May 29 2020

You Don’t Need it but…

The world is hard. We need each other.

I have a friend that we have an unwritten code in our friendship that it’s okay to call and vent. Without ever saying it out loud, we have given each other permission to fall apart.

Sometimes we try to fix or patch each other up but most times we simply listen and say “That’s tough.” We remind each other we aren’t going crazy. And when we are crazy, we remind each other, we won’t stay that way.

We’ve been on the phone with each other a lot lately.

We need each other and are blessed to have each other in our lives.

Do you have that person? Are you that person?

Give the People in your Life Permission to Fall Apart

Give your friends and family permission to fall apart. Including the little ones and the in-between ones.

You don’t have to say it in words. You say it in your actions.

Stay and sit down instead of walking away.

Notice and acknowledge their emotion.

Remain silent and close.

Don’t be afraid of tears. They are simply the juice that leaks out when the pressure is too high.

Hold off spinning a bright side for a bit.

It’s a thing with humans, we are more apt to let someone walk us into the light, when they’ve taken the time to sit with us in the dark. The deepest friendships are curated in the dark of life.

When someone you love is falling apart, you don’t have to piece them together.

You just have to be willing to stay there. That’s a tough job for the problem-solvers and the make-everything-betters. But it’s a learnable skill.

Be patient with the struggle. It’s the patience of watching a chick break free from a shell. To help it, is to destroy it’s chance at growing strong enough to survive in the world.

Butterflies pulled out of the cocoon, die.

Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend that what they need is you.

You, witnessing their crazy thoughts and ugly emotions, and still being able to stay with loving intent. They need you – ready and willing to carry a little of their hurt.

Their stuff isn’t too big for you.

To Those Falling Apart

Hearing what life is doing to you is not a burden for us.

You are not a burden.

When you hide your emotions, you hide your self and we never get to fully know you.

You will always be lonely if you keep all that hidden.

You will never feel known and loved.

You are not too much.

Your stuff is not too heavy.

Together we can get through this.

Feel free to forward this to someone who needs to know you’re there for them.

Trish White is a counsellor in Saskatoon, SK who has the privilege of seeing people who’ve fallen apart, come back together again.

trelliscounselling.ca

May 07 2020

Of SCARS & BRUISES (and Other Places to Grow)

With COVID-19 disrupting our external worlds, many people are finding a shifting in their internal worlds. Events previously forgotten, like festering wounds quickly bandaged, are now erupting. Sadness, worry, grief and anger that was carefully held down is now painfully rising to the surface. Why is this happening and what should we do about it?

Things change.

Have you noticed things don’t seem to stay as they were before? They shift. They crack. Every woman over 50 knows what I’m talking about. Looking in the mirror, my hands find a spot by my earlobes and I apply pressure upwards. That’s better. A little more reminiscent of the face I once knew. A decade of struggle magically fades. The methodical etchings of worry float away.

Until I let go. As I slowly release the pressure, the downward drag begins. Every cell in my body is being sucked, nanometer by nanometer, toward the grave. Why can’t things just stay as they once were?

Everything seems a bit lower these days.

Our earnings wobble, as a pandemic sweeps our nation.
The price of gas calls us to fill up our tanks so we can sit in a parking lot with nowhere to go.
The stock market appears to be gasping.
Our energy has come crashing down. Naps are no long luxuries but necessities.
The aspiration of cleaning out the junk drawer is forgotten. So many things to do, so little energy to do them. Time on our hands
Time enough to become aware that parts of our body are no longer where they were before.

Scars and Bruises: We All Have Them

Life wounds us, leaving scars and bruises. Every single one of us carries sore spots that we protect. Aching joints that tell of a past injury. Scars and scar tissue that mar the surface of our skin. No one is exempt.

At 18, I had my appendix removed. A searing pain drove me to a scalpel wielding surgeon. The good doctor brought relief but, in doing so, cut a hole eclipsing most women’s caesarean scars. The average appendix is 4” long. The average baby is around 20”. The incision math didn’t add up. In the recovery days, I did not know the scar was larger than normal as I was yet to reach the age where conversations revolve around body pains and ailments.

That is, I didn’t know the length of my appendix scar was excessive until I made an off-hand comment to the surgeon.

I became immediately aware that I’d touched a nerve in this older, wiser human. My passing remark was an attempt at connection that backfired. This one thread snaking across my abdomen was the only thing we had in common. I had a pain that needed healing and he, with deft scalpel and stitching skill, had delivered relief. This is not the usual grounds on which friendships are forged.

“Nice incision.” My benign comment was met with an instant wall of defence. “I don’t like to work through a key hole,” he snapped. His eyes narrowed and a twitch by his upper lip challenged me to say more.

I felt like I’d thrown down the proverbial gauntlet to start a duel. He was taut and ready to take up the challenge. The problem was, like most of my wayward mitts, it hadn’t been a throw down in an attempt to engage an opponent. It had simply dropped out of my hand. My teenage brain had no reference point that appendix scars weren’t supposed to be bigger than caesarean scars.

At that moment, from my hospital bed, I instantly knew some deep truths about this man before me. His comment revealed far more about him than his penchant to be excessive in how he cut into things. The decades peeled back and I could tell that, for the briefest of seconds, I was no longer facing a learned and competent surgeon. The man before me was a boy, poked at and criticized, by some ghosts in his past. In the pinch of his face and the tension driving his shoulders up, I witnessed the after effects of decades old critical words. I had unknowingly bumped into a gash of his own.

He was ready to defend his skill. Daring me to utter one more word. I smiled an awkward smile and let my raised eyebrows put an end to the conversation. An awkward awareness filled the room between us as we both moved to cover our wounds. Mine was nicely healing. His was poorly stitched and oozing infection in the space between us. “Show me your scar” was not a game he was wanting to play.
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I’ve been on the other side of those exchanges. Moments in conversation where something someone says smacks me squarely on an old internal wound. Some passing comment stabs me in the gut. We all learn recovery skills to hide our wounds.

Within a decade, my appendix scar would be swallowed by an even more impressive gargantuan incision. Flesh sliced to give access to muscles that were torn apart from stem to stern. A trail marker left by babies voyaging through my body.

Our bodies carry our stories.
Every scar speaks of pain and healing.
Every facial crease of worry and laughter.
Every sagging jowl of the cells steady surrender to the earth below.

If you live, you will carry scars and not a few bumps and bruises.

Wounds and bruises are meant to heal. The ones inside and ones outside.

Of Hope and Healing

Bruises marking our bodies tell of minor everyday mishaps. It flags a part of our body where our systems need to concentrate healing energy. We bump our knees on the corners of coffee tables. Bang our heads on cupboard doors left open. Bounce our shoulders off corners of walls that are strangely closer than expected. Spreading blue and dissolving into shades of green and yellow until it fades away. The bruise stands as a marker of a place that needs our increased vigilance for a few days until the healing occurs.

On the inside, our bruises seem to take much longer to heal and the proof of healing is far less evident.

Why is This Bothering Me Now?

In the last few weeks I have had clients, in moments of motivation, stumble across things in storage room boxes that have plunged them into grief. “This happened so long ago, why does it still hurt so much?”

Others have life regrets exploding in their minds like popcorn. “How did I get here?” “What’s the point of all this?”

Others are confronted with a nasty side of themselves as they are caged with the same people and can’t escape.

Still others are looking with dread to returning to a job they hate.

I personally have been surprised by the amount of tears that have risen over things I thought I’d dealt with. Bruises not yet healed. Wounds, that need time and space to mend.

The Healing Work of Silence, Solitude and Stillness

We all know we need to pull back in order to recharge. We know we are healthier when we sleep. Nature teaches us through the rotation of days and seasons that everything needs a time to stop producing and recharge. Silence, solitude and stillness are disciplines that have been employed in almost every religion since the beginning of time. We instinctively know spending time away from a chaotic, noisy world is healing for a deep part of us. Whether it’s a cozy corner with a fuzzy blanket, a hidden retreat in the woods, or a quiet drive down the highway, our souls know we need to pull back in order to recharge.

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes – even you.”
Ann Lamott

Silence, solitude and stillness are called disciplines because the wise among us have discovered, over the centuries, that they work something good in our lives. They are ancient practices that are far from our modern day reality.

Until COVID-19 happened.

But I Didn’t Ask for This!

Many of us have been thrust into varying degrees of silence, solitude and stillness. We never chose this discipline, but the work of this trifecta is becoming evident in our lives. The closets of our past are popping open and hurling things on the floor of our minds that we had thought were better left hidden. There has been an internal shifting.

Have you ever soaked in a tub and discovered bruises you didn’t know you had. The bathtub, it’s one place where we slow down and have time to notice. Where did that mark come from? How long has it been there?

As you are marinating in the tub of life, what bruises from your life are becoming evident to you? Instead of being embarrassed by them or working to push them back down, get curious about the “bruises” you are noticing rising to the surface in your everyday life.

