After the Over -
Safer Teams by Tuesday
With the considerable help of AI, I’m going through my posts here and working towards a cohesive outline and structure of themes. At almost 500 posts, it’s time to circle back to the beginning and finally (finally!) figure out where I’ve been heading, all this time.
(And I hasten to add that I have not used AI to help with one sentence of authorship - as must be obvious, given how I tend to make sentences turn into paragraphs, and paragraphs run on for kms as well…however detailed analysis of all that content is not something I’m too proud to ask this sort of intelligence for help in collecting. The thing is, I do want to come up with some products that are helpful both in person, and maybe also online. It’s just taking me a while to organize all the disparate threads of my various investigations into What Is Happening…)
Because you, as my loyal and honestly incredibly patient original readers, have been with me for this journey, I’m going to keep using you as my sounding board and mirrored surfaces. It seems to me that the diversity in this 100 people (give or take) is a really nice cross-section of who I hope to continue to create bridges and collaborations and partnerships and co-creations of new opportunities and learning, with. (Again, that was a 100% human-made sentence there!).
My problem in crafting a truly helpful service delivery model, which fits within my scope of practice as an occupational therapist, and also within my physical and geographical and (primarily) energetic constraints, is the same one I face in myself every day: my own pride and stubborn self-reliance. I don’t like asking for help. And so…extrapolating outwards, why on earth would any “ideal client” want to admit any sort of similar deficit-adjacent need to me? Wouldn’t that be like pointing out a vulnerable soft spot and then making it super sore by talking about it, with another person (or even group of persons!)?
Because that’s the problem with our culture, and the moment we find ourselves in. Strength and individual self-determination are high, high values. Breaking down in any way is not fun, and not socially very good, either. No matter how far we’ve come, we’re not far enough to really admit to ourselves- let alone each other - how hard this shit really is.
It’s hard to fight to live. For some of us, it’s too hard. That’s the truth.
But I still find myself on a fence (ah, those fences…) between the haves and the have-nots. The ones who are standing, and the ones who have fallen down. I think so many people are terrified of admitting how close they are to a brink, because it seems that once you do fall, there is no returning back to the other side, the safe side, the one where I’m the helper, and you are the grateful recipient of that wise, generous, practical, helpful help.
I really want to change this narrative. So badly. I really want to use my experience of being (as I thought) in a position of privilege, relative wealth, and power to effect change (aka, the “helper”), and then suddenly, through no predictable fault of my own, having none of that stuff available. In fact, needing so much help.
And noting how this happened without me changing in any respect as to identity, or worth, or capability, or intention, or all of the definers that I previously thought made me, me. Chaos just tipped me over. Bad things happened. Really, really bad things, and not just to me, but to a whole bunch of people around me, who I love and care about and suddenly had no power whatsoever to protect.
This, this can happen. It can happen on a Tuesday. It happens all the time, and this is what I think all of us need to factor in to our paradigms, our faith stories (because we all absolutely have faith stories), and our motivations for getting up and doing whatever it is that seems logical and rational and necessary to do next.
So I’ve been demolishing old structures in my head, and heart, and (it turns out) embedded deeply in my body as well. I've been looking around, and trying to turn all the way around, so as to catch a glimpse of all the baggage I’ve shoved in my “shadow,” or “blind spots,” or simply repressed down into my left ankle somewhere. I’ve been writing for my life, trying to figure out what is living, rather than just surviving, or coping. I’ve been trying to navigate a real life long-lasting crisis situation, that has turned into a less than optimal situation, that has turned into our new normal. I’ve been trying to do this with an awareness of my grief, but also with a continuance of hope, and access (even) to joy.
And this experience has sensitized me somewhat to other people who I think are navigating, privately, but with public tell tale signs, very hard stuff. I am starting to think in terms of balance, fullness or wholeness, a functioning team (whether it be internal or external, but preferably both), integration, communication with respect, and compassion, but also sustainability. I am starting to list these as more than nice words; but as essential to making it.
