Unresolved Issues & Trauma…

Recently, (within this last week) I have been forcefully reminded I DEFINITELY have unresolved issues in my life… and they ARE DEFINITELY taking a toll!

How is this possible? I have written a book explaining how one should deal with unresolved issues. I have a podcast where I talk about mental health and different issues in this field and how we can all best take care of ourselves. I work DAILY with people who have experienced significant trauma and other unresolved issues in their lives and I am supposed to be “giving them advice.” How the heck am I supposed to advise others when I can’t even take care of my own issues?

Besides the feelings of being an impostor and worrying about my professionalism as a mental health worker, I have learned something this week also… something I think is VERY, VERY important… at least for me! Unresolved issues, trauma, ANYTHING negative that we give residence in our body and soul for ANY amount of time, whether it is a month or a lifetime, MUST be PHYSICALLY removed from one’s own system.

I have ALWAYS thought I am smart enough and independent enough to deal with whatever I have going on in my life on my own. Just THINK and ANALYZE the problem away and “POOF”… it is gone and dealt with. This past week, I have realized I have been thinking and analyzing this ONE issue in my life for almost HALF my life… it is not only STILL in my life, but in many ways it is destroying me… physically, mentally, and emotionally.

If you, like me, (and we ALL have something) have any unresolved issues or trauma or just anything that is working to destroy your happiness and contentment in this life from the inside out, please, please, please seek out ways to get it OUTSIDE of yourself! The problem with my approach all these years is that all my “thinking and analyzing” has allowed my issue to stay deep within my own existence, where it is VERY, VERY comfortable. I have not done what is needed to get it OUTSIDE… where there are others who can help and care and comfort.

Whatever works best for you; talk-therapy, immersion, confrontation, whatever might work, please don’t keep things inside. Unresolved issues and trauma WANT to remain hidden and secret. Release them. Give them up. They are not meant to be carried… and YOU are meant to be happy, healthy, and content in this life. I wish the best for EACH of us! Please take good care.

What I Learned…

Another school year has come to an end, and I think I have learned something very, very important. Although I definitely have views on education and the education system as a whole here in America, I want to focus on one particular aspect. It seems to me, from a very personal viewpoint, that we are trying to “protect” our children from all the evils and harsh realities that we believe are all around us. We can’t. Most simply stated, as parents, as educators, as those who care deeply about the youth in our nation, we can not protect them from all the evils, ills, and dangers that inhabit every corner of the world in which we all live currently.

This is sobering, to say the least. What we can do though is teach our children the skills and abilities to handle ALL that life will throw at them, because LIFE will get to each of us, no matter how protected. I work with some youngsters that have been brutalized by life at a very young age, and the most important thing I have learned is if you can somehow create CONFIDENCE… confidence in themselves AND confidence in you and those that care for them, each one of these kids is capable of AMAZING things!

I CAN NOT protect these kids. Life gets to them in some pretty harsh ways. But I CAN help them soar, even if their wings and bodies and minds and spirits have been bruised and battered. No matter one’s past, I “teach” confidence. Confidence to soar, to rise above, to move past what once was and move toward the life they deserve.

This school year… what did I learn? These kids need me and I need them. One of the most beautiful lessons ever!

The Brain Heals…

I geek out on the brain… I can not even begin to write words to try and explain how awesome and awe-inspiring I believe the brain really is… It is an absolute wonder and even the most knowledgeable among us have a very limited understanding.

One thing we do know is the brain is constantly changing and “healing.” Neuroplasticity is the ability of the human brain to change and adapt. Although the human brain loses some of its “plasticity” as one ages, it NEVER loses this ability completely! The human brain has over 1,000,000,000 electrical connections. A billion! As these connections fire in an established pattern, they create “neural pathways.” Neural pathways are important in thoughts and feelings and actions.

What I find amazing is that trauma in one’s life definitely forms neural pathways in one’s brain. In many ways, these pathways can be very prominent and “dominate” the functioning of the brain in different ways. Until recently, it was generally accepted that trauma and traumatic experiences “lived” in our brains until we left this Earth.

However, the brain is MUCH MORE resilient than we ever thought. We ABSOLUTELY have the power to “rewire” our brains at any time in our lives. The neural pathways created by trauma can be rewired. The brain CAN create ANY neural pathways you desire! If you allow and do what is needed to help your brain, it WILL heal itself! Your brain is NOT static. It is CONSTANTLY changing and adapting and YOU are the one in control of the neural pathways that are created. So much to think about but something that just leaves me awe-struck. We are all powerful beings with so much more abilities than we might ever realize.

Jeez!!! This week… Phew…

It is funny to me how life works out. I have been working to create a website for myself for the past two weeks… and I literally accomplished nothing. For the last two days, I was planning how I would write my excuse because I had stated on Facebook I would have a website by the end of this week. There was absolutely no way this was going to happen. Just one more small failure I would need to overcome… but it got me down… really down. I was feeling pretty incompetent and not so worthy.

After again working on the website for an hour and a half this morning, I sent a desperate message to Rowan asking if he had an hour to help. He had “all day and was happy to help.” In about two hours, he had put together a pretty amazing website and so much weight just lifted from my shoulders.

This past week, I have been thinking two different thoughts. The first is, “Have friends that make you feel lighter.” I have had some amazing experiences with my friends this week and I am so grateful. Second, “We never really know the true extent of our own personal strength until we experience the lowest depths of our own personal struggles.” If you are struggling right now, you are also building strength. In a way, our struggles are what make us strong. They are a blessing in the same way friends who make you feel more light and free in this life.

if you are struggling, I hope you find the strength you need. If you can’t find the strength on your own, I hope you have a friend who can lift you up.

Procrastination and Perfectionism (Sorry, Mr. Weinmann)

First off, I know this might make a few people angry and a few might stop reading this post altogether, but “perfectionism” is not something someone suffers, it is just an excuse. Nothing more. Anybody who claims to be a “perfectionist” should also claim to be terrified to make mistakes, to loathe looking stupid and maybe not so keen on new experiences. A person who feels anxious and afraid most of the time and a person who does not really have a lot of faith in themselves. It is a wall we willingly build to try and hide our own fears and insecurities and lack of faith in our own abilities, but it is also a wall we build to try and contain those same fears and insecurities and lack of faith from contaminating the aspects of our lives that we do think we control and handle pretty well. (At least the parts of life we believe we can fake.)

This is personal knowledge. Hard-fought and hard-won personal knowledge. I am a perfectionist, and for most of my life I have believed it is a badge of honor to struggle mightily toward perfection. Even when ALL evidence points conclusively to the contrary.

It is my goal that every post I write has some sort of lesson or small bit of knowledge, at least I hope. But this post is more of an apology. I am sorry, Mr. Weinmann. Very, very sorry.

In 7th grade Social Studies, we were assigned our very first research paper. Mr. Weinmann was my teacher and he was awesome! I loved the way he taught and I looked forward to his classes. But a research paper? In 7th grade? Dang, that definitely took away some of the joy. We were given the rubric for the reasearch paper at the beginning of the semester and we had the whole semester to finish the final copy. We were to check in throughout the semester to make sure we were on track, but in the end, our final copy was our responsibility! It was also a HUGE percentage of our grade!

I did not do the research paper. I received an “A” in Mr. Weinmann’s Social Studies class.

I did not know how to do a research paper. Even if I tried, it would not be that good. If I could not get an “A” on something, what was the use of trying? What if Mr. Weinmann read my research paper and realized that I was not as smart as I pretended to be? What if it was not “perfect”? What if I tried and failed?

These are only some of the thoughts that caused me to procrastinate. But they were enough. More than enough in this case and so many others in my life. And the crazy thing about procrastination is that eventually it DOES give you an excuse. It did for me back then, and if I let it, it will for me now. Eventually, there was too much work!

In my 7th grade mind, and even today is some ways, I could not REALLY fail if I did not try. Because I was such a good student in every other way, I somehow convinced Mr. Weinmann that I did hand in a research paper and that he somehow had lost it.

Mr. Weinmann suffered because I was too scared to try. I was too scared to even begin. I have suffered every day since. I am sorry, Mr. Weinmann. I am very, very sorry.

 

Perception

There once was a boy, who happened to be blind, swinging on the playground at his school. As this boy sat swinging, a few yards away was another boy making funny faces and directing rude gestures toward the blind boy on the swing, as the other kids on the playground laughed and pointed as well. The boy making faces did not like the boy on the swing and could not understand that even though the other boy was blind, the blind boy always received better grades than him and was well-liked by the teachers and his classmates.

Swinging next to the blind boy was a lovely young girl, a classmate of both boys. As she watched the boy making faces and rude gestures, she felt sorry for the blind boy because he could not “see” the other boy making fun of him. She felt pain because children can be so cruel and she felt anger toward the boy making fun and her other classmates who were afraid to stand-up to this boy. She felt despair because her blind friend would never be able to “see” the world as it really is.

