Eyes Up! Heels Down! Grab Mane! Atta Girl!

Twenty five years ago I facilitated a sport psychology workshop for Masters Women rowers where the task was to work on their self-talk. In looking at self-talk you can often gain clarity about the kind of coaching you have experienced and absorbed—about what you’ve heard from others. Our ability to learn language and speak follows a predictable path—first language is receptive—we take in words—we learn by listening. And then language is expressive—we use the words we have heard to create sentences and speak. So looking at what you took in over the course of your life is important so that you can see what parts of your inner talk are helping you and what parts are getting in the way.

One of the exercises the athletes did was to think of a time when someone did a particularly good job giving them helpful instructions—from both an informational and emotional standpoint. And one woman, Annie, raised her hand and said, “I have the best example.” And it was a fabulous example, one that has stayed with me for these 25 years. Annie’s story was that she had been a horseback rider when she was a young girl and one day she was riding a particularly difficult horse. It was a new horse to the barn and she was riding it to test it out and see if they could train it. Soon into riding it, the horse began to try to buck her off. Her mother, who both ran the stable and was the riding instructor, turned around and saw the horse bucking and Annie struggling, so she yelled across the ring, “Annie! Eyes up! Heels down! Grab mane! Atta Girl!”

“Annie! Eyes up! Heels down! Grab mane! Atta Girl!”

Both structurally and metaphorically this coaching is peerless. Structurally, Annie’s mom got Annie’s attention by using her name, saying I see you and know you are having a hard time—listen to me. She gave her the exact instructions Annie needed to stay on the horse. 'Eyes up' meant she kept her eyes where she wanted to stay—she kept her eyes on the goal. 'Heels down' meant that she had her center of gravity back down and was able to use the stirrups to hold her. She kept her seat. 'Grab mane' because it was a solid handhold that wasn’t going anywhere. Annie’s mom didn’t go in to long details, or instruction—just the necessary actions that would keep Annie on the horse.  And the mom followed it up with a word of praise, 'Atta Girl', acknowledgement of the success of Annie’s actions. There was no lecture, no judgment, no I told you so’s. This is the kind coaching that the brain takes in the best, and the kind of coaching that creates the most useful, sustainable self-talk

But the other reason I loved this story is that this story and the coaching is perfect for any metaphorical horse that is trying to throw us. There are just times when we hit bumpy patches—whether it is being a new parent, or starting a new job, or healing from trauma. There are days or issues or conversations that can have us feeling like we are just going to get thrown at any minute, like we are hanging on for dear life and we don’t know what to do. And we just need to hear that calm voice shouted across the ring, “________"(fill in your name)! Eyes up! (Remember your goal—see it, visualize, keep your gaze on it). Heels down! (Do what you need to feel more grounded) Grab mane! (Hold on to your strengths and resources right now). Atta Girl! (Well done. You don’t need to be a perfect rider to get praise, you need to stay engaged in staying on to get praise, and you are doing that. Go You!).

So I offer you the exercise that the rowers did: what was the best coaching you ever got from someone? What did they say? What did they do? How did they say it? Write what you heard down on a sheet of paper or on a bunch of post-it notes. What was helpful about it? What worked well for you? How did it make you feel? How can you use more of that coaching in your current self-talk to help you towards you goals or help you with your healing? Create some good mantras to have at the ready for your bumpy moments, for your learning moments, for your healing moments.

And if you are at a loss at any point you can always borrow Annie’s: Eyes Up! Heels down! Grab mane! Atta Girl!

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2023/2016

Wingspans

“I pray to the birds. I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day—the invocations and benedictions of Earth. I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.”
— Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

I am a sucker for a big wingspan. Years ago on a walk I was busy admiring some peonies in a nearby garden when I was aware of a big shadow passing over me and looked up. A blue heron—overhead. A huge wingspan and legs, relaxed, hanging back, headed toward the Charles River.

