they want to go too deep.
There is no right way or wrong way to show up to therapy. Or life. But many days we don't even ask ourselves how we want to show up. To our day, our work, our family, a holiday party. We show up in the same old ways we always show up. We are irritable, we are hopeful, we are suspicious, we are exhausted, we are angry, we are playful, we are naive, we are curious, we are know-it-alls.
A dynamo woman I know introduced me to a wonderful poem a few years ago, and I know I've written about it before - Summons, by Robert Francis. She and her husband used it as a reading at their wedding and I love it in part because it reminds me that showing up the same way is a way of sleeping through life. And being willing to see everyday things like the moon with fresh eyes is a choice that makes my life more rich and full. Here it is:
Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.
When we just show up without choosing how we want to show up, we are asleep to our own life (or like Jack Black, hungover). We always have a choice to wake up and show up. We have a whole new year ahead of us. 2016. It's the morning of January 11. How will you show up today?
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
The Rattle Bag: Dances with Wolves, Translations, and Gun Control
Living in D.C. in my early 20s, I remember discovering a bookstore called Kramerbooks and Afterwords, which I loved the way book nerds like me love bookstores. Which is to say, I felt totally cozy and at home there. Independent bookstores often effect me as church or museums do - I get solemn and sense a connection with Big Things. With my very little expendable income, I picked up a poetry anthology called The Rattle Bag, edited by Seamus Heaney (the Irish, too, do something romantic me) and have picked it up periodically and read and appreciated for the past 20 years. In part, what I take the word Rattle Bag to represent is a hodge podge - a poetry book full of interesting poems, related only by the fact that the editor liked them.
So today is a Rattle Bag of some ideas I've been working through and a couple bits that have been helpful that have stumbled across my path recently.
First, I want to share with you, that it's my intent to start work on a book in 2016, and perhaps finish it too. It will be part anecdotal/memoir and part self-help workbook/journal for readers. Through work and life, I've experienced a variety of interesting, joyful and even harrowing things, and certainly been witness to others' lives and through the past 15 years, I've journaled almost every day. It's an important part of how I stay truthful with myself, how I feel connected to myself and other people, how I work through puzzles and pains. If you are interested in reading bits as I go along, let me know. In that spirit, I offer you a new exercise that I've been using in my own journaling, and that I plan to include in what I put together in a larger picture in 2016. Here goes:
Over Thanksgiving weekend, my family and I watched Dances with Wolves together and I was struck by something that had never resonated with me in the same way before - the meeting of the Sioux to decide what to do about John Dunbar (Kevin Costner), who they'd found living alone at the soldier fort. Sitting around the fire, the Sioux men met and each had their say, which was listened to fully and seriously by the other members of the tribe, including the chief, Ten Bears. The men spoke one at a time and paused to take in all that the other man had just said - one man was angry and vengeful, one man was curious, maybe each man had a slightly different opinion, but he was fully heard. Then, Ten Bears, after taking it in, made a decision - that no decision had to be made at that time.
From a psychological perspective, I loved this as a metaphor for how we might better solve problems or questions in our lives - i.e., what should I do about the problem at school, at work, with my friend, with my sister, with my spouse? Many people react quickly without thinking through all the different internal responses they are having. Other people get so stuck in pondering and puzzling that they never do anything. But the important part is, that in order to proceed with wisdom (even, if your decision is to do 'nothing' at this time,) every part of your personality needs to be heard fully.
In puzzling out how to deal with my own kids, who have been bickering, fighting, complaining and hitting each other recently, I drew out a big circle on a piece of paper. I put a small circle in the middle and pie pieces coming from the middle circle to the outer edge. On each pie piece, I wrote a feeling that represented a member of my internal 'tribe' and what that member would say at a tribal council. For example: Disgusted/Exhausted, "I'm sick and tired of all this fighting" Or, Failure, "They fight because I didn't teach them well." Or, Normal, "It's normal for brothers and sisters to fight like this." In the end, I had seven representatives on my council, each with a different feeling about the same problem. Then, I imagined what the chief would say after having listened to all the different parts of me.
What I noticed after I wrote all this down, is that I felt much more peaceful about the problem than I had before I wrote. I needed to consciously acknowledge that I was being driven in part by guilt and feelings of failure, but after admitting that to myself, the "chief" also saw that it was best to listen to the voices that said be both consistent with consequences and patient because this is normal.
I just want to encourage you to try something like this, if you are grappling with a problem right now - what are all the different ways you feel about it - even if they are illogical, unattractive or silly? Don't try to impress yourself, just be real. After knowing ALL the different ways you feel, what makes most sense? Feel free to let me know how it goes - I'd love to hear if this works for you in bringing a greater sense of quiet to a problem that's kept you stirred up.