Triggers and Unwanted Behaviours Reveal Opportunities for Growth

Unfinished business, like bruises, shift and rise to the surface when there is time and space for the healing to take place. They can stay pushed down for years as we rush around to establish our careers, raise our babies or turn our house into a home. But what gets pushed down eventually floats to the surface in moments of stillness. Things don’t stay where we put them; especially the things we push down.

Life etches scars and bruises on the surface of our heart that need time and space to heal.

What has been rising for you in these last weeks?
Have you become aware of regrets?
Is the grief of lost relationships and people creeping in on your day?
What is actually derailing your plans? Is it simply a lack of motivation or a bruise that is now demanding to be healed.

What has set you off and you were surprised by your own reaction?

Time heals nothing. It’s what you do with time that does the healing.

If you’ve set out to do a project, like clean out a closet or the science experiments in the fridge, but then find yourself frozen in front of the tv or the pantry, take a moment to do an inventory. What is really standing in my way? Is it a fear over something? Is it a recurring thought? What are the bruises and scars that you are now noticing that need a bit of focussed time and attention to heal? Get curious about them. How long have they been there? How did they get there? What does it say to you? What messages do they say about you?

What Gets Pushed Down Eventually Comes to the Surface

In life, things don’t stay where you left them. Hurts and internal scars that are pushed down slowly make their way to the surface. In fact, the harder you try to push things down, the more force they have when they rise. Like a beach ball pushed deep under the water’s surface, when released, it flies up in your face with surprising force.

As gravity pulls our skin downward, that which has been buried inside seems to rise to the surface.
Cold case files find resolutions. Addictions don’t stay hidden.
In families, secrets that have been hidden for decades are uncovered.
Business that was left unfinished has a way of spilling out of the closet.

You’re Older, Stronger with More Resources. You Have What it Takes to Deal With This Now

The tangible goals you have, like to clean out a closet or master the Konmari folding method may need to be trumped by a need to take time to sort out an internal space. To clear the internal clutter that is crowding out some of the joy in your days. When the past doesn’t stay in the past, taking some time to sort through it will expand the happiness quotient in the days to come. You will experience a lighter self. Your creativity may return. Who knows, you may find the energy to tackle that project it wasn’t allowing you to get to.

Take a moment. Be aware. Stop distracting and avoiding, buffering and appeasing. Stop fighting the silence, the stillness and solitude and press into it.

What can you now move through and deal with that previously you were unaware of or unwilling to deal with? Don’t be scared. You’re older and stronger and a good measure wiser. I firmly believe that the things that tumble back into our minds and memories do so because we now have the time and resources to help them heal and move through them.

When we stop using our energy to mask and bandage, our creative force is renewed.
When you are willing to sit in the pain for a moment, the next moment often opens up to joy. The world is full of joy giving moments that we can miss when our energies are given to protecting our bumps and bruises. Growth can take place in the cracks.

Journal Prompts

What in your life has shifted?
What unfinished healing has silence, solitude and stillness brought to the surface?
What wounds and bruises have become painfullly evident?
Have the closets of your mind revealed some things that need some going through?
What do you need to do to help yourself take the next step?

Trish White is a counsellor in Saskatoon, SK who tries to spend more time healing wounded hearts than she does fighting the gravitational pull on her face. If you need to talk, I’m here: trish@trishwhite.ca

Oct 07 2019

Wrestling with Anxiety: Go Ahead and Cry

Tears – A Sign of Vigorous Health

Tears, they show up when we don’t want them to. It can be embarrassing when you are caught in a meeting or other inconvenient moment when tears suddenly flood your eyes. You blink rapidly and breathe deeply in an attempt to choke back the flood that threatens to engulf and humiliate.

Tears, at the same time, can be maddeningly absent. When a teary thank you may be in order, they suddenly betray us and are nowhere to be found.

On the harder end, those that struggle with depression know, that when the plethora of tears dry up, it can often leave you in a really dark place.

First Cry

Babies in utero blissfully float in a sac of fluid with all good things being delivered straight into their tiny bodies through a magical cord. Food, vitamins, and oxygen all come flooding through that miracle channel without any effort on their part. Little do they know, in a few torturous hours, they now will have to convince someone to feed then. No longer will it be magically delivered as a side benefit of simply being alive.

At the point of birth, after being relentlessly squished, twisted and tormented, they emerge from their dark cocoon into a harsh, cold world. The endless source of all good things delivered effortlessly is about to end. Their connection between their mom and their very core is about to be severed permanently.

