understanding (n.)

Oh yoga.

I started yoga in 2007 after I separated from the former spouse.  It was wildly nourishing and challenging and for 90 minutes I could concentrate on something other than some of the worst of human emotions.  I was, and I say this lovingly, and to roughly borrow a phrase from Elizabeth Gilbert, a cliche of an almost divorced 30 year old taking divorced lady classes at the Y.

But whatever.  It was healing in the most healing of ways.

A year later, I managed to sneak restorative yoga into a credit earning part of my graduate school schedule.  And THAT was wildly nourishing in all new ways ... a return to the same, stable quiet sense of self ... the friend that had accompanied my move to an unfamiliar city.

And now, I've returned again, in an effort to have a space in which I am challenged, and clear headed, and letting go.  This has been really humbling, guys.  Turns out when you don't practice regularly, you lose flexibility and balance.  (Or at least, I did.) This has been a process.  Even concentrating on breath work and meditation has been a process - one wandering thought and suddenly I find I'm off rhythm with the Agni-Prasana and completely off kilter.  (Sometimes just being in the moment is the hardest part.)  (Agni Prasana is also called Breath of Fire and involves breathing in and out rhythmically, with the emphasis put on breathing out.  It forces me to concentrate on my abdomen - the drawing in and filling the lungs and the pushing out to exhale.  Other than the pace and emphasis, it's similar in form to the breathing exercises we use in TF-CBT and CPT.)

Last Saturday, in some strange turn of events, I was the only person at my usual morning class.   Slightly awkward, but the instructor kindly took the time to go over my form in a couple of poses that are more challenging for me.

Like this one:

(Image is hyperlinked - thank you, KatieYoga, for this beautiful example.)

I  might mention here that my yoga instructor is 7 months pregnant and did this pose as if it was the easiest thing ever. In the universe.  I, however, have not yet been able to do a headstand.  And, turns out, I am still not be able to do a headstand, but at least now I know a safer, more supported way to enter a headstand.  But here's the humbling part:  as I was trying to come into this pose, I experienced a moment of fear that caused all of my upper back to tense and today, I am still experiencing some pain in my levator scapulae (I'm fairly certain, anyway, that that is the affected muscle.)

My mind took over.  Again.   This is fascinating to me.
The increasing awareness that my thoughts are loud, bossy and somewhat anxious and fearful, and that they interfere with my body, is incredible.

Maybe one day headstand will be more accessible and slightly less intimidating.  Maybe one day my mind will just let my body be.

That's the hope, anyway.

But just the act of carving out time for yourself as a helper is worth it.

I've written about this before.  Some of the advice given to social workers (and other members of the helping professions) regarding self care is just shamefully and wholly inadequate.  In my case, I work as a therapist specializing in family preservation and child trauma.  Taking time to take a bath will not adequately soothe my soul after I have difficult days in which I have witnessed abuse, dysfunction and sometimes, in the absolute worst case scenario, death.

Besides, my bathtub is from the early 1970s, fills as quickly as a dripping faucet can and the water turns cold halfway through.  That sounds ... stressful.

So taking baths and lighting candles is not enough.  It's becoming a joke in our profession, right?  We don't need more baths.  We need better pay, more time off to be able to soothe our souls and rejuvenate, and less working hours (I average about 50 working hours a week, which doesn't take into account the amount of time I am on call and have to respond within 15 minutes. We won't be discussing my pay rate.)  I've written about my deep love of Tara Brach before, as well, and how critical it is that we find a place within ourselves where we accept our complicated feelings about the work we do and avoid punishing ourselves for them.  (Radical Acceptance - one of my favorites, fyi.)

I say all of this, and then in the next breath I tell you:  there is no other work I would rather be doing (and on a bad day if I tell you differently and threaten to become a barista or a librarian or a poet, I am most likely lying).  When social work and therapy clicks, it clicks.  For me, it is spiritual (in a non Joel Osteen type of way - get out of here with that name it and claim it business!) and meaningful and beautiful.  Even the smallest  moments of connection and healing in sessions are sacred, and those moments are part of what sustain me as a worker.  The other day I witnessed a partner be able to tell their partner to "hold on - I have something to say."  Doesn't sound like a lot, right?  It has taken us weeks to get to that point.  Weeks of practice, of debriefing, of homework, of REBT mixed with Narrative Therapy (sometimes that works, turns out ...).  My heart almost burst with pride for both of them.  That's their success.  I was just fortunate enough to witness it.

