Who Believes in You?
How many people thought you’d never change? But here you have! It’s beautiful. It’s strange.
Kate Light, “There Comes the Strangest Moment”
In the early weeks of the quarentine, facebook memes were posted to encourage us to use our time to produce, change, and make the most of our time in isolation. I hated each and every one. I thought about how, someday in the distant future, historians would write about all the ways our world changed after this season of quarantine and anxiety.
Will historians write about our productivity in spite of this crisis or might they chronicle the after-shocks of a world stripped of its favorite dependencies? Who is to say? I do not know.
But I do know this. We are ALWAYS in need of change. One of my “projects” while in quarantine was to take online classes in topics that I hope will make me a better human being. One course was on Motivational Interviewing - wow. It was good and hard. The instructor told us that only 15% of the people who are taught MI actually achieve competency in the practice of MI. Discouraging? Not to me. It simply helps me understand what I am up against. This is hard; I will need a LOT of instruction, practice, feedback, and correction.
And is this not exactly what the 12-steps have trained us for? I did a freaking 5th step!! How tough can it be to have an instructor coach me on improving a skill set that I actually want to learn!
Quarantine is NOT the time to lean into productivity. But we can find purpose, meaning, and reasonably contented moments so long as we are also paying attention and using the tools we have to deal with trauma, stress, and withdrawals from our dependencies.
Today I sent my kids a text: “Anyone who can find and bring to me Minute Maid Lemonade (light) will receive payment and a generous commission.” This is my dependency at work. Fortunately, I have the tools to deal with it and so do you!!! Let’s keep changing in ways that make us better human beings - ok? This is the best way I know to encourage one another!!
