There is Power in Despair

GLS 1997

GLS 1997

This morning I had to get out for a walk in the woods. It was a grey morning, but the leaves were bright. I wanted the fresh air and the colors to wash the despair out of my brain and out of my heart. The despair from another terrible mass shooting. The despair from a war with so much violence and so much sorrow. The despair that it happened again. And that it has been happening for a long time. Beirut, Boston, London, Madrid, Mumbai. Newtown, Virginia Tech, Charleston, Chattanooga, Roseburg, Parkland, Ulvade, Pulse Nightclub and now Lewiston.

Despair is defined as the complete loss or absence of hope and it is one of the human emotions that can feel the most painful and dark because despair knocks the light right out of you. It leaves you without a compass, without the energy to get up, without a reason to. Despair begins to tell you that there is no point to anything, that you might as well lay there, not get up. Nothing matters.

As someone who is wired as an optimist I find despair one of the most intolerable emotions. I am not just a glass is half-full person, I usually imagine an additional glass entirely. I have wielded hope as a massive source of energy and protection against despair. But eventually it doesn’t work: you find yourself face to face with the endless fight against violence or injustice—against something so very wrong—and whether that injustice or wrong happened just to you, or someone you love, to a group you belong to or all of humanity—you see it for what it is and you can’t imagine how you are going to live in a world and know, really take in, that injustice. That wrong. That level of sorrow for knowing that you can’t change it. The helplessness of seeing just how big it is and not having any idea of how it can be changed. You believe it is impossible. You are brought to your knees.

And paradoxically that is often the turning point of despair. At my most despairing I have gone in to talk to my therapist and chosen to sit on the floor, instead of the chair. I wanted to sit on the floor because I wanted to be where I was—at the very bottom—the place ‘you can’t fall below.’  And in admitting I was at the lowest place possible, I found the ground. I found something that felt real and solid. The healing part of despair is that it can actually be incredibly grounding: you know where you are, you see the world as it is, and you can get some clarity about what is wrong—what is really wrong at the root of it all.

In despair we find the most pessimistic and hardened parts of ourselves. And in despair we find the most pessimistic and hardened parts of our communities. In finding our darker sides we can be, ironically, more whole.

John Lederach who has worked with communities post-conflict on peacebuilding talks about the fact that the pessimism of the people who have lived through the worst cycles of violence may be one the biggest sources of true change. He calls their pessimism a gift, not an obstacle. Lederach calls pessimism grounded realism: “grounded realism constantly explores and questions what constitutes genuine change. For people who have lived for long periods in settings of violence, change poses this challenge: How do we create something that does not yet exist in a context where our legacy and lived history are alive and live before us?”

Despair brings us in contact with our most authentic selves and it compels us to demand that authenticity from the relationships around us. When we are feeling despair we cannot in any way tolerate fakeness, clichés or bullshit. When we are despairing we need authentic, we need real. We need it from ourselves and we need it from others. Hope is the fuel that helps us keep moving toward healing, toward the better imagined state. But hope often keeps us from being able to see and take in the trauma that has occurred- and it keeps us from seeing how we protect ourselves from knowing this—hope can keep us from becoming whole. You can’t do surgery in rose-colored glasses.

Despair is a turning point. In a state of despair you see the bigness of it all—and because of that you are freed from a world of simplistic duality—of there being an easy answer, of it being this-or-that. Despair helps you hold the complexity, which is the only real hope of healing. So we need to sit with our despair, sit on the ground if necessary, and we need to be able to sit with other’s despair as well. We need to trust that the ground that has been burned by despair is preparing for the seeds of change, the seeds of growth. And we must be the faithful gardeners of this growth by holding our pessimism and distrust and risking our hope again. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2015

The power of a little kindness

“My religion is kindness”
— The Dalai Lama

We tend to think of kindness as being nice, but it is so much bigger than that. Kindness is being what it is needed. Sometimes nice is needed and sometimes firmness is needed—and being firm or holding a hard line can actually be the kindest thing. Kindness can just come in all sorts of shapes and sizes—and it’s one of those things—you often know it when you feel it—not because it always feels comfortable, but because it feels like something you can lean on, like you are being held.