When the inevitable happens, for the first time the little babe screams! Screams!!! This burst of crying is what everyone in the room has been waiting hours to hear. The strength of that cry is used as a quantifying measure of initial health. The babies that cry the hardest are considered the healthiest. .
When does that change?

My mind is drawn to a picture of a woman. Lonely and overwhelmed with grief. Walking through a park with tears running down her face and whisked quickly away. Her survival link to one of the closest people in her life has been severed. She feels it at her very core. Overwhelmed she drops to the ground, like a rag tossed aside, and lets loose a guttural cry. She, on the ground in a mess of hair, and tears, and leaves and sobs is not considered strong. When did that change?

Interesting isn’t it that at birth, the strength of a baby is in part measured by the vigorousness of the cry. Yet as an adult the sign of strength is often seen as how much you can endure without telltale tears.

Life is Hard.

So we spend our adult lives, choking back tears, either out of habit or for fear of looking silly, ugly, or weak.. We become adept at distracting and avoiding when we find the tears welling up in our eyes. When was the last time you cried and just let the tear flow? When was the last time you sat with someone who just held you while you cried?

As a counsellor, I regularly hear people apologize for their tears. Incredulously, they are sharing the hardest most gut-wrenching stories of their lives with me and they apologize. Why are they apologizing? It’s almost like tears are a belligerent toddler that is running out of control and they are horribly embarrassed by the inconvenience.

The Benefits of Crying

Tears are our lot in life. Whether they are disturbingly absent or embarrassingly present, they speak volumes. There aren’t a lot of studies done on shedding tears but the few that have been done have ‘shed’ some light on their importance. Here are a few facts that may make you think twice when you try to choke back the tears:

Detoxify. Tears that are created when we are upset are of a different chemical composition than our regular tears that bathe and protect our eyes. These tears that are shed when you hurt contain stress hormones and may be part of your body’s garbage removal system. It is thought they are naturally detoxifying your system of an excess of these hormones produced by stress.
Calm the Body. We have 2 systems: The Sympathetic and Parasympathetic systems. The Sympathetic system activates us and helps us respond to stress and events in our world. The Parasympathetic System calms us and allows us to rest, digest and heal. If you are living with your sympathetic system activated too much for too long, tears may be the natural switch that turns on your parasympathetic system and allows your body to recover. Whereas our bodies are able to quickly respond to stress with a fight, flight or freeze response, turning on the parasympathetic takes time. Allowing yourself a chance to get away and cry may help your body calm itself.
Feel Good Hormones. Another chemical reaction takes place when we cry. Our bodies start to produce oxytocin and endorphins – the feel good hormones. Many people often report a cessation of anxiety symptoms for 24-48 hours after a good cry. Helping children to be able cry over the unfairness of the world and being with them through the tears can be both anxiety relieving as well as an extremely important life lesson. That is the point isn’t it? Life is hard and things don’t always turn out the way we expected, but if there are people there to share in those moments and help pick and lift you up, life becomes tolerable again.
Cool an Activated System. A study of sobbing (I wonder who signed up for this study) found that sobbing forces us to take in large gulps of air which in turn helps cools our brain. I guess a cool brain is preferable to a hot brain and letting loose and letting ‘er buck, gives you a chance to cool your system down.

A Time to Cry

Crying can help you recover from life’s hardships. In order to make the most of these times, watch what you tell yourself as you cry,. Internal dialogue can begin to berate yourself, tell you you’re weak, or you may begin to worry that you are “losing it” and wont be able to recover from this. Change your thoughts instead to a recognition that this is a normal reaction to the difficulty of life.

Like a newborn baby, there is a place for crying when we experience deep hurt and disconnection. Instead of fearing you are losing it, accept that your body is responding in the best way to help you heal and recover from the hurt you have experienced.

That lady under the tree, crying from a severing that has taken place in her life – as she lets the tears flow, she may find she is actually at the birthplace of something new in her world.

Go ahead a cry. Find a safe place. Hold on to a safe person…and let ‘er buck.

Trish White is a counsellor in Saskatoon grateful to be able to witness the resilience of people as they forge new chapters.

#101 – 1132 College Dr. – 1-306-988-4880 – trish@trishwhite.ca

Warning: This is a blog post and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical or mental health care. Anxiety and depression often go hand in hand. If you have long bouts of crying and are unable to stop, please see a professional.

Sep 30 2019

Wrestling with Anxiety: Is Social Media to Blame?