And of course, in my Rattlebag this month has been deep sadness about the gun violence in our world (we can't just say the U.S., now), terrorism, and rage in general. A young person I know recently shared with me that the root of the word 'sin,' really translates to 'missing the mark' (it actually had to do with archery). I am a person who gravitates toward words and religious words have power for me, even if I am not a dogmatic at all. Sin can be such a polarizing word - lots of non-religious people sort of roll their eyes at it. Yet, missing the mark is a concept that resonates beyond the religious. I think about the overlap of the metaphor - of shooting, missing the mark or hitting the mark, good and evil, peace and violence, injustice and justice. Each of us must look at our own thoughts and actions. Where do we 'miss the mark' in our thinking, feeling, or how we treat others? I know I say it all the time, but our little bit counts in ways we can never fully understand.
And finally, I have been thinking a lot about gun control and what the nuances of that mean to me. I could go two routes - one, is that I do understand that many people feel extremely threatened and perhaps rightfully so, in willy nilly changes to the Bill of Rights. This is how the Second Amendment reads: Amendment II
But the second route I go is more practical, I suppose. I understand that many people who don't hunt or otherwise use firearms are confused by the differences between semi-automatic, automatic and assault style weapons. My own son is a hunter and enjoys trap shooting, so I've learned a lot more than I ever would have known otherwise. I believe that as a society, we must implement regulations that slow the legal processes of acquiring firearms and maintaining them. I don't believe that solves the problems we are facing, but does that mean we shouldn't do it? We should do all the things we can to create a common sense society.
That's the Rattle Bag today, I suppose. And one more thing not to be forgotten - hopes and wishes for your family to enjoy a December that is gentle and full of love.
So today is a Rattle Bag of some ideas I've been working through and a couple bits that have been helpful that have stumbled across my path recently.
First, I want to share with you, that it's my intent to start work on a book in 2016, and perhaps finish it too. It will be part anecdotal/memoir and part self-help workbook/journal for readers. Through work and life, I've experienced a variety of interesting, joyful and even harrowing things, and certainly been witness to others' lives and through the past 15 years, I've journaled almost every day. It's an important part of how I stay truthful with myself, how I feel connected to myself and other people, how I work through puzzles and pains. If you are interested in reading bits as I go along, let me know. In that spirit, I offer you a new exercise that I've been using in my own journaling, and that I plan to include in what I put together in a larger picture in 2016. Here goes:
Over Thanksgiving weekend, my family and I watched Dances with Wolves together and I was struck by something that had never resonated with me in the same way before - the meeting of the Sioux to decide what to do about John Dunbar (Kevin Costner), who they'd found living alone at the soldier fort. Sitting around the fire, the Sioux men met and each had their say, which was listened to fully and seriously by the other members of the tribe, including the chief, Ten Bears. The men spoke one at a time and paused to take in all that the other man had just said - one man was angry and vengeful, one man was curious, maybe each man had a slightly different opinion, but he was fully heard. Then, Ten Bears, after taking it in, made a decision - that no decision had to be made at that time.
From a psychological perspective, I loved this as a metaphor for how we might better solve problems or questions in our lives - i.e., what should I do about the problem at school, at work, with my friend, with my sister, with my spouse? Many people react quickly without thinking through all the different internal responses they are having. Other people get so stuck in pondering and puzzling that they never do anything. But the important part is, that in order to proceed with wisdom (even, if your decision is to do 'nothing' at this time,) every part of your personality needs to be heard fully.
In puzzling out how to deal with my own kids, who have been bickering, fighting, complaining and hitting each other recently, I drew out a big circle on a piece of paper. I put a small circle in the middle and pie pieces coming from the middle circle to the outer edge. On each pie piece, I wrote a feeling that represented a member of my internal 'tribe' and what that member would say at a tribal council. For example: Disgusted/Exhausted, "I'm sick and tired of all this fighting" Or, Failure, "They fight because I didn't teach them well." Or, Normal, "It's normal for brothers and sisters to fight like this." In the end, I had seven representatives on my council, each with a different feeling about the same problem. Then, I imagined what the chief would say after having listened to all the different parts of me.
What I noticed after I wrote all this down, is that I felt much more peaceful about the problem than I had before I wrote. I needed to consciously acknowledge that I was being driven in part by guilt and feelings of failure, but after admitting that to myself, the "chief" also saw that it was best to listen to the voices that said be both consistent with consequences and patient because this is normal.
I just want to encourage you to try something like this, if you are grappling with a problem right now - what are all the different ways you feel about it - even if they are illogical, unattractive or silly? Don't try to impress yourself, just be real. After knowing ALL the different ways you feel, what makes most sense? Feel free to let me know how it goes - I'd love to hear if this works for you in bringing a greater sense of quiet to a problem that's kept you stirred up.
And of course, in my Rattlebag this month has been deep sadness about the gun violence in our world (we can't just say the U.S., now), terrorism, and rage in general. A young person I know recently shared with me that the root of the word 'sin,' really translates to 'missing the mark' (it actually had to do with archery). I am a person who gravitates toward words and religious words have power for me, even if I am not a dogmatic at all. Sin can be such a polarizing word - lots of non-religious people sort of roll their eyes at it. Yet, missing the mark is a concept that resonates beyond the religious. I think about the overlap of the metaphor - of shooting, missing the mark or hitting the mark, good and evil, peace and violence, injustice and justice. Each of us must look at our own thoughts and actions. Where do we 'miss the mark' in our thinking, feeling, or how we treat others? I know I say it all the time, but our little bit counts in ways we can never fully understand.
And finally, I have been thinking a lot about gun control and what the nuances of that mean to me. I could go two routes - one, is that I do understand that many people feel extremely threatened and perhaps rightfully so, in willy nilly changes to the Bill of Rights. This is how the Second Amendment reads: Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I just want to pose a genuine question, in tribal council mode: Would the Founding Fathers, given today's technology with firearms, adhere to this? I truly wonder. But the second route I go is more practical, I suppose. I understand that many people who don't hunt or otherwise use firearms are confused by the differences between semi-automatic, automatic and assault style weapons. My own son is a hunter and enjoys trap shooting, so I've learned a lot more than I ever would have known otherwise. I believe that as a society, we must implement regulations that slow the legal processes of acquiring firearms and maintaining them. I don't believe that solves the problems we are facing, but does that mean we shouldn't do it? We should do all the things we can to create a common sense society.
That's the Rattle Bag today, I suppose. And one more thing not to be forgotten - hopes and wishes for your family to enjoy a December that is gentle and full of love.
Monday, November 9, 2015
The Times They Are a Changin'
For a person who makes her living essentially helping people to thrive in or at least cope with change, it might be surprising just how mixed up I myself can feel when change happens in my life - even good change. Or little changes that can bring with them some weird baggage.
Case in point: we live in a really old house - it was built in the 1860s, and though many updates have been made by various owners over the years (thankfully, we have indoor plumbing), we don't have a 'master suite', unlike many newer homes. The four of us in our family all share one upstairs bathroom. Even though we have a downstairs full bath, it's more convenient to shower by the bedroom.
Yet, the kids are getting older. My son and I have had a couple blood curdling (for him) run-ins when our downstairs toilet was broken and I was in the shower upstairs. The kids don't neatly fit around the sink to brush their teeth at night and the screaming and shoving matches at tooth-brushing time are more frequent and ridiculous. So over the weekend, my husband announces that he thinks the guys in our family should start using the downstairs bathroom. And I'm like, "Great idea!" But, then a little part of me gets sad (I know, it's weird). A little part of me is sad because the kids are growing up. What if spreading apart in physical space means growing apart? Listen, I know it's crazy. I'm just saying that that one little change, which is really a good thing and shows an acceptance of our family reality, has it's own little moments of grief.
Another bigger change occurred in my life in the past couple of weeks. For twelve years, since I became a mom, I've worked part time Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and two Saturdays a month. My weeks had a consistency and rhythm. It's just what I did and how I did it. Recently, I was given the opportunity to change my days to Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and two Saturdays a month - and suddenly it seemed like this amazing opening of time. I hadn't realized how much I needed it until it was offered to me - a way to feel a sense of being more present - both present at home on my home days and present at work on my work days. A way for me to organize and compartmentalize my time. What an opportunity. And last week was my first week of that change. It felt great! But it also felt uncomfortable. It felt uncomfortable because it made other people uncomfortable. My change impacted my office mates in some good ways, in some ways they didn't like, and in some neutral ways. It made me kind of itchy on the insides because one of my issues is not being an issue to other people. It made me itchy on the insides because I'm a person of routine and my routine is shaken up.
