Pay Attention!

This past summer a team of hardworking folks helped write grant proposals for Northstar Community. None panned out. When I hear the word "grant proposal" I start twitching. Grant proposals are a lot of work and the more challenging the proposal, the more invested the applicant becomes in the outcome. If we as a team are not careful, we will conclude that there is nothing that we can do to create funding streams to grow a community that loves to serve those who often have no financial resources to meet their desperate need for recovery. This, in psychological terms, is called learned helplessness.

There are hundreds of studies about experiments that teach animals to be helpless, even when a way of escape is made available. Heartbreaking, right?

Here is what we all need to remember: the game is rigged. The enemy is not the conditions of the experiment, the enemy is the mad scientist who thinks up these games and studies the participants with cool detachment. Researchers say that the kinds of pervasive problems that lead rats to feel helpless create "chronic, mild stress." I can only assume that every time someone mentions the word "grant proposal," my body has a stress response. I also assume that those who did the heavy lifting with the grant proposals (not me) might actually twitch when those words are spoken in their presence.

To manage our stress, we need to recognize that we exist in an environment where there is often "chronic, low-level stress." Women understand this when they work in corporate America. People who study these things say that women are granted only 30% of the air time that men are given in meetings. Boys speak up more than eight times than girls as early as elementary school. People who do not fit the social norms of "skinny" are judged and treated with blatant disrespect. This is. IN SPITE of the fact that evidence teaches us that for the older set, people above the healthy BMI range live longer than those who are at the lower BMI range. Don't even get me started on the difference in racial equality.

What's my point? Pay attention. There is one other issue that needs acknowledgment. People who do NOT share the same experience have a very difficult time accepting that differences are real and they are stressful. This is even true for people who are experiencing the inequality. For many, acknowledging these differences is more painful than addressing them. This is a double whammy for the folks who notice.

Second point: Do NOT fall into the trap of learned helplessness. The game is rigged. Account for the stress, but unlearn the helpless myth. Tomorrow, we'll unpack that!

The Healing of Physical Connection

Sometimes laughter does not work and pleasantries are not enough to support our recovery from stress. This is when we need a deeper connection with a loving presence. During my sorrowful season I relied on a couple of dear humans to walk with me, text with late at night, talk to on the phone when needed. These took a lot of time but my friends were willing to give it to me without condition. My husband gave me long hugs and many "six-second kisses" - a concept we will talk about in a second. My kids visited and did not let me forget I was acting "off" without becoming condescending or nagging. My brother and his family, also suffering, sustained contact and visited.

This point is crucial. There have to be people in your life who allow you to "receive" without expecting anything in return. We need people who allow us to be a "human being" not only a "human giving." We need people who see beyond our job title or their expectations.

John Gottman, a relationship researcher, says that affection on this level is the equivalent of a "six-second kiss." That's a loooonnnnng kiss. His research is around partners, not friends who take long walks with you! But he reports that the kiss tells our body that we are safe with our significant other. Another way to create this atmosphere of affection is with a hug. This is not a quick lean-in hug. This is a sustained hug. If you've watched Ted Lasso (and if you have not you should), in season two there is a long hug after an episode with one of the men and his abusive father. His coach comes in and gives him a HUG. He wraps him in his arms and the character, Jaimie, goes from a stiff-armed robot to a person crying shamlessly as they receive comfort. This kind of hug requires 20-seconds.

Human contact teaches our body that all is good!

Without being creepy and inappropriate, how can you give and receive affection on a regular basis and close that stress loop?

PS. Pets are perfectly acceptable substitutes as is finding "meaning in life" and prayer works too! The goal is to feel a connection outside one's self.

It’s Your Journey

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

How do we stop trying to regain control in such destructive ways?

The past few days we've talked about attentiveness and the ways in which this helps us trace our reactions to their source.  This is the beginning of the process of learning to respond to triggers as opposed to reacting to them.  

A similar-sounding, though quite distinct, skill involves remaining alert.  What do I mean by this?  

What I've been describing this month, so far, is a "deep track" of recovery work.  It's not an area we address early on.  It's something that comes later in the process as we gain some stability.  Stability, for all its merits, creates problems.  It affords us the opportunity to relax, to settle in, and to breathe.  We need this.  But if we stretch this too far we become disengaged and complacent.  

Remaining alert means refusing to believe that, "we have arrived," that "we have gotten somewhere," or that "we have progressed."  At the very least, we refuse to believe that we have progressed to the point where we no longer need to actively pursue our recovery.  

Over time, we actively pursue new areas and skill sets, but we don't stop the pursuit.  Remaining alert means that we can acknowledge progress as long as we acknowledge that we must continue the work.  

Future Scott on Past Scott:

We will likely, over the course of time, have periods of high stress and periods of lower stress. And I do agree that it’s important to take advantage of the times in life when our stress is lower. This is a good time to do some brainstorming about the life we want to live because we are not backed into a corner and we feel we have more options and more opportunities for being creative in terms of how we continue to create our lives. 

I think I like thinking of life in this way: It’s always something we’re creating. We’re never done creating it. We’re always moving, always journeying, always heading somewhere, and rarely in the same direction. 

What direction do you want to travel in, today, right now?

Becoming a Trustworthy Listener

“One of the most powerful truths we can offer our children is the knowledge that we’re ALL still learning. None of us have arrived; we all have room to grow.”
Erica Layne

During pandemic stress management I have done a TON of cleaning up. During one frenzied afternoon I found a stack of old journals. Evidently, I have been more faithful at journaling and praying than I realized! One journal included a list of things I did NOT want to do when I was old. I’m pretty sure when I wrote this list I thought that would be 40.

Now that I am legitimately almost old enough to qualify for the covid vaccine I thought a review of the list was in order. I stopped cleaning and started reading. Here’s my number 1 thing I DID NOT want to happen:

#1 - Never, never ever start to believe, much less say, that I feel like the “kids” today are not respectful enough of their elders. I’m kind of sensitive when “older” folks complain about the younger generation. Why? Because this happens every stinking time one generation gives way to the next! I do not know WHY as we age we tend to grow loose-lipped about our disdain for youth. Early onset dementia, perhaps? Have we forgotten that our generation was assailed as being the WORST. D*^& long haired hippies. Sex crazy maniacs. Draft dodgers…..as I recall, it was a pretty long list. The adjectives have shifted a bit, but this still continues today.

I’m reminded of John 4 when Jesus makes a side trip to Samaria (a place people usually rerouted their gps to avoid) to have a conversation with a young woman who I suspect the elders in the village did not approve of. Jesus teaches us (and her) through the course of a conversation that he knows every single thing about her - even the stuff she wishes no one knew. As a result of this conversation and her subsequent actions, many Samaritans came to believe that Jesus was God’s son. She is the first person Jesus revealed his true identity. He was trustworthy with her secrets; he trusted her with knowing him fully. It’s a fantastic story on so many levels.

This urge we have to be superior - whether it is older, wiser, smarter, more successful, faster, etc., - it does not serve us well. Jesus had every right to pull rank and teach, lecture, instruct, that young woman. What did he do? He entered into a conversation with her. If you read the text carefully, I believe you will find that he initially did two things: 1. Prove that he knew her at the deepest level and 2. invited her to get to know him in that same way. Her receptivity allowed him to proceed to the third: invite her to participate with him in the coming of the kingdom of God.

I wonder if we could be imitators of Christ in this way, listen to one another, learn to trust others with our shame story, learn how to be trustworthy hearing the shame stories of others, could we become part of the solution?

Reluctance and Change

“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”

Brene Brown

Michelle’s husband is an energetic sort: successful, fun-loving, extroverted and not prone to much introspection. At home, he lets his guard down and can be moody, even brooding. She chalked his increasing moodiness up to the stressors of work and the shifting of circumstances. This was before covid-19 hit. They were entering that stage of life when the kids were launching with varying degrees of success and their bodies were beginning to squawk with signs of aging. In response, she went back to work, took up yoga and got a good nutritionist; he doubled down on his favorite distractions.

This included working and playing hard while lubricating every situation with alcohol. Unfortunately, this tried and true method of managing stress was no longer working - from Michelle’s perspective. After a few embarrassing incidents with the inevitable follow up conversations the next morning, Michelle understood with clarity that Kevin was on a completely different page. He did NOT think he had a problem, except for maybe her. The natural response at this point would be for Michelle to redouble her efforts at convincing Kevin that he had a problem. This might involve asking others to support her efforts to change Kevin. Maybe one or more of the kids, perhaps the family physician, certainly she would turn to her girlfriends for support and ideas. Michelle might not be the only person advocating for change - there was a rumor going around among the wives. It seems like a boys’ golf weekend went awry and the other guys had a word with Kevin about his shenanigans. Kevin rebuffed her inquiry as to what went wrong.

There are powerful forces working against change in this system. Tomorrow, we’ll list a few of those, but for today, let me ask you:

* What is a problem that you THINK you need to address, but are reluctant to do so? (It can be yours or a loved one’s.)