Anxiety is on the rise in North America. It often shows up in the oddest ways. Chest pains that feel like you’re having a heart attack. Loss of feeling in your hands and feet leaving you wonder if you have some neurological disorder. Many people complain about having so much trouble breathing it mimics an allergic reaction. It’s downright scary and often disappointing when we are told ‘It’s just anxiety.’

It’s “Just” Anxiety

That little word ‘just’ seems to negate the destruction it wreaks in your life. Waking you up. Making you feel like you’re going crazy. Fogging your brain. Putting strain on your relationships. Anxiety is the companion no one asked for.

Most often, first question we ask ourselves is why? Why? Why is this happening to me? Why am I so anxious? Why is my body freaking out like this? Why can’t I get control of my thoughts? Unfortunately, the secret of what is causing anxiety is often not discovered until we are able to get the symptoms under control.

It appears anxiety is in on the rise. Stats Canada reports that 1 in 4 of us will experience an anxiety disorder in our lifetime. You probably didn’t need to know that. It’s not a helpful stat. We are seeing younger and younger children wrestling with anxiety.

I believe there is a myriad of reasons for anxiety’s rise to power but I want to discuss one particular aspect that I believe could be the root cause for some of our children, and maybe even for us.

Anxiety seems to be rising at a similar rate as social media. Is there a correlation? Social media, in its many forms, is a relatively new introduction to our worlds and I believe our brains are not designed to deal with it. I, in middle age, am more than thankful that social media was not around to record my teenage missteps. I can’t even imagine how it would have compounded my stress and added to my overwhelm…not to mention embarrassment.

Anxiety: The Alarm Bell of Your Life

As social media grows by leaps and bounds in new ways, we have to be creative in how we manage it in our lives and families. I believe it has the ability to have a profound negative effect on the working systems in our brains as well as our family system. I’m making a case that social media encourages us to drop common protective boundaries that have been in place for centuries.

Gordon Neufeld, a Vancouver-based developmental psychologist, describes anxiety as an internal alarm system. It warns us that something is wrong in our world and that we need to be alert. When you think of anxiety being an alarm bell, it ceases being something we need to push down and eradicate and instead something that needs to be listened to.

Here is my case. See if you agree with me.

If you were to come to my house, I would meet you at the door. (Pictures shown do not adequately reflect my home. Nor is it me!) If I didn’t know you or if you were selling something I didn’t want, that is where you stayed. On the door step. There’s no way I’m letting you in. This is where the “foot in the door” phrase came from. Salesmen knew they needed to be invited in to increase the likelihood of a sale.

Strangers stay outside. Unless they have a specific purpose, such as wanting to repair my dishwasher, they stay outside and are never, ever invited inside. Salesmen don’t make it in because, at some level, we know they really don’t have our best interest at heart. No matter how many times you say my name to try to befriend me, keep yourself on my doormat. (Okay, I concede…perhaps if you have a great accent, I may let down my guard.)

If you are someone I recognize or if I really needed that Encyclopedia set, I might say, “Hey, step inside.” You would then be in my home. You’d be able to see some of my living area. You may quickly get a glimpse of our lifestyle. But that’s as far as you’re going, I’m not letting you past the doormat. There’s no way you’d be allowed to come in my kitchen. If you pushed your way past that entrance boundary, you wouldn’t be welcomed back again.

If you are family or friends, you’d be welcomed into my space with a hug. Of course, you can come in. I may even pull you in the kitchen and serve up a cup of peppermint tea. (Trust me, you don’t want me making you coffee.) You’d have access to our main bathroom. I may hand you a kitchen utensil and get your help with the salad. Not everyone that comes to my door would get that privilege. That is reserved for a special few.

Then there’s the bedroom. There would only be a couple people invited in there. The list is restricted to the very closest of friends and a few family members. Yes that right, even if you’re family, you might have limited access. As kids we conveniently had a “Girls’ Only” sign to keep out those with cooties.

You have to be super special to me to be allowed into my privatest of spaces. My friend that accepts me no matter what, is welcome. My sisters bearing gifts in the form of soup for the sick or clothes would be let in. My spouse. My safe people. Those who look after me and who I look after. And that’s all…even if you have a great accent.

We have invisible boundaries that don’t need signs posted because it’s something most people naturally know. No yellow tape necessary.

Invading Invisible Boundaries

With the invasion of social media, people I neither know nor have ever met suddenly are drawn into my privatest of spaces. I can’t point the finger at millennials because I have the exact same problem.

As social media and electronic devices became central to our lives, the walls of our houses started coming down. We carry our phones into our bedrooms and into our beds so even people that we wouldn’t allow inside our doors are now welcomed into our most private of places.

