An open letter to kinship and foster parents and group care staff

Dear___[your first name here]____,

I see how hard you are working to not lose your cool. I hear that you have lost your cool. I know how hard that first week was: How much school work needs to get done? How can you get more vitamin-rich food into your picky eaters? How can you find a minute to grab a shower? How do you explain Coronavirus and Pandemic to a child who suddenly lost their family visit this week? What about all  those field trips and outings that were planned? How does video technology work and what device can be used?

How do keep the group home clean when there is a 13 yo AWOL'ing every night and returning every morning? How do you keep up with the changing demands when the routines of your group home were turned upside down literally overnight. You have staff away sick and your throat feels scratchy and the new cleaning regime is a full-time job to itself. How will you get through this?

And that's on top of you trying to make meaning out of the things you suddenly just lost because we landed in the Age of Physical Distancing and also support other important people in your life.

As many of you are aware, scared and stressed adults scare children. The sense of safety for all of us is compromised by the pandemic. You are now in the unique situation of being The Central Adult who these scared and stressed children are looking to as a way to figure out how to respond. Even though the service team of case managers, family wellness workers, youth workers and therapists are here for you, it's suddenly only over the phone or by video call. I know it's not really enough.  

The children and youth we work with are highly sensitive to stress from adults in their environment and of course, that translates to their own nervous system acting in fight/ flight or collapse. Co-regulation depends on the adult finding their calm response and setting that tone with the child.

One of the most effective things caregivers can do is take two minutes to sit, close your eyes, breathe a few deep breaths and bring the activation of your own nervous system down some. 

Consider implementing a morning routine with yoga or meditation. If you encounter resistance, set-up an option for kids to be away from the group, but close enough to observe. Young teens might buck it, but many will welcome it. These kinds of relaxing techniques provide soothing and some will benefit from it greatly and perhaps use it for the rest of their lives. 

These are unusual times indeed, but it’s hard for me not to consider that this is also our time to shine as a dominantly compassionate species. Front line caregivers are such an important and unrecognized support to these vulnerable children and youth. 

My wish for you is that you will move past the cycle of heightened response- collapse and feel your feet on the ground and be able to take a breath. 

I see how hard you are working- often understaffed and over-stressed. 

I appreciate your hard work on behalf of the kids who don’t know how to thank you.

Thank-you. Thank-you. Thank-you~ from all of the children and youth and from me.

Warmly, 

Heather 

Cancelled Conferences and Front Lines

This morning I should be standing in front of a large group of social workers at the Alberta College of Social Workers presenting: Shame Resilience for Social Workers. I was excited and scared to do this and disappointed and relieved when the conference was cancelled in the name of Physical Distancing.

I first gave the talk in April 2017 to the BSW Supervisor's during their end of year appreciation luncheon. Leanne Hilsen, from the Faculty of Social Work at U of C, Edmonton Division asked me to do it and it was an unpaid gig. She introduced me to the work of Vikki Reynold's a kick-ass social worker from Vancouver. Vikki was supposed to be the key note speaker of the conference this morning. There was a 'come full circle' feeling that didn't get to complete itself. There is a weird dissatisfaction from that open end. I hope to complete it.

When I gave the talk in 2017 I was mostly talking to people who didn't directly work with people receiving services- they were supervisors and a handful of professors and we were on Saskatchewan Drive upstairs at the Faculty Club- far away from the proverbial front lines. And social workers were feeling good- we had an NDP government and a handful of our own Registered Social Workers in power! Life was good! And when I talked about our collective professional struggles including the political, I'm not sure if they could relate.

Fast forward to September 2019 when I wrote up the proposal to re-do this talk for a larger social work audience-- the UCP were in power and delaying their budget until after the federal election in October. I started to prepare the talk as the budget of deep cuts were announced, unions and others were organizing and we were all noticing the chasm between those of us who remember the Klein years of the 1990's and those who only knew the stories. The divided world of Alberta politics versus social justice and human rights was flared.

And then COVID. Or Fucking Covid (FC) as I like to call it.

We need the shame resilience more than ever. There are so many "front lines" now. And we are paying attention to them in top priority and missing some of the many other important ones. Right now we are preparing for the physical disease- as we should be-- and health care truly is the front line. And we recognize the front line of 'essential services' as never before: grocery store staff, pharmacies, store cleaners, delivery people and the trucking industry. These are so important! These are all about the physical necessities and staying alive.

There are social and economic implications to this virus that we are only seeing the ice berg tip of right now because we are in early days. We see the 'front line' of services to the most vulnerable people- in Edmonton that's the shelter set-up at the Expo Centre for people without a place to call 'home'. And the social workers and other community workers who are risking their own health to show up for those in need.

And we have the Federal government staff who working to get Canadians financial benefits as soon as possible. They are creating and rolling out a brand new benefit on the fly within only a few weeks.

The front line I see are the kinship care providers, foster parents, child and youth care counselors and case managers who are continuing to provide services to the children who are out of parental care. These vulnerable children are sensitive to the stress of adults, acting out or inward when their environment triggers them. As FC  (remember, that's Fucking Covid) drifts further into our communities, these people continue to care for the children under circumstances much more difficult than normal.

So many homes were set-up to function well WITH community supports- school, respite weekends, rec centre passes, therapy and other professional support, FAMILY visits. These same children with their sensitive stress response systems have lost any bits of life that helped to calm and regulate them. (An entire post could be dedicated to the losses of these vulnerable children and the impact of temporarily losing family visits.)

No one has a contract with Children's Services that says they agree to quarantine with the children in their home or group care facility.

And until recently none of these agencies and homes had a "Pandemic Policy."

And now with FC, these front line caregivers are going ahead and trying to adapt to a new reality. We don't know how it is going in all the homes of all the families who are now inside with their children, but we do hold a higher standard for the foster parents and group care staff to ensure that these vulnerable children are cared for. These are unprecedented circumstances and they are working beyond the role they ever agreed to take on.

And this is where we need shame resilience more than ever. When our nervous system is activated and collapsing though the early days of trying to find our way into this new way of being, we will make mistakes. And when we do, can we be kind to ourselves and know that our best (even when we don't have a lot) is in fact enough? To keep trying is our goal NOT getting it right every time. I will say more about this when I get to writing up the workshop I am not presenting today.

I'll stop here for now. Feel free to write your thoughts from your perspective and experience about the front lines you see, are experiencing or appreciate.

The messy spiral of Self-growth

The spiral is a scared nature-based image. I'm using it here as a framework for understanding how we move through higher states of consciousness by revisiting core issues.

I drew a picture (below)-- my first time trying this so it's a bit rough! This is the teaching of the spiral. We start at the bottom. The first X represents that point of feeling alone or in pain related to some core issue of the Self. In previous blogs, I've described the shape and shame. This starting point is the place of this core shape/ shame issue.

We find some way of significantly moving away from this pain. We seek out some counseling or use body-based treatments; learn meditation; work on our pain through art or writing.  There is some intervention that moves us far enough away from this pain that we feel like we left it behind in some way. We may even have the relaxed experience of "ahhhh...." in the exhale of relief of our understanding. At this point in managing a core issue, we will feel like we're done. [dusts palms together] "Glad I figured that out!" (We can be a bit arrogant at this stage.)

What happens though, as you will see by reading the points on the spiral from the bottom to the top, is that we circle back into a core issue. We will feel like we're exactly where we were before-- in the pain that is represented by all the points on the left hand side of the spiral. There will be some event or interaction or relationship that will push at our core issue or move us into that shape we worked to release and we will be shocked: "How can I be here again? I solved this issue."

In fact though, we can never really return to the same point. We are always at a new place of increased consciousness and understanding Self. It will feel like a familiar misery, but it is different. The spiral shows us that we are not in a circle or a repetitive pattern if we are moving toward an increased understanding. Sure, it may feel like a continuous loop, but it likely isn't as much of one as it feels (1). Every time we circle back to the left side, we gain new understandings and insights and so move upwards toward the right. Each level of the spiral is a new level of consciousness and understanding of the Self.

Recently someone I love very much had a significant event occur. I thought I had done so much work on my own core issue: 'filling needs for others when I have my own unmet needs', but in one rug-pulled-out-from-under-me event, I felt like I was back in a place from many years ago. I couldn't see my own needs. I didn't have my own boundaries. I was a mushy mess without clarity working overtime to care for others beyond what was expected or needed.The overtime work extended beyond the person I loved and went out everywhere. I was back in my shape and reacting to the world the way I did a long time ago.

