To truly leap...

“Of all the formulations of play, the briefest and the best is to be found in Plato’s Laws. He sees the model of true playfulness in the need of all young creatures, animal and human, to leap. To truly leap, you must learn how to use the ground as a springboard, and how to land resiliently and safely. It means to test the leeway allowed by given limits; to outdo and yet not escape gravity. Thus, wherever playfulness prevails, there is always a surprising element, suggesting some virgin chance conquered, some divine leeway shared. Where this “happens,” it is easily shared and acknowledged ”

— Erik Erikson

All growth requires leaps. And because healing is really growth on a careful, remedial plan, healing requires lots of leaps too. The first leaps are leaps of faith— in trusting yourself, in trusting your healing providers, in trusting a process of healing that you can’t really understand, but know that you need. These leaps of faith are huge, and the thing about leaping is that you have to do it a lot to believe in it. If you have ever watched baby goats, or sheep or foals, they try their legs out constantly —they buck, they leap and they land. They wiggle in the air. They leap and they find their ground. Over and over.

The thing about leaps is that they are both frightening and exhilarating. Like the first time you learn to jump off the high dive, or ride a bike. Leaping means testing out the laws of nature— testing out how you interact with the world. And in healing from trauma, the leaps are often to test out a world that does’t run on the old laws of trauma. Trauma creates a world with its own natural laws—and you know these laws in your bones. You know what will happen when you make the wrong move, you know what will happen if you speak. But in a world without trauma, you actually don’t know the rules. When you first start to leap — to speak up for the first time—to say what is true for you—to risk asking for help— to say “no” —risk being vulnerable— all the things that the laws of nature of trauma forbid: it will be both frightening and exhilarating. These things which look so average from the outside are truly leaps for healing.

And just like the baby animals learning to use their legs and understand the world: you need to enjoy those leaps. Savor the exhilaration. Take a moment to feel proud of the leap. Smile. Wiggle in your chair. Pat your self on the back.

Trauma is such serious business and healing requires leaping—it requires playfulness. It's so counterintuitive. The only way to heal is to stretch into the unknown, to try something again and again and when you leap—you are really playing— you don’t know the outcome—for a moment everything is suspended—and then you land—and know something about the world, and yourself, and probably relationships that you didn’t know before. What leaps can you take today? How can you savor the leaps? How can you support others to play and leap?

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2014

The Something Plan

“Something is always better than nothing”

Here are the rules of the Something Plan:

1. Just do Something.

2. Something is always better than Nothing.

3. Somethings always add up to Something More than you can imagine

I need a reboot of the Something Plan. I have written about it before, but like any good learning, it needs to be repeated. I have come off of a long fall of work and travel and have found that most of my healthy routines are a bit frayed around the edges. How do I get back on track—and do my work—and get ready for the holidays? It all seems like too big of a goal.

Like all good plans, the Something Plan was born in desperation after many years of failing at a more ambitious and noble plans. The kind of plans that are in self-help books and on the Internet. The kind of plans that seemed to work for everyone else who appeared to have more discipline and willpower than I did.  The something plan was initially created for exercise. I was a rower in college and a few years beyond and by the end I was training 6-8 hours a day. My warm up for a two-hour practice was a five mile run. My young athlete self was unaware of the precedent she was setting.

Flash forward 20 years or so and you find me working long hours, out of shape, and trying to fit in time to exercise. I only have maybe 20-30 minutes a day to exercise but since my old ‘warm up’ was five miles I continually decide that there’s ‘no point’ to only going 2 or 3. It should be noted that this is all in my head. With a wild animal chasing me I would be lucky to run even 2 or 3, but the comparisons in my head make it so that I stop bothering to do anything at all. Years go by. Not doing anything wasn’t helping me.

Enter the Something Plan.

Tired of feeling tired, and tired of never getting past “Day One” on any plan to get fit or healthy, I institute the Something Plan. The only rule is you have to do Something. And you have to do Something every day. Instead of complicated charts, the plan looks the same every day: Do Something.

Five minute walk. Something. 20 min walk/jog. Something. Stretching. Something. 30 minute bike ride. Something. Raking leaves. Something. Parking at the end of the parking lot and walking in. Something. As long as I did Something, I succeeded at my plan.

And as I did Something I repeated the Something Plan mantra: Something is always better than nothing. The mantra is the antidote to the ‘why bother’ voice. The mantra keeps you doing Something. The mantra keeps you from giving up because you aren’t doing ‘enough.’ The amazing thing about Somethings is they add up. And the more I did Something, the easier it was to keep doing Something. The Something plan for exercise has helped me back to doing a 5K and a mini-triathlon—and I am hoping it will again. And so whenever I fall off the exercise wagon, like I have recently,  I reinstitute the Something Plan.

The Something Plan is especially good for healing and recovery and anytime stress levels are high. Under stress or when we feel bad we often shift to hibernation mode. We avoid the activities that would actually help us feel better. And to make matters worse we usually beat ourselves up for not doing anything, or for not being able to do what we usually can do on our better days. This is especially true when we have put off our healthier behaviors for a few days or weeks. There’s some weird mental math that makes us think that we have to ‘catch up.’ That we have to do all the miles, or sit-ups or classes that we missed. And that’s too big, so we do nothing. Instead of Something.

This is when you need the Something Plan. Any time a task feels too big or you find yourself not getting started and you just keep saying “I should really do this…” Engage the Something Plan. I find the Something Plan really great for traveling, or times when commitments to other things make time scarce—like now at holiday time. Is there something that you are not doing because you can’t seem to do it ‘right’ or ‘enough?’ Exercise? Organization? Self-care? Eating more vegetables? Meeting new people? Writing? Give the Something Plan a try. Let me know how it goes.

© 2014 Gretchen L Schmelzer, PhD

Slow Days for Healing

GLS, 2004

I’m sitting at home on my couch nursing a cold with a mug of tea and I have had to concede that today is just going to be a slow day. I am grateful that it can be; I have woken up with a similar fevery-cold on days when I had to be very much ‘on’ –in front of a large group of people for three days in a row, and so I am especially grateful that I don’t have to rally today. I can take it easy, stay in jammies, and let myself get better.

Physical ailments make it obvious when you need to slow down. Yes, there are times that you have to push through, but we mostly feel okay acknowledging when we are physically ill and need to take a break: even if it is only for the sake of others—so we don’t make them sick. And I know that when I am able to slow down, I get better faster—and the cold doesn’t turn into a sinus infection.

Healing from trauma or any psychological wound is much trickier. It is so much harder to see when you need to take a slow day. You are so used to struggling with it because the emotional ‘fever’ can feel so chronic that its hard to know what constitutes enough ‘need’ to stop, take a break, slow down.

There’s no manual for this. No emotional thermometer that can read your ‘temperature’ from the outside. You can create a 1-10 scale—where 1 is miserable, need to stay in bed and 10 is outstanding I feel great! Let’s go! But you need to understand, actually everybody needs to understand, that that scale only applies to you. Only you know when you start sinking below 5, or approaching it. Only you know what is too much. No one else can know that for you and it doesn’t matter whether your 5 is the same as anyone else’s. This is the big trap everyone gets in to with healing: I shouldn’t need the help, I can make it through, No one else needs this…

I confess that there were days that I told people I was sick when I needed a slow day, a healing from trauma day.  If we lived in a culture where people understood the need for such days, I might have been more forthcoming, but we don’t. So I told them my need for a slow day in a language they would understand—I have the flu, I have a fever, I threw up. These are understandable problems for which you are allowed space. And that is the most important part. A slow day gives you the space to heal. It gives you rest in any way that you need it: sleep, rest, old movies, walks in the woods, books, whatever. Rest. Mend. Repair.

I am talking days here. A day here. A day there. Maybe a few strung together. Truthfully, as a society, we are still lousy at slow days for physical illness and there is still a Rambo culture of never calling in sick. But there is an even more desperate need for slow days for psychological healing. They serve such an important purpose, they allow the healing to happen faster and allow you to replenish your resources. Slow days give you a break from having to perform when you are really not up for it—they respect other’s ability to carry on without us. We all need to pay attention to when we need slow days, and we can all do a better job of supporting others to take them. Remember…healing is brave, healing is badass. So, slow days are badass. So there. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2014

A Mindful and Joyful Thanksgiving

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”

— Maya Angelou

Thanksgiving is a whirlwind of activity: cleaning, shopping, cooking, cleaning, driving, making beds, doing laundry, raking leaves, cooking, baking, cleaning. Thanksgiving is a holiday whose sole purpose is appreciation and gratitude and yet with all of this activity—the purpose more often feels like getting to the other side of it. You want it go well, you want it to go smoothly, you want it to be done.

Thanksgiving is a holiday I have shared with a lot of families and friends over the years—and though the basic outline of the celebration was the same (people, turkey, gathering) –what made each Thanksgiving sparkle so differently was the areas of joy that each host had—whether it was the traditional drinks or appetizers of that family, the walk in the woods, the way they set their tables, the work in the kitchen, the love of football, the traditional thanksgiving movie, stories at the table. There was always something that was so dear to their hearts that they were able to share a heart-full of appreciation and gratitude in whatever that was for them. So many years later I don’t remember whether the day went without a hitch, or whether everything was ‘perfect’—I remember the joy of whatever they really wanted to share. Those moments of joy have stayed with me, and every Thanksgiving I think of those moments, and the people who so generously shared them with me.

So, how do you slow down enough in the midst of all this busyness? How do you experience the joy of the day and share that joy with the people around you? The answer is always mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of being in the present moment and the research on mindfulness tells us that even moments of mindfulness are enough to shift our mood to a more positive place and supports our health and well-being. Just moments. This is really the practice of being where your feet are, as my therapist so often reminds me. In fact—a simple practice to be where your feet are is simply to wiggle your toes. Feel your feet. If you are standing, feel the ground beneath your feet.

Amidst all of the busyness of the day—can you remind yourself to take a breath and be where you are? Look around and smile, even as you know that your kitchen is a disaster of flour and gravy? Even as you know that everything is not going to be done when you planned? In fact---can you even be so radical as to enjoy the chaos for a moment? Look at it, laugh and see the big picture?

One of my favorite Thanksgiving memories was in fact one of my biggest Thanksgiving mistakes. I had gotten up early to get two large turkeys in the oven. My mother-in-law had left me a big bowl of onions and celery and instructions that dried sage was hanging in their walk-in entry. I made the stuffing, found the sage, stuffed the turkeys and everyone came down to breakfast. My mother-in-law went in to the entry and asked why I hadn't used the sage. I said I had and pointed to it. Only it wasn't the sage. I had used Artemesia Silverking--a dried perennial that looks somewhat like sage. There were a few moments of panic as we read whether Artemesia was poisonous. And then lots of laughter after we found it out it wasn't poisonous, in fact it was used as an herbal remedy: it was an aphrodisiac. 

People don’t remember perfection and neither will you. It’s like going to a concert or an opera – you don’t remember all the words of the songs you hear—but somehow you take refrains of the melodies with you. You remember the colors and the music. So slow down enough to listen to the melodies. Slow down enough to dance with the people who are around you. Slow down enough to hum your joy of the day, and share your song with others. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2014