We’ve made it so there is no safe place.

No Safe Places

I believe we are seeing the repercussions of this by the widespread experience of extreme levels of anxiety. I’m not saying this is THE cause of anxiety, I’m saying it is A cause. I believe the alarm bells of anxiety are being triggered because there’s no longer any safe place to retreat, rejuvenate, reset, or refresh.

Growing up, if someone was rude to me, I left that person at the end of the school day. I smiled smuggly with relief as I walked away from them at the school or they had to catch the bus that automatically gave me a 17-hr reprieve. If I was ever the brunt of a hurtful jokes, these people were never allowed in my house, let alone in my bedroom. I had access to safe, beautiful spaces to recoup and recharge.

Now, though, we carry the voices of these rude classmates and coworkers into our homes. When we open up our computers, the people that used to be left in the school yard or at the office are there. They are at our dining room tables and in our bathrooms. When we go to bed, they are there. If left uncontrolled, the dings of friends in distress wake us up during the night. Their anxiety and depression becomes the stuff of our anxiety. We have given the world 24/7 access to us.

How anxious does that make you feel? I hope, at the very least, really concerned.

How can we begin to reestablish protective boundaries so the alarm bells of anxiety can begin to calm down?

We need to have some important conversations in our families about the effects of social media.

Safe Zones – Safe Times – Safe People

Safe Zones: Safe zones are places where the outside world no longer has access to you. Places where we are free from the distraction of buzzing and dinging that demands our attentions. It’s a place where you can begin to establish peace and recharge your own batteries. Whether it’s a spot (the dining room table) or a room (the bedroom), everyone needs a safe place. Have you established safe zones in your house?

Safe Times: Can you establish safe times when the phones, electronics and/or wifi are shut off? Did you know there is a sleep feature on your phone where all calls and notices can be silenced for certain hours? You can set your phone to automatically silence all calls, texts and messages between 10:00 pm and 6:00 am or whatever hours you choose. There is a setting that allows your closest people who rely on you in emergencies to always get through. Google it. This technology is built into your devices, take advantage of that. Establish hours where you are not accessible. In the words of Anne Lamont, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Safe People: Limit. Limit. Limit. Choose wisely who you allow access to your world. If they wouldn’t be invited into your inner spaces, they shouldn’t have access to those places virtually. You can block and limit those people that aren’t good for your mental health. Unfollow diligently. Unfriend fearlessly.

No one likes electronics more than I do but I believe we are falling behind in how we let them change and influence our lives. We are in a giant experiment of how they are improving and destroying the quality of our lives at the same time.

I believe social media is a significant factor in the rise in anxiety. Do you agree with me? Disagree with me? I’d love to hear from you.

“Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.” Proverbs 25:28

Trish White is a counsellor in Saskatoon grateful to be able to witness the resilience of people as they forge new chapters.

#101 – 1132 College Dr. – 1-306-988-4880 – trish@trishwhite.ca

Sep 16 2019

Forgive & Forget

It All Started When…

One beautiful sunny morning, with fall hanging crisp in the air, I was cruising down a tree framed street when an uninvited memory came crashing through my mind.

A glaring yellow sign alerted me that school was back in session. Groups of backpacked kids were scrambling across the street. An everyday sight on an everyday fall morning. No one in my sights was being bullied. No one looked left out. But seeing the gaggles of children was all my mind needed to escort me back to a humiliating scene from my own Grade 7 year.

Although I could easily stop my car, I couldn’t find the brakes for my memory as it crashed down on me, reaching into my guts to twist and torment my recently ingested breakfast.

I used to ignore those flashes but I’ve learned if you ignore your body long enough, it will get louder and louder, eventually speaking in ways it can no longer be ignored. Ask anyone who’s had a heart attack. Ask my chiropractor, my massage therapist and yes…my surgeon.

The picture playing out in my mind was blurry from 35 years in the archives but the cramping down below and the burning in my face was such that it felt like it was happening all over again. How can one stupid event in Jr. Hi still haunt me? How is it one day has the potential to ruin so many others?

The story isn’t a new one. It is a version of a very old script. A bully. An insecure girl. Insults and verbal mud. An arm twisted in unnatural ways. A head slammed into a bookshelf. Tears. Humiliation. Shame.

Let me be clear that this was no horrific #metoo movement moment. The scenario played out for no more than 5 mins. There were no external scars. No trips to the Emergency Centre or Crisis Centre. I can easily dismiss this cognitively as a moment that doesn’t matter in the scheme of life. “Really it was nothing.” she says with a fake smile, her eyes roaming the room for a shred of chocolate. And yet…

Here I am a mom, whose own kids have graduated, and I’m having physical symptoms when I drive past a shockingly mundane scene by a playground. Crazy right? Well…it might be crazy if it wasn’t so stinking common and we weren’t so adept at avoiding, numbing and distracting ourselves.

When I think back to that memory making day, the most painful part is not the physical piece. Instead the pain rises from an awareness that there were eyes in that room that either watched and didn’t jump to my defence or looked away and pretended not to see. Words and actions have a great capacity to hurt but silence and inaction are what etched a deep wound in my heart. Sometimes silence and inaction are what hurt us most. I’ve grown up, moved on, but those flash moments of burning memories make it obvious those events have never been eradicated from heart. How old will I be before I get over this? When will I forgive and forget?

When will I be able to forgive and forget?

On one level I feel like I have forgiven. I’ve grown enough to realize we were both kids finding our own way. I recognize those who bully others have their own issues and are just trying to survive in their own worlds. “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing” is a prayer I can align myself with. I honestly believe that. He wasn’t intending to destroy me or scar me so bad that my middle aged self would trip over it. The others in the room were simply bowing to a pre-written group dynamic. I am confident I could run into him and not smash his head into the nearest wall. (Okay…the fact that that just came out of my brain may mean I need work on a whole other level!)

I will admit that under the guise of perhaps wanting to extend forgiveness, I’ve played the part of internet sleuth. I’ve checked to see what Google, Facebook and LinkedIn have to say about this guy. In contrast to my pristine motive, I’ve hoped I’d find him fat, going bald in an absurd pattern and not being able to find a job due to his malicious character. Just being honest. (Can you forgive me?).

If life were like a tv program, he would end up in my counselling office seeking help for being bullied at work, presenting somewhat like Dwight Shrute from “The Office.” He, of course, wouldn’t recognize me and I’d show way too much curiosity in all the ways his fellow employees and management has made his life miserable. “Tell me more about that”, she says leaning forward with abnormally raised eyebrows!

Forgiveness is Not a Magic Pill. It is a Process, a Choice, a Commitment and a Tool on the Path to Reconciliation

Forgiveness is a hot topic in my counselling office. I admit to sometimes referring to it as the “f word.” I’ve come to believe, for each of us, forgiveness looks a little different. There is no magic formula or perfect time. Often if you are serious about it, it gets revisited over and over as the years go by. Rinse and Repeat. Rinse and Repeat.

It is complicated and I believe multi-faceted. I’ve seen it used as a weapon, unfortunately most often by mental health professionals and clergy. The message that is often sent is that if you would just forgive, something magical will then happen in your relationship. Everything will be better. It is in your hands to do. Unfortunately, it is often sold as a miracle pill that cures all. Forgiveness doesn’t change engrained patterns of behaviour. Forgiveness doesn’t alter personality. Forgiveness isn’t plastic surgery that removes scars. It can be a step in healing hurt in relationship but there are many more steps to follow. It is a process. It is a choice. It is a commitment.

I’ve heard many grown children reach out in forgiveness of their parents only to be disappointed by more blame, more deflection, more dismissing, and more hurtful words. Forgiveness can definitely change you, but it may have no effect on the other person. They get to wrestle with their own issues. They may not offer an apology in return. I see forgiveness as a tool used on the path of reconciliation. It is not the path itself.

I don’t want to dismiss it though. Forgiveness is an extremely important tool as we all know people that have held grudges and bitterness for years only hurting themselves. There is truth in St. Augustine’s quote “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” But there’s also truth in knowing if you swallow the magic pill of forgiveness, everyone will not necessarily live happily ever after.

Wrestling with forgiveness is a necessary act that needs to be revisited with regularity and honesty. If you are in the process of working through forgiving someone, I have some suggestions that I hope may be a suggested starting place.

The Most Important Person You Need to Forgive is You

My internet searches for the person that caused me the most angst in my teenage years have turned up fruitless. <Insert sigh of relief>. I am, at present, completely off the hook for any reconciliatory exchange. But, let’s be honest, the matter is not over as it’s still me whose stomach rolls and stumbles when I drive by groups of kids in playgrounds.