I found some trusted helpers (our own stuff is at the end of our nose; we all need trusted people to help sort it out) and I began to pull my Self back together. In the process, I was able to find my self-compassion again and s l o w down and meet my own need: to admit my struggle, show my vulnerability and express my emotions. I understood (again!) that I am the one who makes space for me. The people who love me want me to make space for my Self. It's me who, in the most pain-filled moments, will default to staying small and working on behalf of others to my detriment. I know that staying small and denying my own  needs is a form of self-harm. As much as anyone, I deserve my love, care and compassion.

This latest turn around the spiral has led me to greater understandings and allowed me to take even bigger risks in being real. This is the path. We are messy imperfect humans and it's our human experience that gives us the best material for cultivating spiritual growth. It's not about avoiding pain; it's about the transformation of that pain into greater understandings and higher levels of consciousness.

Heather.

(1) If your experience truly feels like a circle, then you are idling at the point of the first X- doing loops in one spot-and you haven't yet begun on the spiral. Your work is to find the first step to change-- come in for counseling and we'll get you on your way. You can also dig deep on your own and seek out others if things become too clouded-- but get off the circle and into greater understanding.

The dark passage of grace

Every midwife knows
that not until a mother’s womb
softens from the pain of labour
will a way unfold
and the infant find that opening to be born.
Oh friend!
There is treasure in your heart,
it is heavy with child.
Listen.
All the awakened ones,

like trusted midwives are saying,
'welcome this pain.
It opens the dark passage of Grace.
~Rumi

 

The truth of this quote is ancient. It is the first step on the path of enlightenment; it is the foundation of therapy; it is the key to happiness!

We all do it. We see the pain. We smell the pain. We have a bit of a sense of the pain and we walk away in the other direction. We keep ourselves busy and distracted. We avoid. We numb. We complain. We do anything we can to avoid taking the first step. That is the step into and *through* the pain. 

The mistake we make is in falsely believing that if we feel the feelings of the pain we will never return. We falsely believe that if we move into the pain we will either break in a way that we can't be fixed or be lost in a way that we can't be found. 

Imagine this: (I wish I could draw on a blog).

Numb/ Avoid          <-----    YOU ------> PAIN    ------->     Everything you dreamed possible.

Misery                                                        

2 x 4 over the head

 

We go in the opposite direction of the pain.  We are not happy. We might even be miserable, but it is a misery with which we are familiar and so we keep at it. 

In the numbing and avoiding we are living our lives, but are not happy. We feel stressed, rushed, in survival mode, unable to keep up. We are spinning our wheels in obligation. Trying to get by. We feel alone and depressed or angry and resentful. We have no time for self-care: eating well, exercising, self-reflection and self-love.


We won't take time to stop and when we do stop, we numb.

I think of hitting oneself over the head with a 2 x 4. We keep doing what we have always done because we are so afraid to put down the 2 x 4. Even though what we are doing hurts us we don't know what we would do if we weren't doing this. We are afraid of the PAIN and we are afraid of what is on the other side of it. The void on the other side is a fear only second to the PAIN.

*********

This is the first step- put down the avoiding/ numbing/complaining behaviors. Dare to walk away from the misery. 

Then you will have to see the PAIN. You will have to admit to the whiff in the air of the thing you are trying to avoid. Each person's pain carries it's own name, but after exploring you will call it worthlessness. You will see that the misery comes from avoiding the feeling that without the misery you feel worthless. This is the reason for the fear of the pain. This is the core of the pain for each of us. It is a part of the human condition.

The recognition of this is the pain akin to labor in childbirth. This is the pain you are avoiding. And it is in moving through this pain that you will find grace. 

*********

Grace = Exhale. (Take a big breath right now. Allow an exhale. Try it.) 

This is the place of redemption. It is in this grace that you will find the gift of self-forgiveness. You will pay-off the debt: the price you have been paying in misery.

You will be free to feel the love of which you are apart. The greater love of the world- the stuff that is the binding force of connection between us all.

This is the place of worthiness. Of knowing: your value is demonstrated in simply being. There is nothing you need to do to be of value. You simply are. And that is enough.

This is a place of self-realization or divine love. By all names it is the same place and it is waiting for you.

********

It is in this grace that you will find that all of your dreams are possible. You belive this will be a scary place to go. You are afraid of what you will find when you see the treasure of your heart and the vastness of this love.

 I will tell you the name of this place: it is a life of ease. A place where you can create the life you can't yet imagine. It is a place where there is no striving to keep up and survive; no need to struggle to prove your worth. In this place you can be who you are and live without fear of the PAIN.  You no longer need to avoid/ numb/ complain. You can create the life of your dreams.

********

I invite you to explore this place (even though you may not think it applies to you). You may accept and yet spend many hours outside the door of PAIN examining the edges and thinking about the frame's construction. Vacuuming the rug you imagine to be right outside this door. I know. I have been there. I have thought the door would not be worthwhile. 

I urge you to know that it is simply by walking through and facing the truth of this PAIN that you will move through into the place of your dreams- a place where you discover the treasure within your heart and the vastness of great love.

It is with great love that I leave you with these thoughts. 

Heather. 

The Value of an Empty Mind

Isn't your mind mostly full, most of the time? Mine is. I run the to-do lists. Think about the family calendar. Think about what someone said recently or something I heard on the radio. I am always in a conversation in my head. I challenge you to become aware of your thoughts over the next 24 hours. Spend a day watching your thoughts and see what you see. I think you will be surprised how busy your mind actually is!

One thing I notice with my kids in school this year (after homeschooling for Grades 1-3), is that a big chunk of their day is filled with filling their minds. Facts and processes about letters, numbers, nature, art. "Listen. We're telling you something. You need to know this to make it in the world." This is the message schools give.

But here is the problem: The incessant chatter inhibits another whole level of thought processing.

An empty mind is a beautiful mind. Instead of having to focus on a task (listening to someone talk or working out a problem linearly), an empty mind can engage in more abstract thought and take illogical jumps from one place to another. Achieving an empty mind takes time. It takes s l o w i n g down and that's hard. Lately I have to take a whole day. It starts in the morning with time keeping my body busy- washing dishes, running, driving about the town running errands. Then I eat lunch and make some tea. My living room couch has often been my place to slow down my mind. I put on some mind-numbing music. The kind that acts as white noise to the myriad of thoughts. Something with an om or a repetitive beat that acts like a trance.

The state of an empty mind is a trance; a form of meditation; an altered state of consciousness. It's not simply daydreaming. From this place there are other ways of experiencing thought. The conversations at this level of consciousness are not about the physical world or the network of society. It's a slower pace or as some might say, a higher level of vibration. This place is a whole new world. From here creative thought-- the form of original ideas can happen. From this place I can take stock of my life and see what I want to change or appreciate. From this place I can connect with spirit and flow freely in a universal pool of love.

Children need this too. For a child, the empty mind means a chance to ask her own questions. To explore how things work and how things could work if there were no laws of physics. It is a opportunity for creative expression, but also a chance to connect to a larger space and place- to hear her own guides and know her place in a world beyond this one. It's like connecting to home at a soulful level.

To often we think that a full mind, a busy mind, is a productive one. Well that's not true. An empty mind has it's own kind of productivity: it fills your emotional cup, connects you to your larger sense of being and allows you to just simply be- right now, loved and valued for you.

After you watch your busy mind for 24 hours, I challenge you: take an hour and *allow* your mind to empty out. No immediate acting on good ideas. No TV. No directing meditation CDs. I would suggest rhythmic and repetitive music though. Just allow your mind to empty. Don`t push on it. Don`t pull. Just let it be. Remember to set your intention to have this empty-mind experience, but not fall asleep. Start with sitting up. Then just let the thoughts come and then let them go.

When you feel a conversation starting, get a pen. Write down one or two words or more if they come to mind. Play and see what happens. This is the place of your intuitive voice. This is the place of a new experience in the way of being.



Heather.

The Empowerment of People

Here's a quote I heard on The Munk Debates on CBC the other day:

We are the first generation of the world who know what the cure for poverty really is. The cure for poverty has a name and it is called: The Empowerment of Women.

If you could give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce...and take them off the animal cycle of reproduction of which nature and some religious doctrines condemn them... the floor of everything in that village- not just poverty, but education, health and optimism- will increase.

It doesn't matter. They tried it in Bangladesh . They tried it in Bolivia. It works. It works all the time.

~ Christopher Hutchens.

I wrote out a lot of what he said so that the quote has context. Clearly he is talking about women in the poorest parts of the world. I was so moved by the first part of the quote though:

We are the first generation of the world who know what the cure for poverty really is. The cure for poverty has a name and it's called the Empowerment of Women.

It's moving because the broader message is the empowerment of *anyone* will cure poverty or bring a greater wealth. Give people the authority for their own being and there will be more, not less.

I think of this on a physical, but also energetic level. When we *own* all of our being and we stand firm in our boundaries knowing truly who we are, then we are wealthy.

And from this place we are- just in our way of being- allowing others to be energetically wealthy as well.

There is a teaching about shapes (1). Basically, think of each of us as carrying our own shape (for example, a square, circle or triangle) and when we engage with another we are looking for a reverse, but complimenting match (picture two puzzle pieces).

In this we are energetically requiring that person to be something we need and they are doing the same. This happens without our conscious awareness most often. It is the foundation of all interactions and it is fundamentally why we like this person and not this one. It's the extent to which "our shapes match." Shapes don't fundamentally change from interaction to interaction. Shapes are stable, but they can be left behind as person engages higher levels of conscious awareness.

This is an abbreviated version of the teaching. Imagine these examples as a way of understanding our enslavement to these shapes and their impact on our interactions.

First example: you're having a bad day and you act in a way to try and get others to feel as bad as you. You are rude or grumpy or try to pick a fight with someone. That's you holding your shape and trying to get another person to take on the reverse but complimenting match. If someone does this: that is, gets as stressed and angry as you are, it will relieve the pressure you are feeling. We have all done this at some point.

Second example: imagine a cashier, who playing her part as a smiling customer-service representative, is engaging you with friendly chitchat. All social norms about the interaction demand that you perform a part. You are expected to engage about the weather or the roads etc. She is trying to fit you into a particular pattern of interaction and if you don't engage, you are rude. She wants you to be happier from the chitchat interaction and then she will have done her job as the smiling customer-service representative.

Third example: think of that couple you know who is like this. She is always so sweet and helpful- very nice. You almost never see her angry. He is the kind of guy that leaves people walking on eggshells. He is abrasive often and sometimes intimidating. He is not a bad guy necessarily, but he has a sternness to his manner. You can imagine that he is someone you would not like to see angry. In terms of shapes, he carries for her all the anger that she won't express and that allows her to be the "nice" one. She carries for him all the vulnerability he can't express and allows him to always be strong or feel in control. This is the epitome of the shapes engaged.

These are simple examples to demonstrate a point. Now back to the quote. So what happens when a person holds their own energy and they are empowered to be their own authority?

They have a control over who they are. They own their Self.

From this place a person isn't a slave to obligation or the nobility of suffering and lack. From this place a person can be all of who he or she is and not confined to a role and a stuck pattern.

Let's revisit the examples.

From here, the angry person stands alone in that anger and feels it. Just feels it for what it is. What is the message of the anger? Is it that someone has taken your power? Are you feeling obligated to behave in a way that you don't want? The anger becomes a source for power and not something that needs to be passed on down the chain of authority as is classically the case.

In the example of the smiling cashier- what happens when the cashier just stands in her own energy in a *real* way? Instead of trying to force the chitchat, she makes a small complaint or expresses her true feelings: "My feet hurt. How are you?" "I'm worried about getting home in the snow." From here the person as the customer has the freedom to be or feel what they want. This can be reveresed too. When the cashier is smiling away artificially, the customer can ask a real question and have a genuine interaction. What energetic richness that is!!

In the case of the couple-- this too often describes most of our closest relationships. There are patterns that we adapt. After learning the shapes teaching (in more depth then presented here), I laughed when I saw how our "soul mate" is really the person with whom we share the most compatible dysfunctions. We match because we carry for each other that which we are unable to carry for ourselves. And it is here that the white board work (a.k.a. Accipo) really reveals all these patterns we carry.

So often we are forced (we believe) into being and behaving in expected patterns. We may feel we have no choice (as the quote said: "forced into the animal cycle... of which nature and some religious doctrines condemn them.") BUT, we are not forced by nature or religion. We are only the victims of our own minds, our own values and our own beliefs. The best thing about this is that *we* can overcome our own minds. This is all within our power.


To me there is no higher principle then self- authority. You are responsible for you. The cure for energetic poverty has a name and it is called the empowerment of people.

With love,

Heather.

(1)From "A Mind for Mastery"- unpublished manuscript by Ellie Hernon.