So I love to travel and I haven’t met many people (although there are some!) who don’t.  The great thing about travelling is that you get to meet SO MANY different people living in so many ways.  It’s affirming to our individuality and can break us from the habit of thinking that there is a ‘right’ way to BE. 

All over the world there are billions of people spending their days eating different foods, wearing different clothes, celebrating different traditions and relating with different priorities and values.  And none of them have more worth or value than another.  When I travel I like to imagine what it would be like for someone who is Greek to be married to someone who is German, etc. 

Then I try to remember that it is NO DIFFERENT when we live in our own town.  Each person we meet comes from a different culture, a different family.  And each person enjoys different foods, traditions, hobbies, and has a different set of priorities and values than our own. 

It’s important to have this attitude when we are going about our daily lives.  To remember to be as open-minded with each other as we are with strangers and to not have to be ‘right’ about our experience. 

We need to remember to be a ‘tourist in our own town’ and in our own family.

So the expressions tend to go “so-and-so is really optimistic….they always see the cup as half-full”  or “so-and-so is so negative….they only see the cup as half-empty”. 

I say…..”It’s a cup.  Half of it is full and half of it is empty.”  “Acknowledge the whole thing and then dwell on the full part”.  I think when we don’t acknowledge all of our feelings and the facts about what is going on then we can stay in denial about difficult things in our lives.  However, once you’ve validated your feelings and thoughts about what you don’t like or what isn’t fair…..then you might as well dwell on the part that is half full!! 

No matter what your experience or decision in life, there are going to be perspectives and parts of it that you aren’t going to like.  A single person gets to be in control and get what they want without negotiation AND often struggles with loneliness.  A married person gets companionship and extra resources re: money and work and support when they are sick…….AND has to share decision making and not always get things their way.  Whatever your situation or decision, you need to expect that it will have pros and cons.  So all you can do is make the best choice you can, with the information that is available, and then get behind your decision and keep yourself okay and not dwell on the negatives.  It’s not a perfect world.  Make the best choice you can and then don’t beat yourself up about it.

Everyone, everyone, everyone in the world….no matter what language you speak knows that Charlie Brown should NOT play football with Lucy!!  She ALWAYS picks up the ball!!

We’ve all met Charlie Brown’s and we’ve all been Charlie Brown’s.  If someone in your life is continually letting you down……then you don’t have to play with them!!!  If your focus remains on their behaviour and how they have to learn to ‘play nice’ then you are focused on what you don’t have control of rather than what you do have control of.  (This fact is always easier to see in other people’s lives, by the way.)  Whenever you are faced with an annoying situation or person, you will be much happier if you focus on the part of the dynamic that you have control of, which is yourself.  Trust yourself first.  Let them earn your trust.   You can love Lucy.  You can keep talking to Lucy.  You do not have to play with her unless she has proven to you that she is compassionate about the impact her behaviour has on you.

YOU have the power….don’t give it away!

I believe that we are all just somewhere on the continuum of health and dysfunction.  Over the past 5 years I have read two books that illustrate that point very well.  I read The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls and Nelson Mandela's autobiography.  The Glass Castle is about a girl who grew up as a street person.  Her parents and her family were squatters in abandoned homes and railway buildings and her father was an alcoholic.  So clearly there were issues of dysfunction there.  Yet at one point in the book, the Dad takes his daughter, on her birthday, out into the night.  He asks her to look up into the sky and "pick a star.....any star".  He tells her, "That is my gift for you.  Whenever you look up at that star, I want you to think about how much I love you."  Now I think that's a really loving and healthy thing to do when you have no money....don't you?   
 

The other book I read was Nelson Mandela's autobiography.  Now, there is no question that he is a spiritual leader for our time.  To be able to fight for the rights of the black people, endure imprisonment, help to end apartheid, come out with compassion and love for his oppressors, and be able to rule the land and work alongside them is a spiritual feat that few of us would ever be able to traverse.  However, the thought I remember having is that I could see him and his family coming in for family therapy….. because he chose the cause.  There would have been other black men that he knew that would have refused to push back against apartheid the way he did, knowing that they would end up in jail and that they would not be there to participate in the raising of their children.  It is possible that Nelson Mandela's children have anger and abandonment issues as a result of his choices. 

So I think we’re all just somewhere on the continuum of health and dysfunction, and none of us has it all figured out. I think we’re all healthy in some ways and not in others. What we need to remember is that for ALL of us, we can’t see the frame if we’re part of the picture. I believe we’re all doing the best we can with what we were given and the lessons are lifelong. We need to remember that our humanity matters more than our behaviour and we can always learn to do things differently.

Here’s to building resilience, hope and joy….one day at a time!

There are a lot of things we know about dealing with stress just from reading magazines: eat well, sleep well, think positively, exercise, surround yourself with a supportive group of people, create balance between work and play. Yada yada yada. Nothing new here. However, I think that one of the most important things that often gets missed is the idea of hope. Hope is like faith; it exists in our spirit and not in our tangible reality. I’m guessing that that’s why there aren’t theories and therapies about it. It is positive and in the future. And it’s an idea, not a reality. When we have hope, it can pull us out of that darkness and into the light. Without it, it is hard to bother to look toward the future. And it gets ignited differently in each of us. What is inspiring and creates hope in one person may do nothing for the next person. So we need to become like researchers looking for inspiration from the outside world but listening internally to see if that flame of hope has been ignited.

I think one of the most important things for your relationship with yourself, with your family and in the workplace is that you've gotta have hope and you've got to be focused on the things you have control of and not the things you don't in order to be really happy!!!!   

I get together on a regular basis for peer supervision with my colleagues. We all have different styles and each use different therapeutic techniques but the one thing we have all agreed upon regarding whether people heal or not is whether the person believes that there is hope for them to make the situation different.  I think you can make it different if you decide to make it different, have the proper support and a little hope.   Sometimes creating that ‘doable’ first step is the thing that ignites it. Jack Layton said "You can wait forever for perfect conditions or you can make the best of what you've got now."  He had hope during one of the most physically challenging times of his life and I think that ability is in all of us. I guess that is why I am writing this blog. I want to support people to create resilience and hope…..one day at a time.