It seems to me that we could think of ourselves as social creatures, in community, as well as the rugged individualists and self-made success stories that populate our social media feeds. I think that the interactive, inter-related ecosystems I live among in the forest here, and the more domesticated but still very complex herds and packs and groups of creatures, could help with reconceptualizing health as a sort of equilibrium between the protected and emerging self, and the shifting, woven, textured but connected network of relationships (multi-species, and even including the land itself) that make us whole.
Wellness needs a deep well. That’s where I’m at right now. We need to not only enjoy the surface of things, but have an ability to think of our souls as having an aquifer - one that can be drawn on in great need, and also refilled, when there is plenty and we have time and space to catch our breath.
This is strength, but over time. This is resilience, and health, and integration, and all those great words, as well. But to really live this way, we need to give ourselves permission to know when we are depleted, and act in ways that make sense given that drop in essential resources. We need to replenish, and to do this after an overwhelming experience (or an overload, overrun, overdraw, overdoing, overthinking, overwork, over-anything) is not easy. Because once a person gets depleted past a certain point, even the act of finding ways to refill can feel impossible.
I would posit that most of us are living in cycles, much like the climate, the economy, and our own shifting hormonal or energetic experience. We are, often, either tending towards an unbalanced and unsustainable output situation, OR, we are grabbing as much as we can, and trying to fill up or maybe even hoard towards an uncertain future. Neither of these tendencies are terrible for a short time, but over years or more, they can become incredibly destructive to one’s ability to perceive truth in the real world, in real time.
Staying in the here and now, the present moment, the Just Right Challenge of this breath, this act, this thought, this felt intention, is one hard thing. It is so hard that most of us rarely do it. We are either living in the past, or the future, or toggling madly between the two. But the now, the gift that is, where we touch the ground and eternity meets time - that is a tricky point to notice. And yet, the present is the only way to tap the well, to find the point straight down that opens up into the reservoir of life and hope and renewed energy and faith itself. We can’t gain anything unless we are planted, grounded, aware, and present. That’s my experience, anyway. The rest (basically time travel or various escape/numbing strategies) is just more coping.
This is the problem with strength (as a static measurement) made into too high a value, without a corresponding expectation that limits to any sort of strength are normal, and necessary, and indicators of a need for a shift in polarity. The giver can’t always give. The one receiving can’t receive forever. We must be more flexible in our roles, in society, and in our own conception of ourselves as humans among a complex world of other beings.
Wouldn’t it be great if a strong person could expect and plan to be “weak,” after a particularly brutal round of hard effort? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if veterans, for instance, didn’t have to totally break down to get the help that doing what veterans do makes a necessity? Of course there are situations where, in order to keep others safe, someone makes incredible sacrifices, and then…what? What do we expect happens next? They just move on? Behave as if they are well supplied and their resources are at “normal” levels?
My experience in my life is that it is possible and actually feels inevitable to draw deeply, from within my own soul, until I am scraping the very bottom of whatever cupboards or barrels or storage containers I can find. At that point, I’m out. I’m all done. I have nothing left. This is…math. It’s simple logic. It has nothing to do with my identity, or willpower, or character, or place in the world. I’m just…out of energy and even (sometimes) the energy needed to assess my own energy levels. I’m shutting down because I’ve literally used it all up.
Characterizing this situation as mental illness, or weakness, or a lack of faith or positivity or any other desirable (and assumed) attribute is the very opposite of the truth. This situation is a failure of supply. Period. And supply (like toilet paper, groceries, and gas) is something that, by definition, needs a plan of resupply.
So often, I now (with this lens) see people start to act in ways that look: selfish, self-absorbed, demanding, aggressive, self-harming, defensive, and irrational. Others (myself included) can look at them with pity and reproach, and make comments that can be taken as a sort of shaming approach to try to motivate behavioural change. This does not work. Of course it doesn’t. I now think that when people act in such anti-social and self-destructive ways, they are fundamentally low on resources, and it’s starting to show in their ability to come up with good actions and options.
