NC Summer Heat, Breathing, Yoga

Maintaining my yoga and sitting practice is a challenge here. The temperature, the numbers of meetings I must attend AND the Southern cooking (issue for another post)and without those breaks, working in this environment is not easy. And the summer heat adds to my own stress.

Keeping up my yoga and sitting practice make it easier for me to deal with the silly things I find myself in the midst of every day: I can not easily find my way around this base. I count the day a major success when I don't get lost at least once.

When I haven't done yoga, I find myself expressing my stress in painful ways: last week I smashed my thumb in the car door. Oh, I'm okay but it was another reminder that I had not taken the time to just breathe and really figure out where I was supposed to go before heading out of the car to find out where I was! Then the day I arrived back at the hotel in the midst of that torrential rain storm, I locked my keys in the car.

Everything turned out fine. I learned my lesson and I am now signing off in order to do some yoga and sit.

Keep breathing.

Summer Rain, Coloring Books and Passports

Sounds pretty innocent, doesn't it?

This week I spoke to at least eight different groups of soldiers, their wives, their parents and their children. Sometimes the group included all of these different people and sometimes the briefing was for the soldiers alone. One group at which I appeared to describe the support we provide was a briefing on maintaining computer security. Another briefing directed to soldiers and their families included instructions on communicating with their families in a manner that does not reveal any information that could be used against the troops.

What is really wonderful about these briefings is the acceptance I am receiving from the officers who want this information about support spread widely. On the other hand I am working with a cultures which until very recently has not accepted the psychological impact of the trauma the soldiers confront daily while down range.

The families are given coloring books and crayons so that with their children they can discuss the experience of a parent or both parents leaving on deployment. The spouses are instructed to get their children's passports in case they must leave the States to be with their injured spouse. And through all of this information there was a summer thunder shower that reminded me of one aspect of summer in the South for which I have yearned.

Jumping and Bar Tending

She has completed ten jumps in the process of becoming a paratrooper. She has a BA in psychology and plans to use her military benefits to pay for graduate school. She is supplementing her income working during the weekend. And she is depressed. Unlike my clients back in LA we can't talk about solving the stresses of this job by figuring out a conversation with her supervisor.

The culture of work in the military is you do the job you signed on and don't ask questions. My assignment is to help her accept that that's the way the Army operates. What can I say to her to help ease this emotional pain? We talked about simple tasks: breathing, stretching AND NOT drinking.

After five days on this Army base I have attended four briefings where alcohol use was discussed and the troops were given directions for recognizing signs of abuse. Substance abuse is always a risk. While I am not certain how many of my ideas will be useful, I do know that she found enough support in our conversation that she is meeting with me again.

Keep Breathing!

And so it begins

My tour around Ft. Bragg, described as the largest Army installation in the world covered only a small portion of the entire facility. By the time I had seen the various sites at which I will be providing briefings about the support I can offer, the location of "my brigade" and the assorted mini malls serving the troops, my head was swimming.

My job requires that I produce government issued ID and official permit to enter every time I come onto the base. I must also wear the name tag issued by the organization that is supervising my work. I am both reassured by the level of security and somewhat uncomfortable with the data the security personnel have about me. I have admitted to my actual birth date(!)and now must contend with exposing that information every time I arrive on base.

Monday was described as a "training day" with very few troops on Base. The Army is willing to provide another day off when a holiday occurs on a weekend but I was warned that Tuesday, when the full force of personnel is back on base I will spend part of my day looking for parking. Oh, well, I've had extensive experience with that obstacle in LA.

There is so much more to learn. Tact, diplomacy and empathy are the first tools I must use with the objective being that individuals I encounter will be willing to receive the information I can provide.

Ft. Bragg, NC. July 5

Wet, cloudy and the summer heat made walking to and from each building to which I was guided felt like walking through a steamy sauna.

I had forgotten about the muggy part of Southern summers but I remembered my umbrella. First time I've used it in many months (there's a drought in California) and it was actually a not unpleasant reminder of growing up in South Carolina.

The military culture has for years been unsupportive of identifying and especially in preventing the problems that rise from the intense, brutal experiences the troops experience in warfare. I am joining a group of social workers, marriage and family therapists and psychologists (all of us licensed) who are committed to offering education on how to prevent the pain of the combat experience from becoming unmanageable. I am excited about the challenge of introducing the support we provide to individuals for whom the idea of this aid is anathema.

More to come

Off to see the Wizard

Or Whomever.

Tomorrow I go to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina to work with National Guard and Reservists and their families. I'm scared and anxious and very excited. I look forward to using the skills I have developed through all these years of social work. I also anticipate a true challenge of working in an environment where self-sufficiency as well as cooperation among team members are essential to the performance of any tasks these Reservists and Guard members perform.

Right now the details with which I am concerned are small by comparison with the work I will be assigned. I know that I am being asked to provide support and education. As simple as those activities seem, I am required to give this information and guidance in a fashion that supports the culture of the armed forces.

So here I am off to a wonderful, stimulating and challenging adventure. Oh, yes, the temperature at Ft. Bragg today is 96 degrees Farenheit. Hmmm.

My instruction to myself is: Keep Breathing.

Telephone Calls: To Answer or Not

The phone sounds that double ring that lets me know it's client. Two doctors on Grey's Anatomy are just debating going into the on-call room. We all know what that means. AND I have to answer the phone?

That's my own debate. I know how to talk to my clients, how to reassure them and how to discourage them from doing anything to hurt themselves. Is it fair that I should now interrupt my evening to use these skills? Of course I do answer the phone. They know I will stay on the phone for only ten minutes. As a result, they present their problems concisely and immediately.
After she has described her crisis, I ask my client what she has done to take care of herself. Right Now. We discuss suggested alternatives from her skills notebook. She is usually able to offer steps that are exactly right for her.

While I serve as a sounding board, these telephone calls give the client an opportunity to experience her own power in managing intense pain. Once we have identified a satisfactory solution and agreed on action she will take, the telephone call ends. She has found mastery and feels safe. In ten minutes or less, my client has found a way to tolerate her pain, in the moment.

Oh, yes, at the conclusion of this conversation, I am able to pick up Grey's Anatomy where it was paused. Because it is recorded, I avoid advertising and can answer those calls without missing the guilty pleasure of that wonderfully mindless fluff.

Lying Part III: Does it Really Matter?

What happens when a client lies? How do I feel if I suspect s/he is not telling me the truth? Will this inaccurate information get in the way of my working with her or him?

I have a client who regularly exaggerates events in her life. She tells me about the elegant Hollywood parties she is catering. I want to accept this report a factual but she is unable to tell me about the menu or the kitchen in which she will cook. As a former caterer, I have suspicions that this party may not exist.

Another woman reveals only limited information about events in her life. This omission is another form of lying. I am unable to effectively support her in learning to solve problems in her relationships or employment. How effective can I be as a professional, as her counselor, if she does not give me a valid picture of her life?

When I call her on not giving me a complete picture, she stated she wants me to see her as managing her life. I wonder out loud, since everything is going so well, what purpose is served in seeking my support?

Her answer does not produce more accurate information but does motivate her to tell me that she’s afraid she’ll be rejected if she’s not perfect. I don’t use the term "lying" when I discuss the way these clients provide information. I use the concept integrity. For me, Integrity is the foundation for all healthy relationships.

List Making

Making Lists
something I rarely do
and yet so very reassuring

Measuring out my life with check marks for tasks completed

What do I list
tasks to complete
calls to make
groceries to buy

and when they are checked off
what have I accomplished?

measures based on numbers of tasks completed
a life contained in the activities that
can be counted and measured

so reassuring
tangible
not abstract
visual and contained.

Today's Toughies

Today I saw patients with whom I have been working for some time. The question is how do I support these individuals in learning to tolerate their fears and have the peaceful life they each deserve. I have learned that so many of our fears arise out of lessons we learn as children. We learn to be afraid of the things our parents tell us are fearful even when those fears are unrealistic. It is scary to take risks but we must take risks in order to move forward with our lives. The unknown is frightening. We cannot control the environment - people and physical - but we can learn to trust ourselves. This trust is the foundation of being willing to take those chances.

My job is to help these clients to take risks. Through these risks, going to a party, making a telephone call, and the big one, asking for help, they develop a solid foundation for trusting themselves. Being willing to experience fear is very powerful. Willingness means that the individual is open to participating. Willingness does not remove the fear but is allows him or her to see and feel that the feeling of fear won't kill them.

Choose your Battles or more on lemons into lemonade

There are so many issues about which anyone can put energy and emotion into that I recommend we are careful when we decide to allow anger to make decisions for us.

If an individual with whom I have business and/or professional contact is unhappy with me, my choice is to respond with similar intensity or to agree that the issue should be resolved and look for peace rather than conflict.

Sometimes the other person will follow my lead and find points on which we can agree and sometimes the other person is not ready to resolve the conflict. I am willing to wait until there is a better time for us to find a solution but occasionally that choice is not acceptable to the other person. In that case I return to my suggestion to make lemonade out of lemons.

I will keep my distance and attempt to solve the problem without additional disagreement. Sometimes that solution requires letting the other person leave my life and sometimes if means that we find a solution when he or she is ready to propose a compromise that meets both our needs.

Making lemons into lemonade requires that I use my wise mind and remember I always have a choice to take whatever steps will create a peaceful environment.

Breathe.

What to do when the therapist is away

I was supposed to be away this week. The phone didn't stop ringing. The e-mails kept coming and I was here. There were not classes to teach nor clients to see and I still had calls from people at the office and I was at both USC and UCLA this week.

Everyone needs a break. It's really important to get away from the texting, the phone and the e-mail. It's very easy for me to remind everyone else, my students, my clients to take a break but what about me? Finally, I did it. Yesterday I got an amazing massage that lasted for even more than the hour and a half I had scheduled. And today - no phones only the sounds of the birds cheered by this beautiful day.

Listen to yourself. You usually have the answer to how to take care of yourself if you take the time to really hear what you need. That information comes from that place within yourself called wise mind. You actually do know what you need. The hard part comes from being willing to take the steps you recommend to yourself.

Follow your wise mind. Breathe. Take a break. That break can be something as simple as looking out the window at the bright sunshine and listening to the sounds. Lay on your back on the floor, with your bottom next to the wall and your legs up the wall. Breathe.