The fact that decades later I’m still affected by those events are worth looking into. In the words of Brene Brown. “Forgiveness is not forgetting or walking away from accountability or condoning a hurtful act; it’s the process of taking back and healing our lives so we can truly live.” She references an excellent book by Desmond Tutu that outlines a path to forgiveness and her comments about their work is significant: “What the Tutus found in their work on forgiveness validates not just the importance of naming our experiences and owning our stories but also how rumbling with a process can lead to clarity, wisdom and self-love.” (Rising Strong. Brene Brown. 2015)

So how do I deal with this? How do you rumble with forgiveness? For the full version visit Brene Brown’s and Desmond Tutu’s work. I’d like to focus on that last word – ‘self-love’ as a significant part of the process of forgiveness.

I’m the Victim here, Why Do I Need to Forgive?

In the Grade 7 scenario mentioned above, what do I have to forgive myself for? I was clearly an innocent victim. Yet as the years as rolled on I’ve come to realize that this offending person hurt me only once in a 5 minute block of time…and I in turn have hurt myself a million times by going over the painful details. He may have had a particularly bad day that he has regretted but I have let it ruin countless days since.

I was the one who internalized the messages:

“You have no value.”

“You are laughable”

“You are pathetic”

“No one really cares.”.

I was the one who hung on to those messages and pulled them up at other hurtful moments in my life to compound other problems.

I was the one who allowed the voice of the bully to live inside my head and beat me up over and over again. He had nothing to do with the ways I continued to hurt my own self from that one event.

The same is true of so many of my clients. Criticism by a superior has ruined and sometimes immobilized many an employee. Harsh words by a parent have caused issues in many a marriage. Our internal stuff that we are medicating, numbing, distracting from and avoiding comes back to hurt us over and over.

See With New Eyes

I found this statue while shopping one day. It may have been originally designed to signify a mother and daughter, but I stood there with a different message being pulled from the graceful lines. The older, wiser women is looking back at the younger one with grace and love. She doesn’t have eyes but her entire body speaks of encouragement and warmth.

Standing in Home Sense, staring at this piece as if I was in an art museum, I realized this posture is exactly what I needed for the next step of forgiveness. These two figures are identical and perhaps, instead of mother and daughter, it could signify an older me and a younger me. An older you and a younger you.

Can I look back at what I had come to see as a pathetic, insecure, ugly teenager who not only didn’t know how to dress but didn’t have the money to dress any different and offer grace and love. Can I offer empathy to my own self and let the shame melt away?

Can I forgive myself for not being fully put together?

Can I forgive myself for not knowing how to reach out and tell someone what I was going through?

Can I stop beating myself up when those old insecurities rise to the surface?

Can I squelch the voice of the bully that tempts me to mould myself into something I’m not so no one will make fun of me?

Can I forgive myself for being immature, incomplete and in process?

Offer Yourself First What You Want to Offer to Others

Whenever you serve a meal, chances are good you’ve tried the recipe before you offer it to your guests. It gets tested ahead of time and perfected. Tasting, testing and adjusting as you go along. It’s the same with forgiveness. It’s a process, that is sometimes messy and needs adjusting and tweaking as life in relationship rolls out. Testing your own ability to offer grace and love by trying it out on yourself will improve the flavour of it as you serve it to the people around you.

Forgiving yourself releases a flow within you. It allows you to grow. It puts the brakes on relentless criticizing and frees your mind to create and engage in warm relationships. Richard Rohr states, “In the end, the face we turn toward ourself is the face we will turn toward the outer world.” When you can learn to offer it to yourself, it naturally can flow out of yourself to others.

If you are struggling to forgive, perhaps the place you need to start is to forgive yourself.

Can you look back at your younger self and forgive yourself for not being fully mature?

Can you forgive yourself for not knowing what you’d never been taught?

Can you forgive yourself for not having the tools passed down to you that you needed to build healthy relationships?

Can you look back at your younger self with grace and love?

Can you stop re-wounding yourself for not being perfect?

Can you forgive yourself?

It may seem self-centred to turn the forgiveness inward but we all know wounded people wound other people. I also know when I’m busy trying to ignore the pain that rises from past situations I’m not at my best with the people in my world. My energies are already turned inward but not in a positive way. When your self-talk is berating and negative and cricizing, you can not be fully free and present in your work or your relationships.

What do you need to do to forgive yourself? Remember, this is a process, not a one-time event. It’s a daily choosing to not beat ourselves up for past events.

In the next post, we’ll continue this theme and look at what will be helpful to forget in this process.

Trish White is a counsellor in Saskatoon grateful to be able to witness the resilience of people as they forge new chapters.

#101 – 1132 College Dr. – 1-306-988-4880 – trish@trishwhite.ca