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

Learning How to Say No.

“My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth... My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o’clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.”

— Mary Oliver

I used to joke that the four most difficult words in the world were: Yes, No, Hello and Goodbye. I think I said it jokingly because it’s easier to take in that way. I thought I would start today with the first two and tackle the second two in a day or two.

Yes and No. They go together. These words are the lynchpins of decisions and commitments. These two words decide more about your time and how you will spend your days than any other words in your vocabulary. I have done many workshops with groups on ‘How to say, “No”’ and “How to Prioritize (make lists of things that you say yes and no to) and I can say that learning to say Yes and learning to say No is a lifelong skill. You think you have it and you have to relearn it again.

One of the things that I have noticed is that Yes is often seen as ‘good’ and it is the word where people get a helper’s high of ‘aren’t I wonderful for saying Yes to that?!’ Yes can be downright addictive. Good, helpful, kind people say Yes. Capable, competent and hard-working people say Yes. I want to be good, helpful, kind, capable, competent and hardworking, so of course I will say Yes! “Sure I’ll make homemade Ukrainian eggs for the first grade fair!” “Yes, of course I can go over that report before I leave.” “Yes, I can be on your board (committee, program, team).”

The problem isn’t that we say Yes. The problem is that we believe Yes and No are separate states. We believe we get equal numbers of both of them. We forget that every single time we say Yes we are also saying No. If I say Yes to your request, then I am automatically saying No to what I might have done with that time, or the flexibility I might have had. There is no right or wrong here. It is just a statement of fact. If I join your committee that meets every other Tuesday night, then I am saying No to whatever else I might have been doing every other Tuesday night.

It is what I call the invisible No behind every Yes that gets us in trouble. Because we are mostly good at saying Yes to other people and No to ourselves and this imbalance builds up until there’s an internal revolt or all-out burnout. I have worked with so many people who say that they have no time for themselves. When they talk about making changes in their lives they feel stuck because they have said Yes to so many things that they are now committed to there is no time for a Yes for themselves . All the Yes’s belong to others, all the No’s belong to me.

No gets a bad reputation. I believe that because No is the trademark of the toddler “No!!” we see No as immature. We see No as just one small step beneath a tantrum. We see No as a form of aggression—as the beginning of a fight. Yes is a word that helps us feel close to someone. Yes helps us bond with them, it says ‘I’m with you.’ But No, not so much. No says, "Sorry, I’m with me and you are on your own with that." No is a reminder that we are separate—which we all are anyway—but No wrecks the illusion Yes so nicely creates.

But there really is a mature No. A No said with the intention of realistically assessing the situation and the resources. A mature No doesn’t negate the wish, the ‘I would love to be able to do that’ but it recognizes that if I did say Yes, I would be over my limit somewhere. A mature No recognizes that while I would love to be seen as the most helpful person on the planet by saying Yes, I need to say No so that I keep my life on track right now.

One of the best ways to learn this is to find a person in your world who is a guru of the mature No. Watch your friends and co-workers. I have such a friend and I have learned more from her than any course or book or piece of good advice. It is really helpful to watch it in person. When you watch it in person you learn a couple of things. The first is that when someone says No, nothing bad actually happens. The sky doesn’t fall. No one completely freaks out. No one runs out of the room crying. It’s just a No. And then the next sentence happens and the next. And people move on and figure things out.

The second, and possibly most important, thing you learn from watching people say a mature No is that you suddenly realize that they are making an informed decision. Their ability to say No changes the way you hear their Yes. If they can say No, it means their yes isn’t just compliance or martyrdom. You don’t have to worry about asking them anything and feeling like you need to do the work of figuring out if they will be okay if you ask them to do this. When someone can say both No and Yes, you experience their Yes as more trustworthy and you experience the relationship as more trustworthy. It is a paradoxical experience, especially if you have been living your life as if Yes is the only good response. It turns out that the ability to say both Yes and No is even better.

And before I get a raft of letters telling me I don't understand "I have to say Yes to my ____ (fill in the blank: Boss, Child, Spouse, Mother-in-Law...)" just know that I totally understand that there places where we don't have the choice to say No or we would never make that choice. That's fine and part of the way the world works. But that means that you have to be even more mindful of your other Yes's because all of them aren't optional. You need to be mindful of the ones that are. You need to examine your assumptions about what is optional or not. You may even have to have conversations to check on these assumptions and you might be surprised by the outcomes.

So the purpose of this blog is not to send you all out screaming NO! The purpose is to have you asking yourself the question when you get a request: If I say Yes to this, what I am saying No to? If I Say No to this, what do I gain, what do I lose? If I say Yes to this, can I actually meet the commitment in a way that meets my standards? What of this particular request could I say Yes to and feel good about?

And see if you can’t practice some small No’s to others and some small Yes’s to yourself. See what it feels like. Tell people you are working on this and get support. Expect it to feel bumpy and awkward at first. Expect to be a bit disappointed at the experience of saying No. Remember that saying Yes is the feeling of looking good in someone else’s eyes. So when you say No, you don’t get this lovely hit of the ‘I’m a good person’ drug. You will need to be extra supportive of yourself as you learn to say No. Have a buddy you can call and get some kudos when you take the risk.

Through both Yes and No you will find your edges and the edges of others. Sometimes you will say Yes and it won’t work out for you or someone else. Sometimes you will say No and it won’t work out for you or someone else. The important thing is to stay in the conversation—with the other person, but also with yourself. Being able to say No brings you more fully into the conversation. It makes all relationships more whole. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2016

Learning to float.

“As swimmers dare/
to lie face to the sky/
and water bears them,/as hawks rest upon air/
and air sustains them,/
so would I learn to attain/
freefall, and float/
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,/
knowing no effort earns/
that all-surrounding grace.”

— Denise Levertov

Healing from trauma requires an ability to learn to both lean on and take in help. You can think of this learning to lean, actually, as one of the pre-requisites of help. It is hard to get help or make use of help if you can’t emotionally lean on help, and essentially, take the weight off the wounded part of yourself. You would never heal a broken leg without taking the weight off of it, and you can’t heal the broken and fragmented parts of yourself without taking the weight off of them either, and that requires learning to lean.

I have been thinking about this even more this week because I have been texting back and forth with my friend Laura who has a toddler-age daughter about her daughter’s difficulty falling asleep at night. She was a good sleeper and now with her busy toddlerhood she is suddenly a terrible sleeper—having difficulty settling herself down and getting calm without her mom actually being present.

Toddlerhood is an age of exploration and movement—mostly movement away and in to the world. Toddlers stretch themselves and search and their curiosity and enthusiasm pulls them outward. It’s like they are constantly pulled to jump into the moving river of life and then they find themselves overwhelmed when they realize that they have moved far downstream from mom, dad or caretaker. “Wait a minute! How did I get here? Where are you? How could you leave me???”

Toddlers are still learning to trust in the constancy of the world and relationship—Are you still there when I can’t see you? If you aren’t there, do I still exist? Toddlers still don’t yet have the capacity to hold someone in mind. Out of sight, out of mind. They need to borrow the battery pack of their parents to relax, to slow down, to feel calm. And sleep is so difficult, for both children and adults alike because you can’t put effort at falling asleep. You can’t try harder at it because effort actually works against you, keeping you awake. And the more upset you get, the more difficult it is.

Falling asleep is about letting go. And anytime we have the dual task of learning to let go and learn to trust --at the same time -- we are challenged by one of the most difficult learning curves we will face. Some of these learning curves come in their normal developmental stages, like my friend Laura’s daughter and some of these learning curves come when we go back and mend our broken pieces. We have to learn all over again, or even for the first time, what it is like to let go and trust enough to heal.

Learning to lean and learning to fall asleep have something in common. Both of them are like learning to float. Teaching a child to learn to float is an incredibly complicated act. First of all, there is no logical reason that anyone should believe in floating at first sight. When you put an object in water it sinks. All small children know this. So when you tell them that you want them to just lie there on top of the water most children look at you like you have lost your mind. Yes they are determined to learn how to swim, but asking them to just lie there seems completely crazy.