Last summer I visited my German Host Parents. I was an exchange student in high school and it was wonderful to go back and visit my German Host Family and experience a range of kindnesses in the present—from being picked up at the airport with warm hellos to wonderful meals, beds made up for you, and train tickets gotten ahead of time, early in the morning. And it was also wonderful to remember the kindness I had experienced as a high school student. I am sure there are things they would remember as kind: the actions they intended as kind—the help with my homework, the vase of sweet peas by my bed, the snacks brought to me as I studied or worked.

On this trip I was also remembering something I felt as such a strong kindness that they might not remember. In April of that year I had a hard time—and had neither the language nor the skill to talk about it, nor did I really believe in asking for help. I’m pretty sure they knew that I was struggling, but it's also likely that they didn't have the language or the skill to go directly at it either. Instead, I came home from school every day and picked up my paper and watercolors and headed into their garden. They had a beautiful garden and were often in there working, but they left me in peace—neither fussing over my paintings or trying to jolly me out of it. They gave me the space to do what I needed and that was the kindest thing they could do.

We often think of kindness as something that we do for other people or other people do for us, but it is also essential to healing and growing to be able to be kind to yourself. And once again, its not so much about being nice—it’s not retail therapy (though I am not opposed to that)—it’s being what you need—it’s giving yourself what you need. Do you need to go to bed early because you are tired? Do you need to order take-out because you just can’t manage cooking dinner AND everything else? Do you need to take time away from your family to re-group and get your brain back—run errands? Play golf? Or do you need to cancel a meeting so that you can spend time with your family?

Kindness creates an environment for mending and growing. The things that were broken can come together and mend. The parts that are tired can let go and relax. The parts that need nourishment can breathe and look for what they need. That April in the garden had a timing of its own. I don’t remember how I started and I don’t remember how I knew I was finished—but I left the time in the garden more whole. Never underestimate the power of a little kindness—intended or unintended. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2016/2023

I rest in love

I Rest in Love

I come here today to talk about the things I know and

the things I struggle with and the things I don’t know

I have seen sorrow and loss and violence and destruction

I have seen fear and terror and hate and much sadness

And despair with its ability to silence hope

I have seen these things at home and I have seen them very far away

And every morning in the paper there is more

war and poverty and rape and assault

And greed and indifference and neglect

 

I have worked in the many corners where people come to heal

and grow and be known for themselves and their sorrows

And I have worked in the halls of the giants and outlaws and kings

Where men and women hide their souls in trade for their lives

Or fortunes or status or what they perceive as safety

These places that seem so different are not so different

the longings are the same

everyone wants to be understood

everyone wants to make a difference

everyone wants love

everyone seeks some form of repair

 

I stand here before you exhausted from trying to explain

That it is possible to heal wounds and mend hearts

But it takes a long time and a lot of effort and it takes

The help and support of other people who care

That no one and no family and no country heals alone

That there is a sacredness and honor in the act of healing

and that your healing creates the possibility of healing others

 

There are so many things I can’t say about healing

Because the world is cruel to people who share their tender places

And I only have so much courage

We believe that there is a right way and a wrong way to

Hold our feelings and comfort ourselves and each other

We want people to share their stories or

Maybe we just want some people to share their stories

And only the stories of how they were hurt

And not the stories of what it took to heal

 

I am tired of fighting the propaganda and advertising of a fast fix

Slogans and diets and platitudes that can be sold but don’t help

The three easy steps that are never easy and don’t really exist

I am sad that what actually helps people heal and grow is a hard sell

That the answer is always there in plain sight but ignored

and overlooked because if it’s hard I must be doing it wrong

I am sad that there is no money in the truth and that

The only things that seem to matter are things that make money

Until of course you lose the things that actually matter

Like your health or safety or your loved one or your hope

 