At the same time, however, the work becomes exhausting.  Balancing work needs with being married with the never ending home remodel with Rosie's training starts to wear on me.  It's been a long few months and I very much neglected taking care of myself (helllllooooo 10 extra pounds and chronic muscle pain!) and got to a point of frustration in which I told Shoes, "What do I have to do, schedule self care in my calendar?"

Cough.

He didn't say anything, because I'm not stupid.  If that's what I have to do, then that's what I have to do. Scheduling time for myself is a feat, you guys, and I don't even have kids.  But between the work schedule, my work contract which details that when I'm open with families I'm always available to them, and the constant revolving door of house contractors, if I don't schedule it in, it's not going to happen, because there will always be something else that will need to be done.  Always.

I talked to my supervisors about the level of stress I had been feeling, and, to my relief, they said, "You need to be asking for more support.  You need to be asking for more time away from your phone.  We have the infrastructure for this."  (And, because this was during my yearly eval, they also said, "We're promoting you to lead therapist and we're going to ask our ED for a raise for you.)  Important note:  social work agencies have widely varying levels of support.  I am thankful every single day for my agency.  They aren't perfect and there are still gaps (did I mention we're not going to be discussing my pay rate, despite the raise?), but they are supportive.  (Because this paragraph has already rabbit trailed into the slightly random, I will also tell you that my yearly eval made it easy to turn down an unexpected recruitment from another local social work agency this week.  Why would I leave already established support, professionalism and integrity?)  Worlds away from last agency, in which I was expected to conduct involuntary psychiatric detainments despite the fact that there were literally no beds, received almost no supervision, and had ongoing therapy clients for which I obtained almost 90% productivity with no time for progress notes).

These things aren't huge, but they've definitely helped:  I've asked Shoes to take over more of the contractor scheduling.  And I've moved around my own personal budget to be able to attend on a fancy yoga studio on a semi regular basis.  (Re entry into yoga is the subject of the next post.)  I'm still not going to take baths in our ridiculous bath tub, and I'm not going to be lighting candles.  But I am going to be dedicating more time and space to my own emotional needs and thinking about what centering and balance means for me personally.   We owe it to ourselves to think about what we really need, (really, really need) on a personal level to be able to continue to do the work.  We owe this to ourselves, foremost.  Our clients.  Our families.  I am a valuable commodity.  You are a valuable commodity.  The use of YOU in the helping profession (as if I need to tell you guys this) is one of the most critical features for client growth.  If we don't believe that we are worth taking care of, how are we going to be able to communicate to our clients, with integrity, that they are worth taking care of?

We are all worth taking care of.

Thoughts?  Frustrations?  Contributions?  Something I missed?  Please feel free to share.

Shoes and I were having a discussion yesterday about marriage:  what we were afraid of, what we like, what's hard.

And I said, "I would say you're probably my best friend, for all intents and purposes."
And he said, "What!  No way.  We are not best friends."

What I know about Shoes is that sometimes a little exploring is necessary - he's incredibly bright.  Not incredibly demonstrative or affective, but sharp.  And this is what Shoes said,

"The marriage relationship is completely separate from a friend relationship.  I don't hang out with my friends all the time - I eventually want them to go home.  I don't take into account their opinion for major life decisions.  I accept support from them ... sometimes, but sometimes I just want to figure it out on my own.  That doesn't describe the relationship we have.  We are here, with each other, in each other's space, for the majority of our time together.  We take into account what the other person feels and thinks all the time.  I run almost everything by you,  because I always care what you think - it always matters.  It's not better or worse than a friendship - it's just an entirely different ball game."

Shoes and I had an in person relationship for 8 months and a long distance relationship for three years.  Right after I graduated with my Master's, I moved to rural E WA and we got married.  Our relationship is different, and it always, always serves to remind  me that all relationships are incredibly different and incredibly filled with idiosyncratic meaning.

I had a couples' counseling session this morning that was incredibly challenging for me as a therapist on almost every level.  Without going into too much detail, I almost gave feedback that was completely off base.  Right before I gave the feedback, one of the partners contributed something that clarified the issue greatly, and I thought to myself, "I had it wrong.  I was assuming, and it was just dead wrong."

We think we know.  We think we know people, we think we know relationships, we think we know behavior and motivation.  We think we know.  We just don't know.  This week has been an excellent reminder in avoiding making assumptions and to ask questions.

People surprise me always.  Even after working with families for 13 years, people always surprise me.  Including clients.  Including my husband.  Including myself.

My friend Nicole has started blogging here,  and if you have any extra time, dear hearts, it will be more than worth your while to stop by.  She is loving, charming, funny, smart and one of the most talented therapists I know.  (I know a lot of therapists.)

Nicole and I met in graduate school when we interned together at a children's community outpatient mental health clinic in NE Portland.  I can't speak for her experience, but having her there was one of the most positive parts of my last year of grad school.  I adored interning with her, Amirah from Lewis and Clark and Joyce from OHSU.  Many positive memories of our intern cubicle, the crazy phone line we shared, group supervision, process recordings, Narrative Therapy, Data/Assessment/Plan, coffee at Black Sheep Bakery ....

Nicole now lives on my side of Washington State, about 2 hours North.  Over here, that's no more than a  daily commute.  We have tentative plans to have coffee in January, and I could not be more excited.  I miss  my friend.  That time in my life (although I thought I hated it then).  The clinic.  That growth.

Glad she's blogging.

When I was a kid, we lived in Europe.
When I was a kid, we lived in Europe and every Thanksgiving and Christmas my mom would make Apple Pfannkuchen.  There is no special reason why she made it on the Holiday holidays.  She just did.

When Shoes and I started dating seriously, I began making it for him.   We don't have a lot of family traditions.  I'm not that close with my family.  Sharing this with him was a big deal.

This year, I made it again on Thanksgiving and again on Christmas.  Shoes, who is not a breakfast sweet eater, partook enthusiastically.

But Shoes did something almost blasphemous.  This year, he unceremoniously dumped a healthy pile of Redi Whip on his.

I don't have many traditions, and one of the ones I do have, he Redi Whipped all over.

I gave him the eye.
He said, "What?  Is that ok?"
And what was I going to say?  No?
Hardly.

After many glances of stink eye, I took a forkful of his to prove him how wrong he was.
Turns out, the Redi Whip made it even more delicious.
So that's how this tradition changes for us.
That's how it became ours.  Kind of the same as my mom's.  But kind of different.

Besides.
This year, in October, I found out that my mom had gotten the "European" recipe we ate in Europe from an American 1983 Kitchen Aid recipe booklet.

This bring this truth home:  We make our own family traditions.  Apple pancakes, in and of themselves, are just a dish.  A bunch of pastry, capable, in itself, of doing nothing.

We decide what's meaningful to us and what we want to carry forth.
Every year Shoes and I are together, we make new decisions about what we want to carry forth.

Next year, I'll make sure to have the Redi Whip on hand.




Also, in other December related news:

ROSIE PASSED BASIC DOG OBEDIENCE AND HAS BEEN APPROVED TO TAKE GOOD CANINE CITIZEN CLASS IN FEBRUARY!

Good job, my dog!

Rosie has her last basic obedience class next Tuesday.  It's a big one guys.  This is the class where we find out if she can go on to take the Good Canine Citizen class (a critical step in her therapy dog training).  Fingers crossed.  This week is akin to university dead week for us, and Shoes and I are asking her to so a variety of recall tasks before she does anything:  receives food, goes outside, gets playtime ... 

Rosie and I had our first official training day visit to my office up north today.  I should have gotten a picture, but too many confidentiality concerns in the room.