And how do you teach a kid to learn to float? It is a really gradual process. First, you  have them lean against you. And when they trust you enough, then they will lay on your outstretched arms with you holding their entire weight on your arms. And then gradually, oh so gradually, you will lower your arms bit by bit and let the water hold them.

It must be gradual. Why? Because the minute the child gets scared-what do they do? They scrunch together and sink and then shoot up and grab your neck—proving their own point that floating is impossible. It is why Laura must put her daughter to bed and stay nearby enough to be a felt presence and gradually move further away as her daughter learns to float back to sleep. Laura has to have her emotional arms underneath her daughter enough to be felt.

I loved teaching kids to float because it was so tangible. It was easy to physically hold a child and let them feel your presence and trustworthiness. It is easy to feel how much they could tolerate floating on their own before I needed to be held again. It was so empowering to the child as they learned how to float and feel that this substance that felt so dangerous before actually could hold them up. The pride that they could master it, and feel the bliss of floating.

So often as a therapist I wished that this process of learning trust could be as solid and tangible as learning to float. Learning to emotionally lean on someone is the same process, but it is so much more incremental and so much more difficult. It is not easy to be an adult and feel so vulnerable. It is hard for adults to learn to swim and float, it is is hard for adults to learn the kind of trust it takes to lean on someone emotionally.

So if you can’t ‘work harder’ at learning to float, learning to lean, learning to sleep—what can you do? You don’t work harder, but you stay at it. You show up. You keep putting yourself in the position of leaning, of trusting. You practice all of it, even when you don’t believe. You practice until you believe. Until the day comes when you lean your head back and relax and you realize you’ve forgotten to be scared. You have forgotten that you didn’t believe. You have forgotten that you couldn’t. And you finally relax into the trust and healing and let them work. 

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD, 2016

The Stream & the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes (New Directions Paperbook)

By Denise Levertov

Buy on Amazon

5 Speeches from Dr. King: Training tapes for hope and courage

In anticipation of Martin Luther King, Jr Day I found that his words felt more powerful than any I could say about him or his work--so I decided to share those instead.  Long before the TED talk, Dr. King was sharing big powerful talks of ideas and inspiration.

I consider his speeches to be the antidote to fear and despair. They are training tapes for hope. Keep this blog in a file and pull up these speeches on the days when you think your challenge is too great. Tap into his source of vision and love. When the world around you or the morning news is just too much—start your day with one of these speeches instead. Aspire to see the bigger picture. Commit to seeing the best in people and humanity. Have the courage to live your dream.

The Speeches:

1. The full text and speech at the Holt St. Baptist Church. December 5, 1955 on the eve of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This was the first meeting of the MIA and he had only 20 minutes to prepare for this speech. There is both audio and a powerpoint of the text.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGtp7kCi_LA

2. Love your Enemies Speech: Audio. This is a sermon given at the Dexter Baptist Church November 17, 1957. This is the speech where he said the famous quote, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. " This sermon was written while he was in jail for non-violent protest and delivered later.

http://vimeo.com/24614519

Love your enemies speech: Full text

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_loving_your_enemies/

3. Full text of Letter from a Birmingham Jail 4/16/1963. This was a letter written in response to a “Call to Unity” by 8 white clergy members written in the newspaper denouncing King’s actions. He wrote this letter “Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly black trustee and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me.”

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

4. Full televised speech “I have a dream” March on Washington, August 28 1963. This one needs no description. Watch it. And watch it again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

Full text of “I have a dream” speech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0yP4aLyq1g

5. Speech given at UCLA 4/27/1965 55 minutes long (MLK begins around minute 7). In this speech Dr. King wrestles with the question, “Have we made any progress?” His patient discussion and his ability to both hold reality and a strong vision are still instructive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny6qP0rb_Ag&feature=youtu.be

And for more on this found speech and one other:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/long-lost-audio-martin-luther-king-jr-speech-found-ucla-storage-room/

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2015