I am tired of the polarity of art and science in the healing of human lives

As if we don’t know that more poetry and song have cured broken hearts

Than all of the medicines that have been invented

As if we don’t know that without stories we wouldn’t know

How to grieve or love or begin again when our lives have been shattered

As if we don’t know that it is the beauty and the bigness of art that show us

What the insides of our hearts and minds hold

That shows us that we are connected to each other and

We are connected to something bigger than ourselves

 

I know what it is to stand before a painting

And say this is what I have been trying to tell you

See that red line swirling over those things that look like maps

Over those things that look like buildings

That is what it feels like to do this work

Finally a picture to give me words I have yet to find

 

I sit with a sorrow that I cannot find the words that would inspire people

To own the long history of exploitation and greed and pillage

For so many people of the earth and so many animals of the earth

And for the earth itself

Words that would help people understand the difference between

Ownership and blame and responsibility and shame

That would stir in hearts not just a desire but a commitment

To do what they know is right to make it right

For the people and the animals and the earth

 

Yet for all of the despair and pain

each morning comes and

nature and people don’t give up

and this may be the most beautiful form of art

that the moon rises and a finch grips my sunflower

eating his breakfast while a hummingbird chooses

one of my zinnias that I planted from seed

and my neighbor greets another neighbor

bringing a smile to her tired face

tired from teaching and loving children all day

And for one brief moment

I rest in love

© 2023/2021 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

*This poem is written with a nod to Guillaume Apollianire, and his poem “The Pretty Redhead.” I am reading Edward Hirsh’s 100 Poems to Break Your Heart and am using the book as a way to practice writing as well as way to practice connecting my heart to my head—in a world that constantly wants to separate the two. Each morning I read one of the chapters and use the poem as an inspiration, jumping off point or a way to learn a way in to both the art and craft of writing. Visual art is so good at teaching sketching—it is assumed that that it can take 100’s of sketches to build the foundation of what might become a painting and with this practice I am seeking a parallel in writing—the 100’s of sketches that it might take to find the right words.  

The Blessings of Obstacles and Diversions

“Nature is messy, and allowing streams to meander, beavers to work, and log jams to form on a large scale can help keep our water clean, provide more dependable late season stream-flow, and improve habitat for wildlife and fish. ”
— Connor Parish
“What made me withdraw and go to the bridge was how I felt about my own playing—I knew I was dissatisfied.”
— Sonny Rollins

I was reading a local Montana newspaper this week about task force that has been rewilding streams with what they call ‘low-tech process-based restoration’ (LTPBR). This group, The Gallatin River Task Force, has taken to re-introducing the technology of beavers to bring health back to watershed ecosystems. As it turns out, beavers create the ideal conditions for healthy wetlands by doing their usual work of creating obstacles and diversions—which allow more surface water to reach aquifers—and helps the water remain in the ecosystem which sustains it. Without the diversions and obstacles created by the beavers, the water accumulates too quickly, creating deep channels causing soil erosion of the banks. In this case, LTPBR means creating ‘beaver dam analog structures’ (fake beaver dams) and ‘post-assisted log structures’ --structures that mimic the beavers’ actual structures -- obstacles that helps divert the water so that the wetland holds the water longer, and captures the sediment.

I don’t know about you, but I had never really considered how obstacles and diversions were crucial to the health of something. I had learned about how beavers’ work helped meadows to form but hadn’t learned about their effect on watersheds and aquifers—especially the subtlety of water remaining long enough to nourish the system. I hadn’t considered that slowing down a river allows for something else: something that can’t happen any other way.  And I began to wonder about the obstacles and diversions in my own life—and about how much I discount them or am annoyed by them—thinking it would be better if the path was straighter or more linear. There’s so much written about goal directed life, and productivity—about how to ensure that you get there (wherever there is) faster and more efficiently. And not enough about the need, benefit or blessing of the things that block our paths or shift our course.

