Just over month ago, my 5th grader made a suicidal comment in class. His teacher, kudos to her, took it seriously and had him speak with the childcare worker and the counsellor (who is only available once every other week). They both determined that he was low risk and talked about areas of his life that maybe weren't working as well as he'd like them to.
One of these areas was spending time with me - he'd like more :) I found this interesting, because every other weekend, my husband works and my stepson stays with his mom, so it's just the two of us. Thus, even though we regularly have time alone at home together, perhaps it's not quality time.
We have thus started having "dates" on our weekends together, started consciously choosing activities for both of us to enjoy.
Another contributing factor is the constant change and resulting stress in our lives. The kids changed schools this past September, and thus also changed daycares. We moved last spring. I graduated university the spring prior, and began working an exceedingly stressful job. 5 people in our lives have passed away in the last 2 years.
Also, kids just live busier, more stressful lives than did kids of my generation. The shift in the sheer amount of consumable media over the last two generations alone (from my parents' childhoods in the 60's to mine in the 80's to now) is anxiety-inducing.
My son has also joined Cub Scouts, which, to me, is about developing autonomy and mastery.
Finally, we have begun working on mindfulness-based stress-reduction practices such as breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation.
I found a great book at the public library that includes easy exercises for kids. The techniques in the book are so familiar to me, and remind me of the way my dad taught me to meditate and practice yoga as a child.
The connection to meditation and happiness is being proven in neuroscience research. In fact, an article a friend sent me recently showed that meditation "completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are". The research "showed excessive activity in [the]...left prefrontal cortex...likely indicating a greater capacity for happiness and decreased tendency toward negativity".
I'm also finding a benefit to teaching and modelling these mindfulness and meditation techniques. I'm a little bit calmer, a little less reactive, a little more tolerant of hijinks.
But the most wonderful benefit has been seeing my son grow into these new techniques. Days after teaching him a 3 part breathing technique (breathe in through the nose for a count from 5 to 20, hold for the same count, breathe out through the mouth for the same count), I got frustrated with both boys and walked out of the room for a mini "mom timeout" (prevents me from yelling). Son followed me, and said, excitedly, "Mom! Remember, when you get frustrated, you're supposed to do your breathing!" I thanked him and asked if he'd remembered this the last time he felt frustrated. He said no, a little sadly, so I encouraged him, telling him how his reminding ME was proving that his brain was learning to remember, and he was making great progress. He was so pleased :)
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
a rambling update
I've been working on a few posts lately, but seem to lack the focus to follow my line of reasoning to it's eventual, academic conclusion. I am excited by academic ideas, that is ideas from my education, but more specifically, ideas from critical theory, postmodern ideas about the social construction of identity, ideas I don't use every day now that I've completed my university education and have entered the work force as a professional. I want my practice to continue to be guided by these ideals, so I speak about them to other child protection workers with my specific education. We remind each other of how we felt when these ideas were first presented to us; our epiphanies echo in our emotions. I try to articulate these complex thoughts that, a year and a half ago, were the subject of an award-winning essay I wrote for my university. I feel less smart.
But more than just feeling "less smart" than while completing my BSW, I feel ground down, burnt out, exhausted. I feel like an empty well, like I have nothing left to give. So I reach for literature to fill the empty spaces inside me, the spaces that were once filled with passion and a drive for justice.
Recently, I read a novel called Lamb by Christopher More, written at the turn of the millennium. It is the story of Christ, or Joshua, as the narrator calls him, written by Biff, his childhood pal. It is irreverent and funny, but also quite profound to someone who is nominally Christian, but has never practiced or identified with a specific Christian church. Oh, I know most of the stories, I accept Christ as a great spiritual teacher, the champion of compassion, but I cannot identify with the Christianity I see on the television, the Christianity associated with so many conservative Americans, the Christianity that hates.
In Lamb, Biff write about Joshua's life from age 6, through his adolescence and early adulthood, when he and Biff travel in search of the 3 wise men who attended his birth in the manger. Biff and Joshua go to Kabul to meet Balthasar, the Ethiopian wise man who is in search of immortality. From there, they go to China to study with Gaspar in a Buddhist monastery, where Joshua befriends a Yeti. Finally, they follow the Ganges to Tamil, where Joshua studies Vedic meditation and yoga with Gaspar's brother, Melchior, and Biff studies the Kama Sutra with a prostitute. From there, Biff and Joshua return to Nazareth following the death of Joseph, and Joshua begins his ministry.
A friend recommended it to me, and she has indicated that there are priests and pastors who use this book as a teaching tool, to prompt discussion. If I were to be more than nominally Christian, it would be these churches that I would want to attend, to these people I would want to listen. I also think about the Quakers, who do not have priests or pastors, but instead look to their community membership.
I am not sure if there is a connection between these two updates, these two thoughts. I know that I feel trapped by my job, my debt, my family, but I also know there is no place else I really want to be. I know that I find freedom in literature, in the escape from my ordinary, everyday life. My imagination can soar after the mundane chores of existence. I know that I chose my career from a higher sense of purpose, a calling, if you will, a passion for justice, for equality, and end to grasping greed and bullying. Maybe the connection is compassion, the compassion of Christ as seen by his deeply flawed childhood pal, the compassion Christ could have had for him, if he were real. Maybe that is the compassion we are called to have for ourselves, if we are to truly be moral beings. Maybe we all just need to give ourselves a break.
Maybe I just work too hard.
But more than just feeling "less smart" than while completing my BSW, I feel ground down, burnt out, exhausted. I feel like an empty well, like I have nothing left to give. So I reach for literature to fill the empty spaces inside me, the spaces that were once filled with passion and a drive for justice.
Recently, I read a novel called Lamb by Christopher More, written at the turn of the millennium. It is the story of Christ, or Joshua, as the narrator calls him, written by Biff, his childhood pal. It is irreverent and funny, but also quite profound to someone who is nominally Christian, but has never practiced or identified with a specific Christian church. Oh, I know most of the stories, I accept Christ as a great spiritual teacher, the champion of compassion, but I cannot identify with the Christianity I see on the television, the Christianity associated with so many conservative Americans, the Christianity that hates.
In Lamb, Biff write about Joshua's life from age 6, through his adolescence and early adulthood, when he and Biff travel in search of the 3 wise men who attended his birth in the manger. Biff and Joshua go to Kabul to meet Balthasar, the Ethiopian wise man who is in search of immortality. From there, they go to China to study with Gaspar in a Buddhist monastery, where Joshua befriends a Yeti. Finally, they follow the Ganges to Tamil, where Joshua studies Vedic meditation and yoga with Gaspar's brother, Melchior, and Biff studies the Kama Sutra with a prostitute. From there, Biff and Joshua return to Nazareth following the death of Joseph, and Joshua begins his ministry.
A friend recommended it to me, and she has indicated that there are priests and pastors who use this book as a teaching tool, to prompt discussion. If I were to be more than nominally Christian, it would be these churches that I would want to attend, to these people I would want to listen. I also think about the Quakers, who do not have priests or pastors, but instead look to their community membership.
I am not sure if there is a connection between these two updates, these two thoughts. I know that I feel trapped by my job, my debt, my family, but I also know there is no place else I really want to be. I know that I find freedom in literature, in the escape from my ordinary, everyday life. My imagination can soar after the mundane chores of existence. I know that I chose my career from a higher sense of purpose, a calling, if you will, a passion for justice, for equality, and end to grasping greed and bullying. Maybe the connection is compassion, the compassion of Christ as seen by his deeply flawed childhood pal, the compassion Christ could have had for him, if he were real. Maybe that is the compassion we are called to have for ourselves, if we are to truly be moral beings. Maybe we all just need to give ourselves a break.
Maybe I just work too hard.
Friday, August 10, 2012
on anxiety, and 'what' about my job is hard
When I run into old friends and tell them about my current job, the reaction is often along the lines of, "that must be a hard job". What they mean by "hard" is that I must encounter situations and people that are abusive, and thus hard to deal with, understand, and respond to in a compassionate way.
I don't find that part hard.
First and foremost, the abuse and neglect with which I come into contact in the course of my daily interactions is probably a lot more minimal than the average person imagines. I've posted before about how I mostly experience poverty, and the long term, even intergenerational impacts that causes on families. But for the most part, the "abuse" I see is self-inflicted, as in parents abuse drugs and alcohol as a coping technique.
Secondly, I am a master at considering multiple hypotheses for any child protection report. I can see so many different possible explanations, or alternative situations that might fit the fact pattern, should the information turn out to be distorted. I can thus discard those other possibilities once I've been able to talk with everyone involved.
Third, I can empathise with people. Compassion comes naturally to me.
In fact, the other day I had to tell a man about his own history of harming his child. He was in a car accident and sustained a traumatic brain injury, and he did not recall his past. When I disclosed this information to him, he was horrified, and called himself a monster. I suggested that a monster would not feel remorse, and that he was demonstrating his humanity with that statement. We debriefed for awhile and talked about counselling options, current coping strategies for stress, frustration and anger, and community supports. We talked about healing. We talked about residential schools and how that has devastated Aboriginal families, including his. We talked about how his brain injury is a relief in that he doesn't remember abusing his child, nor does he remember the abuse he suffered as a child.
That was not hard for me. I was inspired by that conversation, about the possibilities for healing, not just for that man, but for Aboriginal men in general. I was inspired by his connection to Elders he honours within his community and by his transformation of his own anger.
So the awful things people do to themselves and one another are not hard for me. What's hard is trying to cope with not having enough time to respond to everyone. I can't be compassionate if I don't have the time to connect with all of my clients. Things get put off for more immediate concerns every day. I get tired of saying "sorry I haven't called you back yet". I get upset and anxious and I work for free. I spend hours lying in bed, trying to go to sleep, trying to turn my thoughts off.
Creating structure and boundaries around this is hard to do. I am lucky that I have a seasoned team leader who reinforces those boundaries even when the team members are willing to sacrifice them for the sake of the workload and the clients.
After all, I am not a superhero. It is not my job to keep everyone safe, and happy and secure. It is my job to assist families and communities to keep one another safe and happy and secure. It is my job to work myself out of a job, to have clients get to the point where I don't need to be in their lives.
And that is why I do this job. All the stress and anxiety are worth it when kids get to go back to their families (whether that be the parents or a grandparent being granted FRA custody by the courts), when I get to close a case, when moms come into the office to share how well they've been doing since their case closed.
I don't find that part hard.
First and foremost, the abuse and neglect with which I come into contact in the course of my daily interactions is probably a lot more minimal than the average person imagines. I've posted before about how I mostly experience poverty, and the long term, even intergenerational impacts that causes on families. But for the most part, the "abuse" I see is self-inflicted, as in parents abuse drugs and alcohol as a coping technique.
Secondly, I am a master at considering multiple hypotheses for any child protection report. I can see so many different possible explanations, or alternative situations that might fit the fact pattern, should the information turn out to be distorted. I can thus discard those other possibilities once I've been able to talk with everyone involved.
Third, I can empathise with people. Compassion comes naturally to me.
In fact, the other day I had to tell a man about his own history of harming his child. He was in a car accident and sustained a traumatic brain injury, and he did not recall his past. When I disclosed this information to him, he was horrified, and called himself a monster. I suggested that a monster would not feel remorse, and that he was demonstrating his humanity with that statement. We debriefed for awhile and talked about counselling options, current coping strategies for stress, frustration and anger, and community supports. We talked about healing. We talked about residential schools and how that has devastated Aboriginal families, including his. We talked about how his brain injury is a relief in that he doesn't remember abusing his child, nor does he remember the abuse he suffered as a child.
That was not hard for me. I was inspired by that conversation, about the possibilities for healing, not just for that man, but for Aboriginal men in general. I was inspired by his connection to Elders he honours within his community and by his transformation of his own anger.
So the awful things people do to themselves and one another are not hard for me. What's hard is trying to cope with not having enough time to respond to everyone. I can't be compassionate if I don't have the time to connect with all of my clients. Things get put off for more immediate concerns every day. I get tired of saying "sorry I haven't called you back yet". I get upset and anxious and I work for free. I spend hours lying in bed, trying to go to sleep, trying to turn my thoughts off.
Creating structure and boundaries around this is hard to do. I am lucky that I have a seasoned team leader who reinforces those boundaries even when the team members are willing to sacrifice them for the sake of the workload and the clients.
After all, I am not a superhero. It is not my job to keep everyone safe, and happy and secure. It is my job to assist families and communities to keep one another safe and happy and secure. It is my job to work myself out of a job, to have clients get to the point where I don't need to be in their lives.
And that is why I do this job. All the stress and anxiety are worth it when kids get to go back to their families (whether that be the parents or a grandparent being granted FRA custody by the courts), when I get to close a case, when moms come into the office to share how well they've been doing since their case closed.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Work-Life balance
The balance between work and life is something that is emphasized in my profession (Social Work), as well as in the other professions that make up my fellow MCFD employees (degrees in Child and Youth Care, Counsellors). Self care is a focus in all 3 education streams, and my co-workers are the healthiest I've ever had (this isn't hard, my only other jobs were minimum wage retail sector jobs). My co-workers practice naturopathic diets, work out at the gym, and take time off for themselves and their families as needed.
Despite my best intentions, and despite my Union-assured flex days (I work an extra 47 minutes on top of my 7 hour day, and thus get a day off with pay every pay period.), I find myself struggling to maintain a quality balance between work and the rest of my life. I often find I need the entire weekend just to decompress, to unwind from my work week.
I've been working on this, of course :)
My "New Years' resolution" was in relation to this balance. I resolved to meditate daily.
That devolved, as resolutions tend to, to 'meditating' only in those moments when I found myself struggling to fall asleep due to worries about my caseload, my clients and their support systems. When I put my book down, turned out my light because I was falling asleep, but then found myself obsessing about the 3 unreturned phone calls, then I would lie, stomach down, in 'corpse pose' and focus on one body part at a time, tensing then relaxing each muscle group, starting with my feet and working my way up to my head. It worked very well in each moment, but certainly wasn't a meditation practice.
I try to focus on my children in the evenings, and I strive to fill each interaction with calm. This is always a challenge, because getting children to complete chores and rushing children out the door in the mornings can be exasperating. However, I have been increasingly successful in the past 13 months at being calm and gracious. That is, I'm less "yelly" than before :)
I try to incorporate time with my husband, my mother, my sisters, my father and his family. I volunteer a LOT, with Job's Daughters from September to June (this is something I do with my Mom), and with the crisis line year round. I find that volunteering, although a work-like commitment, keeps me focused on the types of interactions I love, and keeps me grounded in my work practice.
Still, balance is always a struggle, and I'm learning to recognize that it is a life-long journey.
Despite my best intentions, and despite my Union-assured flex days (I work an extra 47 minutes on top of my 7 hour day, and thus get a day off with pay every pay period.), I find myself struggling to maintain a quality balance between work and the rest of my life. I often find I need the entire weekend just to decompress, to unwind from my work week.
I've been working on this, of course :)
My "New Years' resolution" was in relation to this balance. I resolved to meditate daily.
That devolved, as resolutions tend to, to 'meditating' only in those moments when I found myself struggling to fall asleep due to worries about my caseload, my clients and their support systems. When I put my book down, turned out my light because I was falling asleep, but then found myself obsessing about the 3 unreturned phone calls, then I would lie, stomach down, in 'corpse pose' and focus on one body part at a time, tensing then relaxing each muscle group, starting with my feet and working my way up to my head. It worked very well in each moment, but certainly wasn't a meditation practice.
I try to focus on my children in the evenings, and I strive to fill each interaction with calm. This is always a challenge, because getting children to complete chores and rushing children out the door in the mornings can be exasperating. However, I have been increasingly successful in the past 13 months at being calm and gracious. That is, I'm less "yelly" than before :)
I try to incorporate time with my husband, my mother, my sisters, my father and his family. I volunteer a LOT, with Job's Daughters from September to June (this is something I do with my Mom), and with the crisis line year round. I find that volunteering, although a work-like commitment, keeps me focused on the types of interactions I love, and keeps me grounded in my work practice.
Still, balance is always a struggle, and I'm learning to recognize that it is a life-long journey.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
I have not posted in over a year...
...because I began working for the provincial government. Not once in the 13 months I have been employed, have I been on a team with all positions filled by permanent employees - floats, mat leaves, sick leaves, and just plain old true vacancies not filled. THIS is why my job is hard. Not because of all the "awful" things I see - really, I see poverty and marginalization.
But I love my job, because I love working with people who have university degrees, because I love that people understand the way I think. I love that I'm a unionized worker so much that I'm a shop steward for the BCGEU. I volunteer for committees, like HOYJA, an "aging out" ceremony our Youth Team put on for our youth, celebrated in a traditional longhouse. I'm so happy to have broken free of the "McJob" cycle of meaningless, underpaid work designed to make a rich guy richer.
And I'm taking my kids swimming and camping. It's summer, after all :)
But I love my job, because I love working with people who have university degrees, because I love that people understand the way I think. I love that I'm a unionized worker so much that I'm a shop steward for the BCGEU. I volunteer for committees, like HOYJA, an "aging out" ceremony our Youth Team put on for our youth, celebrated in a traditional longhouse. I'm so happy to have broken free of the "McJob" cycle of meaningless, underpaid work designed to make a rich guy richer.
And I'm taking my kids swimming and camping. It's summer, after all :)
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