Music Lessons and To do Lists

I was thrilled when a music teacher friend posted on social media that she was proud of bathing and changing her sheets. It inspired me to engage in those same activities on a gray day. My parents were both musicians,  teachers turned ministers.  They said, “practice makes perfect.”  They said, “that attitude will never get you to Carnegie Hall.”  They said, “You’re smarter than this.  I know you can do better.” They were lovely people who both left this earth too early.  But I never heard the phrase Cs get degrees until after grad school. I heard it from a psychology professor friend.  If you’ve been to grad school you know this isn’t exactly true for Master’s and Doctorate degrees. Still,  I had implemented my father’s advice “always sit in the front of the classroom”  finally for my counseling degree.  Thankfully, at this point I had done enough personal work to know that showing up and having fun are more vital directions for success. 

During these times it has been difficult to either show up or have fun. I saw six people today, mostly children.  For some reason even though many of us are having difficulty bathing and changing our sheets, many parents are turning their perfectionism and lengthy to do lists toward their children.  The children, most of them learning from home, are suffering from the same collective trauma the grown ups are.  I just received a link last night to a CNN article about Santa Letters received by the Post Office.  The letters are very different this year, talking about wanting a cure for COVID19, an end to online schooling, and to keep their parents and grandparents safe. There is discussion of lost jobs and financial concerns.  

The struggle is real for people of all ages.  Because we have never done pandemic before, none of us have the answers. The trauma means all of us are having difficulty learning new things and regulating our behaviors because that’s what the data shows trauma does to our brains.  We are trying to just make it through to the time of hugs and engaged classrooms. Parents want to do their jobs without figuring out digital schooling and the myriad other extra tasks the pandemic has assigned. 

The teachers driving by homes waving and honking have touched me deeply.  I have seen them on social media holding white boards with math problems in students’ yards.  The creative responses of parents, students and teachers have been inspirational.  However, I see parents pulling out the big guns in response to children not being able to figure out a brand new system that their teachers are also figuring out.

Please consider less punitive and limited time bounded consequences for what you consider to be your children’s lack of success.  The semesters are ending.  If the grades don’t show up this tragic year, please be gentle. I celebrate that you are able to bathe and change your sheets. If your children have written in a journal that they then have maddeningly and inexplicably lost along with other assignments like my dear nephew, take joy that you read the journal first.  In my telehealth office, I am assuring children that parents love you and will love you anyway even if you fail every class.

Learn Your Animals

A friend of mine wrote a poem speaking eloquently about depression. She gave me permission to share it on my blog page.  

Learn your animals
Claws scales hooves and hair secret
vices and habits hear their hunger
for your thoughts dress
their wounds as you do yours.
cultivate your space for them digging
through dirt perfect
for nasturtium mint Sunday sleeps
trim their nails and give them names:
give them names and a bed
how do they sleep and walk and where
do they go oh
and when you know them,
love them.

Mine, some I love
some starved quietly as they were born
I didn't hear them scratching in the attic, didn’t
taste their fingers in my food we slept

in the same bed and I never named or knew
and now their breath is the steam
of the compost out back through
which I with sinking shoulders sift
searching for bones of the ones I left alone

Can I piece together the dark wet brown
Can I name the dead

and will it forgive me

-Haley Behnfeldt

Robots and Forgiveness

Today I was worship leader at church.  I stumbled lighting the peace candle.  I read the wrong scripture.  The Children's Time presenter talked about the imperfection of humans.  Listening intently, trying to drink that truth in, I thought maybe it was about me, Jenny Campagna as human.  That was before the wrong scripture.  As a therapist, I know I must forgive myself as quickly as humanly possible. The 'humanly possible' is the tricky part.

Forgiveness seems particularly difficult for parents. I listen to distraught parents who haven't been able to reconcile their concept of good parenting with their own behaviors. They see a long string of mistakes negatively impacting their children. Society reinforces this impossible mathematical equation: have a child, add good parenting and out comes a functioning adult.  I ask what they think they are doing right and often there are tears in response. 

I've taken to saying the following: we don't want human children raised by robots or aliens. We need human children to be raised by human parents.  Human parents aren't perfect.  Parenting is a 24 hour unpaid and most often unsupported task.  If you aren't stretched to your limit at some point in the course of parenting your children,  then you better get writing a book now because you are the only one. 

Since we don't have the instruction manual, we must continue to flounder and grapple with our sense of humanity. What happens if we don't?  My robot and alien pep talk is often aimed at people feeling they want to give up, they feel trapped and hopeless. But there are no robots and aliens standing by (that I know of) who are willing to read the right scripture or parent our children perfectly. We can choose to be angry with ourselves for any slew of foibles and missteps.  This anger will not shield us from future mistakes.

My question is often what is needed for timely forgiveness.  This might be different for each individual.  I told the woman who schedules worship leaders that I was glad I wasn't scheduled again until April.  I need a break.  In many of our roles and especially as parents, there is no break.  What other ways can we forgive ourselves? Here is a non-exhaustive list of possibilities:

1. Connect with others who you can be honest with about your experiences.  I'm not sure who this is for you.  But, I do know that being able to trust someone with your story is key to good mental health. Make a list of who these people are and keep it on your refrigerator because sometimes when we feel bad, we can't remember the strength of our support system. 

2. Consider changing your story.  I have three grown children and sometimes my children help me change my bad parent story by reminding me of good memories.  My sister's partner was a prolific family film taker. I watched many hours of films with my sister after her partner died. I wasn't the main character, my adorable nephew was.  But, I could hear myself in the background positively parenting my children.  I was telling my middle son that he needed to follow the rules even if his cousin didn't.  I was telling my youngest son that I would not sing Deck the Halls without him.  This helped me see how I had shined a spotlight on my mistakes and let my daily successes fade into the background.

3. Ask your inner critic if it is trying to be helpful. This is often a disarming question for critics, both inside and out.  

4. What does self care look like to you?  When we are ill or tired, we are not our best selves. Sometimes forgiveness begins with just basic gentle self care. Remember the acronym HALT. Check in with yourself several times a day and attend to yourself if you are Hungy, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. 

I'm beginning self care and forgiveness with a piping hot cup of fresh ginger lemon honey tea. Blessings on your human and parenting journey.  I'm glad your life got you to step in and live it in imperfect and glorious ways. 

Permission Slips and Accountability Partners

As I work through some transitions in my life, I decided to call upon an accountability partner.  In graduate school years ago I asked another student to partner with me as we completed our scholarly projects.  She was very different than me, another race, another religion, a completely different background. I don't quite remember how it came to be that we agreed to the arrangement. But it worked like a charm and enriched us both. 

We met periodically at the university library.  We shared briefly about what we had accomplished. We worked for an hour or so on our projects. Then we scheduled a time to meet again.  The process was repeated until we were ready to graduate having completed our projects.  

Fast forward to now when I've begun meeting weekly with a new accountability partner.  We share our process and check in about forward motion.  We are working on different goals. I believe having another person bear witness to your intentions is powerful and effective.  

Today I met with another friend who shared her idea of permission slips.  I talked about my rampant cell phone usage.  I have two phones, both of which make me feel tethered. She wrote me a permission slip which says "Jenny Campagna has permission to ignore her phone until such time as it best serves her to use it."  I didn't tell her what to write but it was perfect. 

After our meeting I began thinking of coordinating more permission slips with my accountability partner.  I can't wait to write one for her.  Sometimes we are able to give ourselves permission. We decide it's the time to eat better, exercise more, get a new job, or work on some other aspect of self.  Other times, the hall passes and permission slips of accountability partners are the catalysts we need. 

Unpacking your Basket of Shoulds

I am a fan of giving clients homework. This position can be tricky because people who come to counseling are often overwhelmed and need to remove items from their to do lists instead of adding new ones.  Like my own therapist, I try to make assignments simple.  My therapist recently recommended periodic body check-ins throughout the day.  "Just notice where you are," she said.  It was an invitation to be in the present.  It was helpful.

Recently, I asked a client to examine "shoulds" and how they impact her life.  I believe she came up with the idea that imaginary shoulds were housed in a basket.  I imagine individuals carrying their should baskets around, full of expectations for right thoughts and behaviors.  Shoulds keep filling our baskets and getting heavier. They can have myriad flavors. I should be able to get my work done.  I should get along better with people. I shouldn't care about that thing anymore, that loss, that slight, that experience. I should eat better or exercise more.  

A couple of weeks ago I was having a delightful lunch with another counselor who is also in private practice. I was talking about how much belonging to an organization costs.  She asked what I got out of it. I didn't have good answers.  How was this investment serving me? I didn't know.  Eventually I said, "Yeah, but shouldn't we belong to this organization?" She said, "I'm a therapist, I don't believe in shoulds."  We laughed knowing how many times shoulds stand in the way of client growth.  

Taking a stance against shoulds is an exercise in boundaries.  Are our decisions serving us, supporting us, or building us up?  Or are we making decisions based on someone else's needs or ideals, past paths, obligations. It might be a language shift only.  As we unpack our baskets, we can decide to turn a should into a powerful choice. I could say I choose to belong to that organization.  We can also set the shoulds aside as we unpack, not rename them as choices, just let them go as we lighten our loads.