What helps when we are NOT okay?

In Australia, at least, it is RUOK? Day today.  The whole principle behind the day and all it stands for is that it is okay to not be okay.  It is a wonderful theory, and so much good comes from it, but the ultimate test is does it work in real life? 

When the rubber hits the road in conflict especially, or when the paralysing reality of loss strikes, when there are no words, or there’s no understanding, or when trauma triggers are destructive, it’s very hard to reserve judgement and not become frustrated or overwhelmed by those around us in their struggles. 

Sometimes our ‘care’ has a use-by date, and because we are all human, we all enter some form of overwhelm, and the carers overwhelm is they can feel like they exist simply to care, and they may miss out on the same care they give.  In fact, that is sadly very often the case.

We ought to be thankful for 
carers of all kinds in our lives.

These are the persons who ‘show up’ consistently and faithfully, delivering a trustworthy care.  How often might one of these be asked, are you really okay?  And how often do they feel they have the space to be really honest?  A lot of the time it depends on who’s asking, but if you’re a carer, chances are the person who is asking is less of a carer, and the carer doesn’t trust themselves into an inferior care—they might simply crack on.

I would hazard a guess and say that if you’re reading this, you’re probably the carer.  And you might lament the fact that whilst your care is very much appreciated, it doesn’t always make up for the fact that you can’t access the care that you would love.  But, of course, this is where a good psychologist or counsellor or psychotherapist fits in.  Indeed, a good psychologist or counsellor or psychotherapist is worth more than their weight in gold.  Then think of the supreme value of a good listening friend!

The biggest issue in this life is the overwhelm we experience just trying to keep up.  And it’s far too simplistic to criticise people for approaching or entering burnout. 

Whilst we typically feel alone in our burnout, 
we suffer in a community of sufferers.

Avoiding burnout isn’t as simple as saying ‘no’ more.  Avoiding burnout isn’t as simple as not pleasing people, because the demands of the modern life are often beyond our seeking of approval from others. 

I know hundreds of fire and emergency services volunteers and these people don’t volunteer to people-please.  They have a community that needs them.  They have answered that call.  And I know so many who have devoted their working lives to being professionals in the area notwithstanding the significant risks they are exposed to as they undertake their work.  They have a community that needs them.  They have answered that call. 

The real test of RUOK? Day is whether 
we are allowed to NOT be okay.

The truth is, community heals us, 
and more often than not it’s all we need.

I can tell you in just the last few weeks, there was a moment when a colleague reached out and gave me a teary hug oozing with empathy.  It was all I needed in the overwhelm of the moment.  Her teary hug softened my anxious heart.  It connected me back to my humanity. 

Another time, it was another colleague, simply speaking in a calmer voice.  I got to reflect over my anxiety, and went back to thank that colleague.  Another colleague has simply looked me in the eye and said are you okay?  I had to admit that I wasn’t.  Half an hour later, when the pressure had died down, I reached out and thanked him for his courage to ask sincerely, for he had shown love.  “No worries, mate, I’ll hit you up next time!” he said with a wink.  And just now our chaplain, a person I’m so blessed to support as his manager has reached out, and in his normal way, a few texts later, I feel revived. 

The community will heal us if we will let it, if we will let it in, if we will let our colleagues, those caring ones, in by dropping our guard.  

We need each other, 
but we must trust each other.

That very first AA meeting 20 years ago

24-hours after I first learned my first marriage was possibly ending (a month later it was gone), I was at my first AA meeting.  It was September 23, 2003.  This time 20 years ago as I track back in my diary, I had no idea the twist my life was about to take.

That first AA meeting was at the end of a day of firsts.  Moving out of my family home and into my mother and father’s house, I’ll never forget hooking the trailer up and putting a few little things in it and driving off, a fair bit confused, trying to be stoic, and more than a little overwhelmed by it all. 

I really did not have a clue what the next few days, weeks, and months would require of me—no idea at all.  Definitely a case of ignorance is bliss. 

Parking and walking through the doors of St Teresa’s Hall in Coolbellup was not daunting because my ex-wife had already summonsed my heart to attention—I was ready to quit the drink.  So ready, years ready.

I remember meeting Graham, an older, wiser, sensible gentleman with much rectitude.  He ushered me over to some little books and I bought one on the spot for $5.  I was introduced to the guy who was running the meeting that night, talked for a bit, then sat down with the other 40 or so people there and then the meeting started.

My mind flittered between being focused on what this was all about and wondering what on earth my life had become—in 24-hours.  The previous night, having received the blunt direction that I was required to move out, I drove aimlessly around for nearly three hours blubbering tears of sheer blindsiding shock and numb grief.  

I didn’t sleep much that night and sleep in that season was a premium.  In fact, the lack of sleep meant my mental health spiralled acutely and the thread of deeper grief caused many nights of cataclysmic anguish.

That first night I was asked if I wanted to share.  I’d heard a number of people share before I was asked.  It seemed that you had the floor for 5-10 minutes so I opened up about my past 24-hours.  I talked about how I’d planned to give up drinking for months.  I was going to do it ‘my way’ but when my marriage seemed to be ending, push came to shove.  I was at the meeting because I had no choice.  I had to act now.  Everyone listened intently.  

There’s no judgement at AA meetings, and there’s also little sympathy, the encouragement is to simply be honest.  I was ready to be honest and, in following others’ lead, I took responsibility for what my life had become.  Little did I know it at the time, but my taking responsibility was going to be a pivotal link to the freedom that lay before me over the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

Driving home from that meeting at around 9:15pm that night there was a mix of relief that I’d achieved something with a mix of a dawning reality of what lay before me.

20-years ago now, I reflect on a time that seems a long time ago but that also seems a close memory.  I want to go back to that version of myself and pat my former self on the back for the work I was only just then embarking on.  

I would need to be strong in my weakness, 
and as it happened, I was.

There are perhaps moments like this in all our lives.  It’s good to go back in our minds and reflect on what we endured and what has made us who we are today.

What does it mean to encourage someone?

 

To encourage, we literally put courage IN another person.  Encouragement puts strength IN to other people.  It is the ultimate act of kindness.  It sees the person and validates them by words and deeds. 

To encourage is to acknowledge, appreciate, recognise, value a person.

Breaking down the word “encourage,” we find that the prefix EN comes from other languages, because commonly the prefix EN means “in” within other languages.  To “en-courage” literally means to put courage in.

When we have been encouraged, we have received courage from others, particularly in the form of HOPE that they instil in us for moving forward in the day, hour, or even minute ahead. 

Sometimes life is like that, isn’t it?  We need the hope of encouragement.  We are easily overwhelmed.  

And then when life blindsides us through loss and grief that comes like a thief in the night, we are backwashed into a corner of emotional and spiritual overwhelm.  Usually for a time, a season, as a new normal is ushered forth against our will.

There are many times in life when we need a person to put courage into us through encouragement.  Hope is the fuel of life and joy and peace.  Hope becomes tangible through encouragement; through putting courage in.  

Think of it this way.  Think back to a time where you were betwixt and between.  You resembled the epitome of liminal space.  You were beside yourself.  You struggled to make sense of your reality.  In this place, you were invited into your truth, but perhaps your truth was too stark.  Your reality was too raw for you to handle.  

There are realities in life that ARE too hard, and yet, when those realities linger, and we cannot escape them, month after month, we can gradually learn to face the all-too-real reality our life has become.  

This is because we are in a grief process, 
and grief isn’t linear.

We don’t go through the five or seven stages of grief, one after another, but we go through the stages spasmodically, as if the stages occur chaotically, intermingled in the grief experience, even on a daily basis.  It isn’t uncommon to experience two, or three, or four phases of grief in the one day or week.

I’ve had days in deep grief where I started out in the land of acceptance, only to finish the day in the panicking fear of denial, bargaining, anger and depression.  

One of the hardest realities in grief is being in a state of acceptance, knowing that the sadder stages will inevitably return.  The acceptance stage doesn’t last until we inevitably arrive there months or even years later when the emotions are no longer hijacked on a whim.

At times like these, those who are withstanding intense periods of loss and grief will often find themselves bereft of the resources to continue on, and what they need is courage to be put back into them.  In essence, they need encouragement.

Suffering teaches us our need of encouragement.  Those who are suffering do not need advice, they need encouragement, and the best way of encouraging a person is opening space to listen to them, and to validate their experience. 

We commonly think encouragement requires words; 
NO.  Encouragement requires ears.  
Encouragement requires presence.

Only the person who has suffered, and who has received the encouragement of another—encouragement as stated immediately above—has even the slightest comprehension of how to heal in a way that they will be a helper to another once they have been healed.

To be encouraged, is the gift received from another, who has put courage into us.

Growth and gratitude or bitterness and resentment?

I love discussions about life and the struggles of life because we cannot avoid either.  As I often say, the key to life is facing it head on because the only other option is not very palatable.  We get nowhere sticking our head in the sand.  And we get nowhere also when we rail against life because it’s unfair.  

Yes, life is unfair at times.  It is.
But this isn’t the end of the story.

The end of the story is it’s beginning; always coming back to its beginning, life’s source.  When we are caused to wonder and arrive at gratitude for the copious blessing that is in each our laps.  There is always a deeper reason to be thankful for, if only we see the possibility.

In a recent discussion on the way to a Wellness event and on the way back afterward, I was prompted to ponder. 

Those who have been through relational breakdown didn’t prosper through working through the pain and challenges—obviously this takes two people willing to be challenged and to grow through their challenges.  This takes humility and courage, always does.  But what are the options?  Throw the baby out with the bath water?  What a sad, sad reality it is when marriages end because one or both refuse to work on the issues that divide them or cause pain.

Marriages that survive prove 
the point of post traumatic growth.

Couples battle through the tough times.  They do this because they see it as the better of two or more poor options.

They keep going in faith, having sufficient hope that things will get better, being realistic enough to know that to battle through hell and keep going is infinitely better than upending life itself.

Yet nobody prospers in an abusive marriage—not the partner abused nor the perpetrator.  If a person shows no signs of being willing to change, they can prove to be incapable of relationship.  I know people like this.  But most people are not essentially like this.  Most people, deeper down, want the opportunity of growth, even if they must be forced to engage with it.

Marriage is just one example of this.  
It’s very similar with workplaces.

Think of how unsatisfied you’ve been in a particular work setting.  Has it ever been all the elements that are unsatisfactory, or that one non-negotiable is always transgressed?  For those who have been in or are in long tenure employment (longer than five years), you’ve done the hardest years.  To stay is easier in the longer haul than to leave over frivolous reasons.  Build on what you have already invested...

Unless to leave would open up new options 
that connect you to your deeper purpose...
then leave, don’t be held back, leave and grow.

EVIDENCE OF POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH

The best evidence that growth exists on the other side of trauma is the gratitude that comes, the gratitude that proves your life has blossomed through challenge.  Because what is the only other option?  Shrinkage?  Ill mental health because of post traumatic stress disorder?

Sure, we cannot always control what triggers us via various stressors.  We can only work through these, and find ways of coping in the gradual rebuilding process.  But what is the other option in comparison to building?  We either rebuild or we recede.  Not much of a choice.

As Sir Winston Churchill said, 
“If you’re going through hell... keep going.”

It’s the wisdom of the ages.  Life offers no other palatable choice.  Who in their right mind would not simply struggle on, one-day-at-a-time, to get through their hellish circumstance?

The stark reality in the final analysis is that these are the options:

Struggle through in faith and hope, and growth occurs, 
whereby a grateful life is lived and won.

~OR~

Blame everything else and not take up 
that cudgel of the challenge, 
and bear a life of bitterness and resentment 
which is a bane for you and 
all those around you to bear.

~

In the cold light of day, 
there isn’t much of a choice.  

Gratitude or bitterness?

The fact of the matter is nobody prospers out of a life that refuses to work.  We must all work to prosper in this life.  The wisdom is in the work.  And the work is in accepting our contribution to life, from one small thing to take responsibility for, to the next, to the next, and so on.

Those who accept their personal individual workload tend to get through their traumas.  Sure, in many cases we still wear the scars of such a process, but those scars are beautiful in that they are the basis of true and rare humility that only comes when put our nose to the grindstone.

Gratitude or bitterness?

Which way are you going?

Is the way to gratitude tough?  It sure is!

But is the way to bitterness any less tough?
Man, that is the toughest, nonsensical life.

Those who work through the challenges of life inevitably arrive at a destination of gratitude, whereas those who hate what life and people and the circumstances of life have “done” to them arrive at a bitter, untenable destination.  There is often a bitter grief that is common to both routes.  

Endure the bitter grief, 
work it through, 
keep going through your hell, 
for you WILL grow.  

There are always things to be grateful for.
Life opens up in its abundance in gratitude.

Nobody is entitled to entitlement

Life ought to teach us: entitlement serves neither ourselves nor others.

Entitlement seems more a problem these days than ever.  But it has always been around.  It ruins relationships and lives.  It is a system of living where there are only losers.  

Even the entitled lose. 

It seems obvious that those on 
the receiving end of entitlement lose. 

But the entitled also lose.

One of the aims of this article is to convince the entitled person that the humbler the life the better.  Whilst most humble people are genuinely altruistic, humility can be a selfish choice.  At least if humility is self-serving, and others are considered, even if the heart isn’t right, some respect for empathy is given.

ENTITLEMENT FOR THE WOULD-BE PONDERER

The question that might linger on the intelligent mind is, “Is there an advantage in engaging an entitled mindset?”  It’s a serious question.  If there’s no advantage to entitlement, why would an intelligent person engage in it?

Getting inside the mind of an entitled person is trick in and of itself.  What motivates someone bent on narcissism?  What lies behind the lack of empathy that exploits people and situations within the entitled mindset?

Whilst it might seem that we get ahead  
when we act entitled, we fall behind.

Trust in relationships is diminished or destroyed as the adversarial system takes precedence in the hands of the one who insists on the control of setting the agenda.  When one person must be considered to the exclusion of all others’ genuine needs and wants, the injustice soon becomes palpable.

Entitlement conveys an agenda where only one, or only those who are important to one, matter.  It is a cancer to relationships.  Entitlement makes relationships toxic, and they become like cancerous cells that metastasise.  In the presence of entitlement, relationships die.  

Entitlement undermines everything good in relationships, where humility would build rapport and trust, and strengthen bonds of intimacy that would endure a lifetime.

CONTRASTING HUMILITY WITH ENTITLEMENT

Humility truly is the winning edge.  In demonstrating a heart and an agenda where others and the whole are central to one’s motivation, the light of such a prerogative radiates rays of peace into all the lives humility touches. 

The humble way is the inspiring way. 

Humility gives itself away 
realising it cannot keep anything.

Humility exudes peace but entitlement projects anxiety.

Humility builds strength whereas 
entitlement weakens the resolve of the strongest.

Even though it appears to involve inherent sacrifice, humility delivers a leading edge to one’s life over the long haul, because it serves ALL lives.

ENTITLEMENT IS A NEMESIS TO EVERYONE

What would compel a person who entertains entitlement as a modus operandi to revisit their approach?  They would revise it only if they entertained the concept that it might not deliver the rewards they think it might.

The entitled person’s “wisdom” 
is short-sighted and a proven folly.

Make no mistake, 
entitlement is a nemesis to us all.

~

“POCKET ENTITLEMENT”

In his 2015 book, The Entitlement Cure, Dr. John Townsend coined the phrase “pocket entitlement.”  It applies to every single one of us.  Every single one of us bears a sense of entitlement in a pocket (or three) of our lives. 

None of us is saved this indignity 
against ourselves and others.

Pocket entitlements occur in pockets of the lives of those who would ordinarily be viewed as humble.  Maybe a humble person is 90 percent humble.  Within that remaining 10 percent there are situations where, when pushed, the person becomes prideful and demanding. 

A lot of outwardly humble people are 
humble in their external lives, 
yet somewhat entitled in their private life.

We all have a part of our lives where we are just us.

None of us genuinely humble 
all the time in all circumstances.

It’s incumbent on us to exhibit the humility to be honest about this.   Nobody can say they are genuinely open to personal growth unless they are open to explore these areas.

An exercise that Townsend suggests we undertake is for us to take a study in the word, “deserve.”  Those committed to personal growth might simply complete the sentence, “I deserve...”

When I undertook a 6-month journey in this endeavour from March 2016 I found there were three things I demanded when they were deprived of me.  Without these three things I could and would act entitled—it was my pocket entitlement.

Of course, we all have human needs and human rights.  It is not a problem of entitlement to NEED these things.  Where entitlement comes in is when we demand these things in a certain way that affects our relationships.

I commend to you to reflect on this for a time.  Hold it in your thoughts and prayers for a month or two.  Think on and complete the sentence, “I deserve...”

What is it that you “deserve” in that you demand 
it in a way that can damage or destroy a relationship?

The reality is, whilst we all have needs and desires, 
an attitude of deserving is at the root of all entitlement.

If only we can arrive at a place where we genuinely accept 
that we deserve nothing, life begins from that place.

Life begins anew from a foundation of gratitude
—the opposite of entitlement.

Humility breeds and exudes gratitude.

Appreciating your everyday, lifetime courage and resilience

Be careful.  What you are about to read may cause you to reflect, to choke up, to get teary, to be touched, to be thankful.  Why?  Because of what you have endured.  As you partake of this little morsel for reflection you may well come to a deeper appreciation of how worthy you are of a pat on the back.

You are courageous.  You are resilient.  Think of the things you’ve been through.  If you list a few of them down, you might find that you have truly endured remarkable things.  You will find that your story really does command some attention.  A blockbuster motion picture could be produced based on your story.  Elements of your story would stun many people—for what you endured and for how you made it through.

Your story will be like mine, yet markedly different in so many ways.  Our stories exude overcoming.  For me it was:

·               being bullied and mistreated as an apprentice fitter and turner in the 1980s.  This three-year experience culminated in a final year that was full of redemption.  The experience compelled me to work in health and safety after being a tradesman almost 10 years.  Ever since, I have been an advocate for justice and fairness in the workplace and elsewhere.

·               some of the things I experienced as a first responder in the chemicals manufacturing industry (1996-2003) and even some of what I have experienced as a health and safety professional.

·               the pain of separation and divorce and recovery from deep grief that lasted many months and overall took a few years to recover from.

·               adjusting to life as a single parent of 11, 8, 5-year-old daughters – who are now thriving 31, 28, 25-year-olds (now with four [nearly five] grandchildren).

·               recovery from the misuse and abuse of alcohol (2003) through the rooms and sponsors of AA and the life that came from overcoming bitterness and ‘making amends’ via the Twelve Step Program.

·               the loss of my fifth child in 2014 to stillbirth after a long four-month battle of days.

·               the process of grieving Nathanael surrounded as a church minister by the love and prayers of a large community.

·               post-traumatic stress triggers from workplace trauma and learning to receive and then give trauma-informed care.  Learning patience for myself and others amid chaos, gentleness for myself and others amid panic.

·               a seven-year season of rebuilding again after arriving at a career abyss, losing that career I loved.  More loss to overcome, but overcome that loss was.

Not a single one of us can’t relate with trauma.  It’s normal to life to encounter it and then to recover from it when we press into it.  Trauma isn’t so much something that should be avoided.

Rather than avoiding it or denying it happened, we can go back there and simply appreciate the courage we needed in being brave when we had to be.

Rather than focus on the stress that our trauma tends to create, we can focus on the growth that is exemplified in our rising above these events and seasons that crushed us at the time.

The encouraging part of the journey in learning about trauma is the life that emerges on the other side.  One of my favourite quotes is Sir Winston Churchill’s, “If you’re going through hell, keep going...” 

There is life on the other side, we just need 
support to get there one day at a time.

I encourage you to make a list like I have; of all the things over your life that you have endured; of all the things in your life that you could go back to a younger version of yourself and just say, “I’m so proud of you that you kept going when you were going through hell.”

Spend the time and go back and thank yourself.

IMAGE: my Mum (died 2022), myself, my daughter Zoe, praying over Nathanael.