I've been thinking about changes in our community/public life too - what change is happening, what it will look like, what part do I want to play? I am thinking today about my church and minister which is taking an active role in allying with the Black Lives Matter movement, and the football players at Mizzou. Something is changing in our racial culture and St. Louis and Missouri are an integral part of it. There is conflict, discomfort, burnout, dread. There is great discomfort on the part of both black people and white people. Change is happening, we just don't have the perspective of time to know what these changes really mean and what they will look like - it's not as simple as changing your workdays.
Most of us don't make changes in our lives until way past time. That's how hard change is. Most of us go about our days, not realizing that the feelings of discontent or burnout or lack of energy or creativity, the negative relationships, or the dread, are all indicators that change is wanting to happen. Change starts telling us it's needed or imminent, if we pay attention and are willing. Change can be internal (how we think about something) or external (how we do something). Change will happen whether we want it to or not, whether we are ready or not. Sometimes we know exactly what needs to change, sometimes, we don't know what, but something needs to change.
Listen to your life. Look at what's happening in your life as if you've never seen it before. It's not right or wrong, better or worse, to make a change happen versus let a change happen. The real wisdom is accepting the change. Just accepting it.
My mom will sure love the title of this blog, because she raised us on protest and folk music of the 60s - it probably shaped the deepest parts of my brain in ways I'll never fully know - so I might as well leave you with a little Bob Dylan, who talks in his own way about acceptance, too:
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
Read more: Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-changin' Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Case in point: we live in a really old house - it was built in the 1860s, and though many updates have been made by various owners over the years (thankfully, we have indoor plumbing), we don't have a 'master suite', unlike many newer homes. The four of us in our family all share one upstairs bathroom. Even though we have a downstairs full bath, it's more convenient to shower by the bedroom.
Yet, the kids are getting older. My son and I have had a couple blood curdling (for him) run-ins when our downstairs toilet was broken and I was in the shower upstairs. The kids don't neatly fit around the sink to brush their teeth at night and the screaming and shoving matches at tooth-brushing time are more frequent and ridiculous. So over the weekend, my husband announces that he thinks the guys in our family should start using the downstairs bathroom. And I'm like, "Great idea!" But, then a little part of me gets sad (I know, it's weird). A little part of me is sad because the kids are growing up. What if spreading apart in physical space means growing apart? Listen, I know it's crazy. I'm just saying that that one little change, which is really a good thing and shows an acceptance of our family reality, has it's own little moments of grief.
Another bigger change occurred in my life in the past couple of weeks. For twelve years, since I became a mom, I've worked part time Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and two Saturdays a month. My weeks had a consistency and rhythm. It's just what I did and how I did it. Recently, I was given the opportunity to change my days to Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and two Saturdays a month - and suddenly it seemed like this amazing opening of time. I hadn't realized how much I needed it until it was offered to me - a way to feel a sense of being more present - both present at home on my home days and present at work on my work days. A way for me to organize and compartmentalize my time. What an opportunity. And last week was my first week of that change. It felt great! But it also felt uncomfortable. It felt uncomfortable because it made other people uncomfortable. My change impacted my office mates in some good ways, in some ways they didn't like, and in some neutral ways. It made me kind of itchy on the insides because one of my issues is not being an issue to other people. It made me itchy on the insides because I'm a person of routine and my routine is shaken up.
I've been thinking about changes in our community/public life too - what change is happening, what it will look like, what part do I want to play? I am thinking today about my church and minister which is taking an active role in allying with the Black Lives Matter movement, and the football players at Mizzou. Something is changing in our racial culture and St. Louis and Missouri are an integral part of it. There is conflict, discomfort, burnout, dread. There is great discomfort on the part of both black people and white people. Change is happening, we just don't have the perspective of time to know what these changes really mean and what they will look like - it's not as simple as changing your workdays.
Most of us don't make changes in our lives until way past time. That's how hard change is. Most of us go about our days, not realizing that the feelings of discontent or burnout or lack of energy or creativity, the negative relationships, or the dread, are all indicators that change is wanting to happen. Change starts telling us it's needed or imminent, if we pay attention and are willing. Change can be internal (how we think about something) or external (how we do something). Change will happen whether we want it to or not, whether we are ready or not. Sometimes we know exactly what needs to change, sometimes, we don't know what, but something needs to change.
Listen to your life. Look at what's happening in your life as if you've never seen it before. It's not right or wrong, better or worse, to make a change happen versus let a change happen. The real wisdom is accepting the change. Just accepting it.
My mom will sure love the title of this blog, because she raised us on protest and folk music of the 60s - it probably shaped the deepest parts of my brain in ways I'll never fully know - so I might as well leave you with a little Bob Dylan, who talks in his own way about acceptance, too:
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
Read more: Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-changin' Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)