As the blind boy sat swinging, he smiled silently to himself. He could hear his classmates laughing and doing all the things that children do, and he could “see” the ground below his feet, and knew the pavement would be there to greet him whenever he decided to stop. As he continued to swing higher and faster, he felt the rush of the wind racing against his face and moving each hair upon his head and he experienced the strength of his own fingers as they wrapped around the ice-cube like chains. He pumped his legs in a rhythm that only his body knew, and he took flight across skies his classmates may never know. He felt thankful for the laughter of his classmates, the wisdom of his teachers, the warmth of his friends and the safety of his family. He felt especially thankful for all that he could “see” from the perch of his very own swing.

In this life, we are all in control of what we “see” and to what we pay attention. It is a choice. If one wishes to pay attention to the bullies and the negative situations which life will always offer, there is nothing to stop you. However, there is also nothing to stop you from taking a ride on your own magical swing and “seeing” things that make you feel thankful and happy. Choose wisely.

Benefits of Anxiety and Depression?

I am graced with a daily opportunity to work with some students so “paralyzed” by a fear and/or anxiety, that permeates every day they are in school, and probably out of school as well, that they are often unable to even enter a classroom in which they belong, much less function at an acceptable level. I enjoy working with these students and work to try and give them the abilities to create the success of which they are capable. But I also find myself asking questions, “What differentiates these students from the other students who roam the halls in this school?” “Does not every student, in fact, every teacher, every human being that has ever roamed these halls, not also experience anxiety?” “Why are some people able to overcome, or at least effectively deal with, the anxiety they experience and some become literally “paralyzed?”

I can not speak personally to anxiety. Actually, if you were ever to meet me in person, I would probably never admit to ever having any feelings of stress, anxiety, hopelessness, inferiority, desperation, or any other “feelings” or “effects of feelings” that might be considered as negative in any way. However, I do have these feelings and thoughts. There is no way to deny this. There are days when I find it hard to physically get out of bed because my body is too heavy and my mind has become like jello left too long in the sun. There have been many weekends in my life, probably even weeks, that I have willingly contained myself within a room or an apartment, unable to physically, mentally and emotionally walk out the door. If I am honest, I deal with depression more than I will ever admit. However, because of this invisible struggle (I hope it is invisible), I am a better person.

Why do I deny experiencing depression in my life? What if the majority of the negative effects I experience from depression (a lack of focus and energy, a general inability to deal with average life tasks and a background irritability that is not generally present) are generated simply because I “feel bad about feeling bad?” The physiological and psychological effects of depression and anxiety are certainly real and are not disputed here in any way. I am only asking if the problems and difficulties caused by these conditions are exacerbated simply because myself and others “think and feel” like we should not experience these conditions. To me personally, if I admit to experiencing depression, it feels like I am admitting to being weak and “less than” a person who may not deal with such a condition.

I live in a neighborhood right next to a beautiful lake. I often take walks around the lake. The other day I “forced” myself out the door of my apartment because it had been a tough week and I had been in “hibernation mode” for too long. In walking around the lake, I saw ladies talking faster than they were walking, which was impressive, because they were walking pretty fast. I saw men on their cell phones conducting business that simply “could not wait.” I saw runners, checking their Fitbits, in order to confirm their “healthy status” for the day. I saw a child in a stroller, faceless, because all I could see was the iPad blocking all interaction with the world outside his (maybe a boy, maybe a girl) stroller.

I also saw myself. As I was walking around the lake, I realized something I had never realized before. Feeling a “bit down” was a blessing. I was alone. I had time. I had no responsibilities and I had many opportunities. I was free. Free to notice the actual serenity of the lake which I am privileged to live so near. Free to walk at the pace I set. Free to notice that Fall is an inevitability, no matter how nice the Summer has been. Free to see leaves that were no longer green but had begun to burn colors, vibrant colors, other than green. Free to think, my own thoughts, whatever they might be, without the burden of having to express them to another. Free to feel grateful. Free to be thankful…

I became thankful for the sadness that had so limited my access to this outside world in the last few days. As I (forcefully) walked around this lake on a beautiful day, I experienced a sincere thankfulness for being me: sad me, happy me, free me, all of me. I am the person I am today, the person I want to be, because I suffer from moments of depression in my life. There is value in these moments. Because I suffer from depression, I am empathetic. I am patient. I am a good listener. I have time to think. I am ok being alone. I appreciate beauty. I value my relationships. I am good at my job. The list goes on. Because I suffer, I am better. Depression actually allows me to be a better person, and for this I am thankful.

Happiness

Rather than spend your time searching for someone or something to bring you happiness, go create your own. With this happiness, search instead for someone or something with whom to share it.