And keep in mind, this is not precisely a money supply issue. Obviously. People with lots of money also act in exactly these ways, and it is entirely as dangerous (in terms of eventual possibility of death) as for someone who is dealing with a lack of housing and extreme poverty. Of course, money means that help may be possible where no money makes that more desperate, but very often the particular supply levels that are low are so difficult for the person to identify (and therefore replenish) that all the money in the world can’t stop the slide towards total self-disintegration.
It seems to me that we have critical needs for ongoing input and refilling and restoration that are adjacent to, but just as crucial as our physical demands for food and shelter and water. Identifying these as “wells,” or perhaps “spaces,” in our souls, and planning to “check their levels” frequently, and also preparing routine and accessible ways to refill as needed, seems prudent. And kind of common-sense.
That’s not “admitting weakness.” That’s simply noticing a fuel tank is low and taking steps to rectify a Very Important Problem.
I am proud of the strength I’ve built. I am exceedingly aware of how much work I’ve put into the person I am, the skills I have, the knowledge I carry, the wisdom (such as it is) that I can access when problems arise. I don’t think that those things go away, even when I face a critical overload of my system. What does go away is my energy, my flexibility, my ability to communicate within and among the parts of my self, my buffer of attentional capability that allows me to track others’ needs as well as my own, my sense of time, my language processing, perhaps even my sensory and emotional awareness of danger.
It’s the processes that start to break down first, and those processes mean that I no longer have access to knowledge, wisdom, functional intelligence, and adaptability to stress. As the situation escalates, and if there is no refilling of what has become unavailable to me, I will start to cannibalize my own structures, and engage in (from the outside) irrational and self-destroying actions. These are all I have left, though. And like a starving person who starts to break down their own organs for fuel, this is not a failure of the will, or the heart. It is a systemic, societal, and perhaps paradigm issue of misunderstanding the way we work in real life, with limits that do matter, and do need respect, no matter how “strong” we are.
I have been coming to this thesis for a long time, and it is finally starting to clarify in my head, heart, and hands. We all need help. Lots of help. There are no “strong” or “weak” people, or at least those categories are functionally nonsensical in any team effort. There are people with lots of access to resources, and there are people who do not know where to access their own resources, and there are people who have no more (or not enough) resources. And the resources are neutral. We can share. We have enough. We just need to know how to find them, where to put them, and when we need to stop everything and replenish, no matter what else is happening on the outside.
Safer Teams by Tuesday
In your teams, if you think of people who behave “badly,” or who seem to relate in erratic or unreliable ways with work and others, does thinking in the way I’ve described here (supply, and the need for replenishing that supply as it is used up) change your ability to find compassion for what may be happening in their souls?
And, can you think of times when you yourself did not act in a way that was positive, congruent with your own values, or even rational, simply because you were “tapped out,” in some sense?
What to do next, and how to support others who are under-resourced and in desperate need of a refill (but may not know it or see it as this type of problem) is a topic for a whole lifetime of skill and wisdom and intelligent love. None of that is easy. But I think starting out with an understanding of my own deep aquifer and how it rises and falls with the demands I place on it, as I deal with my own expensive strength/energy requirements, will put me in a far less judgemental place as regards others who are “struggling.” And may give me the very necessary permission to stop helping, and instead ask for help, regularly. With no shame whatsoever.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at this week. I am kinda excited to investigate further along the lines of refilling, resupplying, restoring, replenishing options - as available in my own yard, and maybe in most of our neighbourhoods. It’s a matter of seeing the world as full of access points to goodness, and soul level fuel. My round pen is a big one for me, but I know a lot of you have smaller animals who give generously, or access to a view of the sky, a place to put your hands in the dirt, and maybe time alone, in a place that inspires awe. There are so many doorways, or trapdoors, or windows, or maybe just cracks in the veneer.
Happy Tuesday. I hope this gives you a different way to walk through your day, whether it’s hard or easy, or just a whole mess of both.