Much of my training as a psychologist was shaped by changes in the healthcare system. I trained in Boston which at the time was on the fast track of managed care. The regulations and contracts of managed care impacted both the reimbursement for mental health and reimbursement for student or trainee providers. My internship began at one hospital which went bankrupt and closed its doors during my training year, forcing me to move to another hospital system mid-year. Psychology training at the time had a lot of 1:1 supervision and a lot of seminars—7-10 hours of supervision and 4-6 hours of seminar a week. It was a deep immersion. At the first hospital I had seven fabulous teachers, and at the next hospital I was gifted the exposure and knowledge of seven more teachers—so that in my one training year, splintered into pieces, I got in-depth learning from over 14 teachers—who had different perspectives, styles, strengths and ways of working with clients. It's not a year I would recommend but it's a year I am grateful for. Like the stream diverted because of the dams, I had to expand my learning into new contexts, new situations, new communities and new teachers. I had to sort what was standard, what was particular to a worldview, and what worked with what clients. It is more than twenty years later, and I am still absorbing my learning from those years. The diversions and obstacles creating a lifetime of learning to absorb.

It's hard to appreciate obstacles in real time. It is much easier to see the benefit of obstacles from a distance. This is as true of a watershed, as it is in our lives. You have to pan out and see all of the small ways that the diversion shifted one thing so that something else would be nourished in a way that it would not have, save for the diversion. I can see it with my training, in part, because over the years I have gotten to see so many ways the many diversions have allowed me to help people in ways that might have been impossible otherwise—I was privileged with so many more perspectives from so many teachers—and not just my supervisors. When you work in different places you learn from everyone. At the hospitals and clinics I worked in there were nurses, and occupational therapists, social workers and psychiatrists. There were fellow students –and of course, of course, clients. And the diversions allowed me to be in these different worlds fully immersed and nourished—in the same way that a diverted stream will feed a different stand of trees, which in turn allows birds to flourish, which changes the ecosystem around it.

I’m not sure how to appreciate the diversions and obstacles when they show up, but maybe it’s more of a form of practice. Taking a page from the Gallatin River Task Force, it might be necessary (instead of waiting for them to show up) to introduce your own form of ‘low-tech process-based restoration’ into your routines. This might be the ability to name or identify an obstacle as useful: the trip that was canceled, the project that was rejected, the sudden need to attend to a family member. The ability to say in the moment: this isn’t what I wanted, but it may offer a gift I need. Or, it may be a practice or action that you need to introduce, like the beaver dam analog structure, which forces you to slow down, rather than speed up. This might be as simple as taking a break from a project or a piece of writing and reading something from a completely different topic area—or trying something new.

I am reminded of the famous jazz musician Sonny Rollins who after becoming a huge success, pulled out of performing for two years, and instead, between 1959 and 1961, he headed to the  Williamsburg Bridge, climbing up into the walkways,  where he would practice for up to 15 hours a day. He noted that it was a space that allowed him to play everything he knew and everything he’d heard—and let himself hear and feel the music in a new way.  He chose to let his music meander—which is exactly what the technology of beavers allows a stream to do.

And maybe meandering is about relationship—because meandering allows for contact. When beavers create obstacles and diversions—more water comes into contact with the whole ecosystem. And when Sonny Rollins played for two years under the Williamsburg Bridge he came into contact with his music in a new way—he left after two years with a different relationship to his music, and himself. And while we can’t all take two years off to play our music under a bridge, we can look at obstacles and diversions as a chance to come into contact with something new—in our work and ourselves. Or we can find ways of slowing ourselves down, so that we can find a new relationship to what we are doing.

© 2023 Gretchen L Schmelzer, PhD

Hayes, M. (2023). Every Drop Counts: Low Tech Process-Based Restoration. Sept 21 -Oct 4 2023 Explore Big Sky, p. 33.

For more on Sonny Rollins