I remember an eagle flying over my tiny hatchback one summer when I was driving in Maine. I remember ducking my head instinctively, as if I were a rabbit and not a person in a car. I remember watching it fly ahead of me until it was out of sight. These large birds with their powerful wingspans are so compelling it almost hurts when the leave your view.

A wingspan is the measure of your reach—from tip to tip. Our widest reach. And if you are changing or growing or healing—you have felt this stretch, this reach. You have had the branch break under you and had to thrust your wings out—not sure if they would catch you.

Maybe the love affair with these huge birds started with my seventh grade project for Ecology about the Peregrine Falcon where I drew out the bird, copied from the Encyclopedia Britannica, in a mixture of markers and colored pencil on a big white sheet of poster board. Creating that poster was like becoming a pen pal with that bird. By the time I finished my poster all I wanted to do was to meet the bird in person. I waited nearly 35 years. On my way to the grocery store two years ago a teenage Peregrine sat on a brick wall in front of an apartment building. I pulled my car over and watched it for 20 minutes—until it flew away. I like to think that it looked a lot like my poster board. Or at least enough like it that I recognized it instantly.

Maybe we all are overcome by awe when in the presence of something that dwarfs us.  Or, we’re in awe of something that dwarfs us when it’s outside of us—like a mountain, or a waterfall or a storm or a bird of prey. And yet, when it is something internal that dwarfs us—I don’t know about you, but awe isn’t the word that comes to mind for me. It’s usually closer to dread.

When I run up against a big feeling that I wasn’t expecting, I don’t feel awe. When a shadow flies over my heart, I don’t want to look up. But Terry Tempest Williams reminds us that a shadow is never created in darkness. It is the light that allows it. As she states, “our shadow asks us to look at what we don’t want to see” 

The funny thing about the shadow of a wingspan is that it is something you sense—in that deep mammal place we all still have. You sense it and then you see it in your peripheral vision—just out of sight—before you see it on the ground. And with the big things we are trying to change and heal—I think the same thing is true. I think we sense it first. And then we can see it just out of our peripheral vision—and then the shadow falls on us.

And this is where the discipline is and the healing can be. When the shadow falls, and when what Mary Oliver describes as the soft animal of your body freezes and halts with fear and dread—can you look up? Can you find awe? Can you see the beauty? Can you even more simply just pull your car over and sit with the feeling for 20 minutes asking nothing of it—just the simple act of being with it? Of having reverence for this thing that is your light and shadow—that holds so much power—that is your fullest reach?

© 2023/2015 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

The Courage of Parenting with a History of Trauma

This is for all of you parents who lived through difficult childhoods, difficult years--through trauma (however you would define it), through neglect, through war—especially, but not necessarily, as children. This is for all of you who had to do whatever you needed to do to survive and now you are out on the other side. You made it with a lot of grit and effort. Your life is calm. It is good. And you are working hard as a parent to raise your children, whether they are toddlers, teens or young adults.

As a therapist I saw how hard it was for you-- as you work to raise your children in a life of happiness, even as that was something you did not get as a child.

You grew up in the country of trauma—and you managed to emigrate from that land and come to this new country of health—of peace. The country of health where your children are now growing up.

On the outside this sounds like the perfect happy ending. Parents are safe, and children are happy and healthy. It should be easy, right? It’s not. Because if you do it well, if you raise your children to get what you didn’t have –and I am not talking about material things, though those things may figure in; I am talking about attention, and consistency, and care. I am talking about help with their homework and going to their games, and friendly dinner conversation. I am talking about the freedom of being a child, of being able to be age-appropriately self-focused; to be able to lean on you and struggle with you, and even ignore you.

If your child lives in this world of health, what’s difficult and painful is that they really will never understand your world—the world you grew up in. And this can be incredibly lonely. And can make a parent feel incredibly torn. On the one hand all you want is for your children to get what you didn’t get and have the opportunities you didn’t have, and on the other hand you worry that they don’t appreciate what they have and that they won’t get the strengths you have that saved your life. Holding these two vastly different worlds is so very hard and takes so much strength.

What I tell parents who have lived through trauma is this: If all goes well, your children will never completely understand you. They will love you and they will learn from you, but your experience will always be foreign to them. Maybe when they are adults they might be able to understand some of it, but they will never know what you really lived through. They will never see the world through the same lenses as you do. They will take things for granted that you see as the biggest gifts. They will not see all that you do for them, because what you do for them is a part of the fabric of their lives. Children only see what they live in. This is as it should be. It means you are doing it right, but for you it can feel so isolating.

One of the most baffling things for parents who have lived through trauma is this: childhood isn’t always easy, even if everything is going well. Learning is hard work. Growing up is hard work. Kids struggle and wrestle—they cry, they tantrum, they worry, they do things wrong. They get sad over small things and small disappointments. Even in the happiest of households, it is a long trail with a lot of ups and downs. It takes a lot of learning to build the muscles of becoming a healthy person. And for parents who lived through trauma, this can come as a shock. Many of the parents I have worked with have voiced a similar sentiment: I thought a happy childhood was easy—I never imagined my kids having a hard time if there weren’t bad things happening. I don’t understand them when I see them getting upset over ‘nothing.’ I don’t understand them. And they don’t understand me.

And what I try to help them understand is that in healthy families—the kids are doing the developmental work they need to do. They are working on their growth, not yours. You need to work on your own growth, healing and development—so that you can support the growth and development of your kids.

It is tempting when you have had a difficult childhood to want to give your children the childhood you didn’t have. Yet the most important thing you can do is give your child what he or she needs. Each of your children will need different things—different parenting—than you needed –or even than the other siblings need. A more anxious kid needs different parenting than a more risk taking kid, for example.   

The biggest casualties of a difficult childhood are the emotions. If you grow up in trauma you survive by shutting your emotions down, and then you have kids, and man, kids are nothing if not emotional. And they can trigger yours. How do you suddenly learn to manage your emotions? Find language for them? Tolerate them? One of the best books on emotional coaching is Faber & Mazlish’s How to Talk so Your Kids Will Listen and Listen so Your Kids Will Talk. It is a clear easy guide to talk about and coach kids through emotion. I made it required reading in all of the therapy classes I taught because it was the best guide out there, even for future therapists. And as you help your kids with their emotions. You can learn about your own.

Parenting with a trauma history is one of the bravest things that people can do—and it is invisible. If you are doing it well, nobody knows. Nobody cheers. If you had been physically disabled by a past trauma and chose to run a marathon—people would call you brave. But we don’t do that with emotional wounds. They are invisible and the parents who rise to the occasion—and parent with love and purpose—who give what they never got—they are unsung heroes.  

One of bravest things you can do is to heal from your own trauma—because it allows you to hold your feelings, it allows you to get just a little bit of what your own children are getting—some support and help with the hard things. It allows you to have someone help you and coach you about child and adolescent development and understand what the losses and gifts were in your own trauma. It might help you understand your child’s world, this new world that you created. It is easier to have compassion for your children’s struggles when someone has had compassion for yours.

So I say to you. Stay strong and know you are doing one of the most difficult things I have witnessed. That you may feel alone, but you aren’t alone. That your courage and bravery are creating not only a better world for your children, but for the world right now and for generations to come. And as you teach your children about love, have compassion and love for yourself and the journey you are on. 

© 2023/2015 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

 

Learning to hold sorrow

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
— Rumi

I am home from three weeks on the road working mostly at the intersection of trauma and leadership. Organizational leadership. Community leadership. Personal or family leadership.

Over these weeks I listened as the groups spoke about trauma that is nameable –the Alaska Native elders who were sent to boarding schools as children and who were physically abused and culturally abused—having their language and traditions erased. And people in organizations who were battling wildfires—both literal and metaphorical. Where there were murders and deaths of colleagues. And the personal losses—the deaths of spouses or children.

And there was trauma that was less nameable or graspable. Trauma that rolls in like a fog and obscures language or words. The inability to protect their people from the onslaught. The inability to change a system. The regrets or shame that came with periods of time that they weren’t proud of—where they chose survival or coping strategies that had the unintended consequences of hurting others. The loss of the way you thought it was going to be. The loss of the way you thought you were going to be.

Trauma creates a lot of reactions and distractions. It creates a lot of defenses and protections. These are all required and expected. These are what help you survive. But talking about trauma—in a safe and supported way—begins the mending process enough for another set of experiences. To name the grief. To hold the sorrow. And begin to imagine new growth or possibilities.

These shifts happen not just because people talk about the trauma—but it’s how they talk about it, and how they are supported and listened to as they do. We place a lot of weight and worth on the stories of trauma –the plot and action, if you will. But just telling the story of what happened to you isn’t usually enough to heal. It’s the bigger story. It’s the story of not just what happened to you, but what you brought to the experience. It’s the meaning you made of it then, and the meaning you make of it now. It’s the strengths you brought to the experience and the strengths you wished you’d had. It’s the pain and the loss. But it’s also the moments of beauty or the gains you experienced that you are often embarrassed to have noticed.

Talking about trauma in this way helps you see that you were more than your trauma when it happened, and you are especially more than your trauma now that it is over—now that you  are able to see that it all already happened. The more you wrap your experience of trauma with new words and a richer and broader understanding –the softer the edges of the experience become. And your wrapping of words to the experience is mirrored in the brain—as you wrap and myelinate the neurons—and build a memory that has expanded to include your perspectives and your experiences in a different way.

And talking about trauma this way helps you and others hear the deep humanity in the experience of trauma—the very human experiences of losses and harms. They very human experience of protections and reactions. And the very human experiences of sorrow and hope.

We talk a lot about hope. But I don’t think we talk enough about sorrow. In fact, much of what we do and much of what we are inundated by seems to be an intentional defense against sorrow. Against the sorrow of aging. Against the sorrow of our collective histories. Against the sorrow of violence or inequality. Against the sorrow of our limitations or the limitations placed upon us.

And yet, if our hearts are working, sorrow is unavoidable. Or, more to the point, sorrow is the sign that we are connected to what is important to us—that we are connected to our desires, our love, our hope, our integrity. Sorrow is the loss of something we hold dear. But sorrow is something we often carry alone. And it can be healing to share sorrow. To understand that you are not alone. That you never have been—that sorrow is a sign of connection—it is what makes you part of the group.   

But sharing sorrow can also be frightening. It can feel like separate rivers of sorrow will combine into a flood. And in the absence of ritual, we have little experience of collective sorrow. Funerals, memorials, vigils, and moments of silence. These are the containers we typically use. But these containers are tight. They name only the nameable loss. And the conversations are scripted and limited to a few chosen narrators. Or no narrators at all. Silence is often the conversation of sorrow.

What I know for sure, after the work and conversations these past three weeks, is that we need to get better at holding, hearing, and healing sorrow. What I know less about is exactly how we do that. I am writing as much to learn, as I am writing to offer understanding.  But I have a hunch that learning to hold and heal sorrow is much more of a motor skill than it is an intellectual pursuit. I can picture the hundreds of times that an infant pulls themselves up to standing to learn to stand and walk—and that seems the kind of learning I need way more than conceptual understanding. The practice of listening to someone without trying to fix it. Listening with a certain helplessness, and yet openness that is uniquely healing for sorrow. The moment when someone holds your worst fear, your worst moment, and you can breathe fully for the first time in a long time. Where telling your story and having it heard is what makes you truly understand you have survived. And now can finally imagine what next?

© 2023 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD