These Things We’ve Handed Down

About twenty years ago, I was in high school and my mother came home from work one day with an interesting find. It was an excerpt from some kind of outdated book that outlined how to be a good wife. It encouraged women to get the housework done before their men came home so they did not have to be around while things were being cleaned. It explained how appreciated it would be if wives kept their children neat and quiet right when their husbands returned home so as to give him a little leisure time since he had had a long day at work. After all, he was the sole provider for the family and his main purpose was to ensure a stable income.

I remember thinking how shocked I was when I realized women were told that this was their role. I looked at my mom, who worked full time, as did my father, equally contributing to the family. Our script was flipped on that one.

Now, I write this as a mother of two children, I am at a crossroads of Where the hell did we come from? and How the hell did we get here? which is catty-corner to Where are we taking them?

The men we’ve buried, and older gentlemen we still hold close, were primed and prepared to be providers to their families. Their purpose clearly defined as working as hard as you can, often (not always) at the emotional expense of themselves and those they were providing for. They didn’t know how much pressure was being put on them because well, that’s just how the world was. Their parents before them came from a time remembered for its immense lack. If your family had meat on the table, a TV, and a car, you did all right. If you took vacations and got promoted, even better. You’ve achieved the goal society silently set for you. On the whole, boys were raised to be human doings, not human beings.

Please note, I say this as a broad generalization and not a concrete blanket statement that encompasses everyone. I am completely aware that this was not every home, not every family. I 100% acknowledge that. Bear with me; my point gets bigger.

Now, for the ladies. For a time, we were primed to be the model housewife, being the sole caretaker of the children, and the aging parents. We did all of the household tasks. A big movement has brought us out of the homes and into the work force. The 1950s arrangement has stuck with some homes where the women are still expected to tend to the children AND the house AND our careers. We fought for our rights as equals and some of us spited our boys by saying See? I can do ALL of it and you’ll never even see me sweat! On the whole, women were primed to be indestructible, and irreplaceable, and some of that by our own doing.

Gender roles in society throughout history are not even my main point here. I did feel it necessary to highlight some of it in terms of where I’m going with this.

The development of men and women has previously been shaped by expectation of society, to provide either financially or in a care-taking role for the family, and if you achieved those things, you got it right.

I do agree that it is important to be able to provide for yourself and your children, financially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

I do not agree that only these achievements will serve as a healthy foundation for well-adjusted emotional development and an internal source of happiness.

 

How much pressure have we seen people put on themselves because they didn’t land the $120,000 a year job? Because they can’t have children? Because of things we define our success by instead of the ability to be grateful and find joy in what’s right in front of us?

I am standing at this crossroads, holding my children’s hands, with a complicated road map at my feet. My task is to balance instilling a good work ethic, a moral responsibility to spread kindness and compassion, an internal locus of control of one’s own choices/destiny, a desire to continually improve upon oneself while at the same time inspiring a gratitude for what they already have, and my goodness, I’m overwhelmed at times.

We are a mixed generation, the parents of now. We stand in the middle of the achieving and doing and of the instilling and fostering. My goal, and I believe the goal at large, is to promote an emotional awareness in both men and women, to teach our children that our thoughts influence our feelings. I believe our task at hand is to learn these things ourselves, to show ourselves forgiveness, understanding, and compassion, and to model what it means to consider yourself “successful” to the little ones.

I choose to change my legacy and take the scary step of looking inside myself at what’s faulty, outdated, and detrimental. I choose to do my best to rid my life of negative thinking.

I choose to work as hard as I can toward accepting that I am imperfectly perfect and that my best will be great and some days and not so great on others.

If I fail, I’ll do so in front of my children so they know it’s ok, that there’s life on the other side of failure, and that there is love and support no matter how bad things get. I’ll show them that sometimes it takes more than one attempt to accomplish something, or that maybe doing some internal work and then trying from another angle is best, or maybe that certain things weren’t meant to exist in this world, whatever the case may be. Success is a personal thing. It requires a lot of effort, yet leaves no room for oppression from outside forces. That’s not success. Pressure to achieve something in life robs us of the joy of the journey to get there.

That’s not motivation; that’s a grown up form of bullying.

We all want our children to be successful, and our duty is to instill the importance of loving and accepting ourselves as a unit of measurement of this success.

The corner office, the management team, the 6 bedroom house, none of this crap measures up to a hill of beans if you’re too miserable to enjoy it.

We are raising a new generation. Let’s make it a legacy of love, and not a generation of haters.

First step?

Love and accept yourself.

Do some internal work and model that.

They’ll pick up on it.

They pick up on your bad habits; they’ll certainly pick up on the good ones.

How Are You? – A Seemingly Innocuous Question and How It Can Hurt

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my readers were put off by the title of this post. A simplistic sentiment, How Are You? is now commonplace within different aspects of our conversation.

A greeting, another way to say hello, it presents more like a statement of obligation than of actually asking how the other person is doing. It is often said in situations where the inquirer has no means to truly listen to an extended response, especially if the person who is answering isn’t doing very well. Waitresses and telemarketers, concert performers and networking contacts you just met, none of them are prepared for some of our real responses.

Catching up with a friend on the phone after being out of touch for a month or so, that is a context in which we are more likely to be prepared for a lengthy response, and depending on the person, possibly for an intensely emotionally charged response.

I am a grief therapist. I am also someone who has dearly loved ones who are grieving dearly, and I am a griever myself. I am privy to grief, my own and other people’s, and I thought it important to address these three seemingly innocent words.

I truly believe that this question is asked with good intentions.

I also truly, deeply believe that the majority of people are uncomfortable talking about death, seeing someone grieve, and supporting someone who is actively grieving.

Let me make a note, that this is equally true for people going through major life events: illness, illness of a family member, job changes, divorce, etc.

Let me also make note that my approach in counseling is loss-based, and that with every major life change, there are losses that we feel, for what we had before that was familiar, no matter if the changes are perceived as negative or positive.

Sometimes, we are at a loss for what to say when someone we know has hurt in them.

 

Sometimes, our discomfort in handling these emotionally charged situations navigates our conversation, and since we are lacking words we feel confident saying, we subconsciously put the onus of discussing it on the other person.

To think for a moment, where these people are at: they’ve just lost a spouse, or a child, they just found out they can’t have children, or their hopes and dreams for something they’ve wanted in their lives have come crashing down on them, their divorce is settled, their test results weren’t what they wanted.

Most of their energy is directed at two things: confronting the gigantic thing that is oppressing them and trying to function as close to what normal felt like in their everyday responsibilities despite this gigantic thing that is oppressing them.

How are you?

Well, some say it because that’s what you’re supposed to say. But are you ready for the answer when it’s “I’m shitty, and here’s why”.

It’s a funny thing sometimes, grieving.

Sometimes, there is no energy left for talking about how hard things have

been.

 

“I’m ok.”

 

Sometimes, and this is especially true for the people pleasers, there is a need to spare the person who just asked the question, because they don’t want to be a burden.

“I’m ok.”

 

We don’t realize, that when we ask How Are You? we may be putting a lot of pressure on someone that maybe can’t handle it at the moment. They only have a few seconds to decide how they can answer this. They may be weighing out if they were asked out of politeness, obligation, or genuine compassion, if they have the energy to give an accurate answer, if the person asking can hear or handle their answer, or they may not be ready to face what’s going with it themselves yet.

A little food for thought regarding something that most people gloss over as a colloquial commonplace.

Please understand, I am in no way discouraging anyone from genuinely checking in with someone they care about that is going through something.

I suggest, maybe next time, to give them a choice as to how to respond to you.

By simply rephrasing How Are You?  to I’ve been thinking about how you’ve been doing lately, or how things have been for you, they then have the option to simply say “thank you” instead of doing the emotional math equations in their heads.

It’s never a bad thing to follow those statements up with “How Can I Help?” because “Let Me Know If I Can Do Anything” places all of the responsibility on them to contact you when and if they need some support and really, they have enough to deal with right now.

Thank you for reading.

Wishing you peace of heart and overflowing coffee cups.

Party Rules: No Discussion of Politics, Sex, Religion, OR Therapy

Stigma.

According to the dictionary, stigma is a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one’s reputation.

A mark of disgrace? This is serious business, here.  Disgrace is defined as the loss of honor, respect, or esteem, and is synonymous with shame.

Since when is it shameful to recognize life could be experienced more joyfully and to choose to take action towards improving how one interacts with the world?

We are not broken, damaged, or diseased if we have intense feelings that create disturbance or disruption to our functioning.

We are not weak if we feel these feelings.

There is nothing wrong with us, only something that has happened to us.

Something physically, psychologically, spiritually, sexually, mentally, emotionally, biologically happened, and it did one of two things: it began a perpetual pinball-type reaction of circumstances, beliefs, and emotional responses that increase in velocity and intensity at every ricochet, or it heaved the entirety of our world off its axis and shattered the stand on which it rested, leaving us to construct a new one.

We are not damaged.

We are different.

When I say different, I do not mean different from the average person.

Averages are for math. They don’t have a place in my view of emotional wellbeing.

We are different from the self we’ve envisioned and strived to have. Something doesn’t feel right inside, and it’s affecting our interface with life.

I liken going to therapy for mental/emotional/psychological health just as going to physical therapy for physical health. In physical therapy, there is something in our bodies that does not feel right and we wish the discomfort to go away so we can engage in our activities, responsibilities, and relationships again.

The physical therapist evaluates us, seeing where we hurt and what we are doing when we experience pain. A plan is devised to work through the pain, with the goal to regain as much functioning as we’ve had before, taking into account any accommodations that need to be made if there was a sudden traumatic injury that has changed our mobility somehow. An important part of physical therapy is learning how to renegotiate our environment after functioning below our personal maximum potential.

When someone attends physical therapy after a long-term condition has changed the way they function in their daily life, are they looked upon as weak? Defective? Diseased?

What about after a sudden traumatic incident, such as a car accident, are they weak?

Why are we kind, encouraging, and accepting of physical therapy but dismissive and judgmental of therapy related to the rest of our being?

I reject this viewpoint. I rail against the stigma.

Here is a link to 21 different comics that address mental health and the attitudes we have toward its care. I believe some of them are right on the money with how we treat emotional well-being vs. physical well-being.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/comics-that-capture-the-frustrations-of-depression

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Wishing you peace, love, and prosperity.

Introductory Post – Greetings!

First Post!

 

Writing has always been a part of my life, however with every new endeavor there is always a sense of vulnerability. I chose to go more public with my blog than I ever have before, with the possibility of my personal and professional worlds crossing paths with this web address now.

 

For my introductory post, I will keep it on the brief side. Please do visit the About page of Keep The Lighthouse Lit and get a broader sense of where this blog was born and how I plan to continue to cultivate it.

 

As a therapist, and as a human being who believes in living the fullest life you can possibly live while fostering compassion and kindness in the world, I feel passionately about a lot of things. The topics that resonate with me will be addressed from a personal and professional point of view.

 

Thank you for reading. I am grateful that you took the time to visit.

 

Wishing you peace, love, and prosperity.

 

Namaste!