How to begin. Again. Or, how to handle any setback.

“Beginning,” He Answered.

The blank look on their faces let
Sisyphus know
they didn’t understand
the hard part wasn’t
the work of pushing the rock uphill.

He almost enjoyed
the heaviness of the rock,
and the honest, exhausting labor
of those long days.

They couldn’t know
that momentum started,
even uphill,
carries its own weight.

They only saw the size of the rock,
and the angle of the hill,
and naturally assumed
the work they could witness
was the hard part.

No one was there
in the cool mornings
as he stared at his rock
in silence,
his feet still,
his hands gently resting
on its curved sides.

No one was there
to hear the unspoken words
shouted to the Gods, pleading
for the strength to bear,
not the rock,
but the desperate weight of wondering,
how to begin,
again.”

— Gretchen Schmelzer

Yesterday when I met with my trainer I asked her to focus on two things: I said I needed it to be fun and I needed encouragement. Or, frankly, I was going to quit. She looked puzzled. I was dead serious. I had spent the car ride there in tears, and I had managed to pull it together as I went inside, but I was wobbly. I wanted to be there, but I also didn’t. I am pretty sure that I used up an entire week’s worth of self-control to walk through the door.

I was in a place of total frustration. Or, as I had told her, “This is a serious low self-esteem day.” I had started this project of regaining fitness in the late fall, but then over the holidays I got pneumonia and in that chutes and ladders game of behavior change, I had climbed a ladder only to get sick and slide all the way back to start. Then I traveled for work. And here I was, months later, at the beginning again. Maybe even a few yards back from it.

How do you start again? How do you find the motivation you had to begin a project in the first place? When I started this fitness goal in the fall I had such a strong vision for what I wanted to do, and why I was doing it. I was a rower when I was young, and I really want to get back in a boat. But I have had two back surgeries and I am out of shape, so it is a long project to get strong enough to do it safely. I was so excited about it in the fall. I could see the goal and I could feel it. And after a long winter of illness and recovery, I can’t feel it anymore. I can’t see it anymore. All I can see is that months later I am sitting at the bottom of the hill staring at my rock.

This is the part of change people don’t talk about because there really aren’t any pithy sayings that you can print on motivational pictures. This is the part of the change process that is messy and ugly and whiny. This is what my therapist called the ‘misunderstanding of commitment.’ I seemed to think that if I chose to do something there was no good reason to not want to do it. But it turns out that committing to change isn’t always fun. That it is perfectly normal for motivation to flag. Even if it is what you want. Even if it is something you love. Sometimes it is just a pain in the ass and you have to do it anyway. There are parts of change that you have to just slog through even if you love the things you are doing, or love the place you are headed.

The key to beginning again when you must, or struggling through the middle of change is this: you can’t abandon yourself. Here are the ways I typically abandon myself: either I just totally let go of the fight entirely and behave like some overly sweet babysitter who is going to let me eat all of the popcorn and candy if I want to so I will like her, or, I am so mean to myself about what I have to do, that at best I sometimes get short-lived fearful compliance, but more typically, I find ways to hide out from my mean self, the moral equivalent of pretending to clean your room, but instead, spending hours reading old Oprah magazines. I’ll save you the trial and error. Neither one of these strategies leads to real change.

So what does not abandoning yourself look like? It looks like good parenting, only in the case of adulthood, the conversation is between both sides of yourself: the side of yourself that doesn’t want to do it (or wants to do too much of it) and the part of yourself that THIS TIME isn’t going to leave, is going to stay and help you through it, even if it is a struggle. It is the part of you that is now going to say, “Honey, stop. What’s going on? What do you need in order to do this differently? I know it’s hard, but you need to do it anyway. I’m right here and I am not going anywhere.”

This self-parenting or compassionate, yet firm self talk is best learned from the outside-in. We learn this best from real people who talk to us like this. All language is receptive first—we take it in, and then expressive, then we can speak. Some people were lucky to get this as children and learned it a long time ago, and some people weren’t so lucky. If you didn’t get it as a kid, it is really, really helpful to find ways to learn it as an adult—and we learn it best through relationships: helping relationships. People who had no parenting or harsh parenting are always shocked in therapy by the simple phrase: let’s figure this out. This is what good parents do. They don’t have all the answers, they have the ability to stay in the conversation and help kids figure it out. They have the ability to say, yes, this kind of sucks, but you and I will get through this. One step at a time.

So, that day that I cried all the way to the gym, instead of turning the car around and quitting, I treated myself just like a kid who didn’t want to go to dance class, but had signed up and really needed to go. I said cry all you want to, but you still are going in. I didn’t abandon myself: I went in and acted like my own good parent: tell the trainer that I am having a bad day and ask for help. Ask for some fun to support my motivation. Yes, I made myself show up. But I did it with help, compassion and humor. And guess what? It worked. She did make it more fun. She was encouraging. And I got through the day. Was it perfect? No. But it was enough to get me to the next day. And that is what beginning again looks like. One step, then the next. Maybe a step back. Then another step forward. Until you are on your way again.

© 2016 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

For further reading and practices on Self-Talk;

How to Talk to Yourself So You Will Listen Part I

How to Talk to Yourself So You Will Listen Part II: Practice for Self Talk

Healing Bad Dog: Understanding Traumatic Self Talk

The sounds of silence: Some thoughts on healing and silence

“In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves”

— Rumi

Not long ago I talked about a young client of mine who spent six weeks with me and spoke only one word. Just the word, “Word.” And I worked with other children who never spoke, or took a year to speak. They used actual silence to be quiet.

Some clients need silence and they bring it with them. But silence, like wind, comes in all forms. Silence can look like so many things. I have had other child clients who were noisy and chatty and yet they too, really, said nothing. Their families lived with the rule of the ‘code of silence’ typical of the neighborhoods I worked in, and their talk, their conversation was a fluent art of conversational silence. It was as if you had a conversation, but you didn’t. Teenagers are often good at this conversational silence. They are good at answering questions with descriptions like: fine, good, not much, weird, maybe, yeah, and most telling--- nothing.

My child clients who lived with the ‘code of silence’ rule needed some chatter to feel at rest in my presence. They needed to not feel so much under a spotlight. I think silence was long taught and understood as a means of not being obtrusive—not interfering in someone’s ability to talk. But silence isn’t always quiet. It can be blaringly loud if you aren’t used to it, or if it feels too dangerous. People who have stayed away from their fears for years need to gradually approach them—and silence can be like being in a locked cage with their worst fears.

In the field of psychology there is often a lot of discussion of silence –what it means and when it should be used. But I think it is too literally discussed and too literally understood. I think it is important to understand the need for silence—what does it do? What is silence?—and how can it serve healing  and growth?--whether you are the client or the therapist.

As the client—silence offers you either protection or space. If you bring silence, you protect your truths—from others hearing and usually more importantly, from you having to hear it. Silence in any form means “I don’t have to deal with that yet.” And silence can offer you space. Space to ‘just be’ without having to ‘be’ anything in particular. It is the blank canvas—and you can stretch out in it—and figure things out.

But the first mistake is that we think of silence as sound. It is more useful to think of silence as rest. As a space that you can relax in to—hammock-like. Where you feel safe, or calm, or interested—the way babies look when they are happy in those little baby-backpack carriers.

I focus on this state of rest because a relaxed brain is a thinking brain and a learning brain. A relaxed brain has the ability to gain some perspective. A relaxed brain can heal. Sometimes it is actual silence which helps this, and sometimes it is something that looks the furthest from silence which helps this. I think of times I have had big writing projects and sought out coffee shops to write in so that my mind could rest on the background white noise of coffee shop chatter. Everyone needs a different way of finding where their brain can relax and be in the state it needs to for growth, for conversation, creation, or healing.

I have found that for people who have lived through trauma—this ability to modulate how they are heard and when they get to speak is not only important, but is a big piece of the healing. And sometimes it can be the context that helps you balance silence and speaking. From 2003 - 2007 I had the privilege of working on a project in Cambodia working with country leaders to help them strengthen their response to HIV/AIDS. It was a leaderhip intervention into a public health issue-- we worked with them on emotional intelligence, action learning and understanding people and systems. Our team of three faculty worked with a group of 100 leaders at a time and we were supported by 13 Cambodian Facilitators who led the small group work in Khmer. The program did not have an overt trauma agenda, but the entire group—facilitators and participants had lived through the Khmer Rouge genocide so we were mindful of pacing and the difficulty of emotions. We also worked to maintain a stance of wondering, rather than knowing-- which wasn't hard because between the language, culture and context--and a 12 hour time difference--  we often really had no idea what was happening a lot of the time.

One of the things that was immensely healing was that because of the language barrier—even though we were leading the program—we weren’t in charge of the language. We had a wonderfully skilled translator, and most of the program was translated—but there was often great debate about the language. And this debate about language meant that they could own the language and own their experience, they could own their words. 

There was one day, when I was working just with the facilitators before a program, when there was no translator. Truthfully, I liked it better- it felt less intrusive and more respectful somehow—and implied a trust in them seeking help when they needed it. When there was no translation I got to be the kind, but somewhat clueless mom—the mom in storybooks when the kids get to be smarter and yet when they really need her she actually does know something. There was something about listening to their conversation for the emotional language and not the actual words that felt more real than the translated words. I don’t know why.

My vocabulary in Khmer is probably about fifty words, though 12 of them are animals, which didn’t come up much…but I know the words for change, group, me, you, happy, girl, boy, aunt, uncle, younger, name, called, much, isn’t it, the numbers to 20, day, night, moon, morning, teacher, learn, excuse me, everyone, someone,  –I am seriously lacking verbs—which given my lack of action in Cambodia was not surprising. But that day I could be connected to them. Listening, for emotion, for interest, but not for content. On the one occasion when they were discussing the order of the day --which I could gather from the word for group-- I chimed in with my opinion--but they could take it or leave it. They got to have a leader—who was there for them, but in no way could accuse them of anything—who could literally never use what they just said against them. This was what the leaders of the Khmer Rouge did. They forced them to speak against their fellow community members and people died. In this program they got to have a different experience –they could be silent to me, and still speak their truth. Silence comes in so many different forms and shades and experiences. Sometimes there is magic built right in to experience if you slow down enough to appreciate it.

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2015

Honoring Our Protective Selves

Meet Me Where The River Splits. Artist: Jennifer Wood

When you are in a standoff with yourself—you know you are on the edge of healing.  It takes a lot of self control, a lot of discipline and hard work to get through the years during and after trauma. You put one foot in front of the other. You set your mind on getting through each day. And you wear whatever version of armor you needed to in order to survive, and you keep on whatever version of armor that helps you continue to feel safe. And the truth is, on the outside, your armor may be so good, people just see you shining. The years during and after trauma often feel like a giant split: you are living one life on the inside and another on the outside. And the truth is, even if you feel like a mess or even look like a mess, still, no one knows how hard you have been working to hold yourself together –to make it through. 

And then when you actually get to the place where you want to heal—want to feel better—and want to take off the armor and just live in peace—you can find yourself at a standstill—in that standoff with yourself. Yes, you want help. Yes, you want to feel better. But now you have to challenge the part of you that worked your guard tower, that stood vigil, that protected you. That part of you that helped you survive. That part of you that you fiercely needed and who you had to completely ignore.

I taught meditation groups to teenage boys in Juvenile Detention as part of my dissertation work. When I did the research on their demographics, I found out that over 70% of the boys had experienced child abuse. Yes, they were in juvenile detention because of something that they had done wrong, but these were teenagers with some serious armor. Because I taught the mindfulness group I got to witness their standoff—their struggle with these two competing aspects (of many) that anyone who heals from trauma has: the longing for safety, comfort, quiet, normalcy and  some version of the distrustful, hurt animal, guard dog who stares you down. 

In some ways the mindfulness group was the perfect practice field for this standoff—mostly because they were allowed to struggle inside themselves—and not have to do it out loud. They could save face. They could lean in to the longing for calm and safety, and everyone’s eyes were closed and no one would know if they liked it, that they needed it. And they could sit completely still and angry on the days that their inner animal felt threatened. They could stare me down and let me know that there was no way they were letting their guard down that day. But because the activity was about stillness, and nothing else was required of them. They could stay. Their guard dog could stay, and tolerate it the best he could. And that is the edge of healing. That uncomfortable place between the old protections and the new hope. The old protections and the old fears and the possibility of something else. The boys got to live on this paradoxical edge of the early days of healing: lean toward actually safety and feel scared, pull away from safety and feel relieved. And occasionally surprise yourself and lean in and feel better. 

You have to be able to live on this edge and go back and forth in it. You have to find a way to be near enough to the wild animal that is yourself and allow it to come to trust you. And if you know wild animals like I know wild animals you know that there are no fast moves. There is consistency, there is trust, there is waiting, there is presence.

And while you are waiting out this wild part of you, it can be helpful to use the time to acknowledge the hard work that your protective self did on your own behalf—and be able to understand its fear in giving up its role as protector. 

This is a peacebuilding process more than anything else. A chance for you to honor your protective self for its service and loyalty. A chance to be amazed at its energy, or power, or cleverness. A period of time where you don’t try to change it or hide it or feel shame about it—but instead, you sit with it, nearby, and hold out some peace offering. Let it know that it can no longer run your life, but it can remain in your pasture to heal as long as it needs to. 

Let Her Run ~ GLS

“Let her run” I said

to nobody in particular.

She turned around

and looked past me as

she shook her head,

her mane still matted

from a week long stand-off,

no comb, no brush, no hand

upon her at all. But she stood still.

I wanted her to want her freedom.

Wanted her big beast heart

to desire run, desire jump, desire kick.

Wanted her to fiercely fight

for her right as wild animal,

but she stood still. She stared.

My words and wants

meant nothing to her.

Not from the one

who reined her in so tightly

each time she dared to pull,

dared to move

towards what called her.

She did not trust my words,

she feared the bit in her mouth,

yanking her instincts back in line.

She feared my weight

upon her, holding her back.

And now she stood

staring back at me

my mirror-image of disbelief.

Her gaze said I was

asking the impossible

to go, to want, to be

the animal wild that

I had trained out of her.

“She’s still there” I said.

I could see what she couldn’t.

“I am sorry” I said

and she stared back,

dropped her head low

and rolled in the sun. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2015

The artwork for today's piece was provided by Jennifer Wood. You can see more of her art on her page here

Dissertation referenced above:  Schmelzer, Gretchen. (2002). The effectiveness of a meditation group on the self-control of adolescent boys in a secure juvenile detention center. Northeastern University.

An Open Thank You Note to Our Teachers from the Trauma Kids

Dear Teachers-

This is a long overdue thank you note.

In grammar school we were the ones whose desk you placed next to yours. You did it because we didn’t behave, we were annoying other kids, we couldn’t sit still or we talked too much. You placed our desk next to yours, or right in front of yours and it was supposed to be some sort of punishment. But here’s the truth. We loved it.

We loved getting to sit next to an adult who wasn’t frightening--who cared about us. We loved having you lean over and tell us things—about your dog, or your kids. We felt important. We felt like we mattered. We always knew where your keys were when you lost them because we watched your every move. We liked you. But we knew better than trust any adult too much, so we watched everything.

You may not have even known what we were living through, but our behavior made you pay attention, and we desperately needed your attention. And instead of getting angry at us for our behavior you found creative ways to help us. You found ways for us to be helpful—shelving books in the library, or helping putting away the gym equipment and take a few extra shots at the basket or soccer shots into the goal.

You often got us out of the classroom and into settings with more adults—the office with the principal and the secretaries where we could help copy or sort or run errands. Or working in the cafeteria with the lunch ladies. Many of these things were used as carrot—as an offering if we behaved—and it totally worked. The chance to be around caring adults, to feel competent and be seen as a ‘good kid’ was something we craved more than anything. It was wonderful to feel trusted in a world that felt like it lacked trust entirely. Some of us were good at academics and some of us weren’t, but most of all it felt good to be in a world of cause and effect—a world of predictability, where you knew what was going to happen next.

And in middle school and high school we were the ones you pulled in on projects or you let us hang out in your classroom before or after school. You let us do homework in your classroom while you were getting your class prep done not knowing how important it was to have a quiet place to do homework—where there wasn’t shouting or violence, or drugs or alcohol. You were our go-to person and we knew that you kept your eye on us. You offered us hall passes to go to our next class and we knew we could go to you if things got really bad. And for most of us-- we never did go to you. But we thought about it, we imagined it, and we knew you would help. And knowing there is help is sometimes enough to get you through. Most of us didn’t go to you because we never wanted to admit it was really bad. And even if we did, we didn’t want to get our parents in trouble.

All those small moments over many years—like some magical relay race where each teacher passes the baton to the next—you may never know what a difference you made—but we hope you do. You gave us the experience of safety, the experience of caring, and the ability to believe in ourselves. We know it was extra work for you—that you gave up your free period, or time after school with your own family. But the gifts you gave us were huge. You gave us the hope that there was a bigger and better world than the one we were living in. And you gave us the confidence and skills to go after that bigger and better world when we met it later. It may not have been obvious how much you were helping us then, but if you saw us now, you would know.

Love,

The Trauma Kids

© 2016 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD