Ambiguous Loss (AL)

I don't want to write about this. Maybe I should have started with writing about "resistance". I feel a lot of resistance this weekend. And I'm cranky and sad and just slightly self-pitying. Are you with me yet?

I have SO much to be grateful for, but I will not shame myself for having feelings about losing my "normal life" (AL #1).

Until Sunday evening I was planning to have a modified-in-cleaning, but still regular-work-week.

And then they closed the schools.
Shit.

I had planned that when the schools closed I would stop seeing people in my lovely office space.  (I love sharing my office space- it's warm and cozy and I try my best to make it comfortable above all else. AL #2)

So quickly and under high stress I started to figure out video platforms for Tuesday morning while seeing the last of my in-person adults and rearrange my quickly changing calendar.

People also planning on "normal life" up and until Sunday evening cancelled their appointments. The mom coming to tell me about her family's mental health needs and begin some counseling services left a voice mail saying "I just don't have the mental space to talk about what I was coming in to talk about." (Yeah, I hear ya. Of course. No problem.)

And as my calendar started to fill up with the red bar of "cancelled" across the top of each session, I could feel my mobilized social worker heart move into decisive and concrete action: find a video platform; join groups related to telehealth counseling on social media; consider briefly ethical issues of secure platforms being down and decide some needed the counseling session more than they needed me to say, "I'm actually not allowed to use Facetime for mental health-type services." Ok, go- crisis mode. Mental health triage.

Intermittently I would struggle to keep the problem-solving part of brain going in the face of so many moving pieces and problems to solve.  I had SO many lists of what needed to be done to adjust to this new reality. I know many of you did too.

By Wednesday I had figured out what device and located where in my office would work best for talking comfortably with the 'normal' visual distance of an in-person session. (The answer is the art table with a lap top on the top of a sticker basket.)

And it was strange to hold space that way, but my social worker-therapist heart was committed. I wanted to be present for child and adult clients alike. I'm primarily child-led in my practice philosophy and it's a funny thing to keep up and nudge us along in video sessions. My young client went to her family's art area and started painting. (OK! I will paint too. Show me how you blend colors and I'll give it a try. Let's hold up our pictures.)

I felt so strangely tired after only a few video sessions in a row. I read from other therapists later, that we are straining harder to be present and attune when we are doing it across the screen. That made sense to me. My whole body was tight with focus different from in-person sessions where I am intentionally relaxing my body.

And that might be ambiguous loss #3, understanding the workings of my own internal sensations. Stephen Proges coined the term interoception to name this sense. I am highly practiced at looking inward and knowing where my conscious mind is relative to the situation and my emotional state; how my body is feeling and what I need or do not need.

BUT this week! What is that feeling?! And that one? WTF! I don't like that!

(Thank goodness for sessions-- when I focus on being present for someone else, that is still a familiar feeling even with the changed medium. Stay present and with the internal world and words of the person with you. Got it. Check!)

But the in-between times it's being overwhelmed with concern and frozen at the same time. It's feeling stuck and not even quite sure what list needs to be made. Its knowing I want to act, but feeling completely stuck in how to take the smallest step. In a phrase, it's activation and collapse.

These are not normal times. And my body responded as it was meant to-- for survival. Being overwhelmed to a certain degree will move us to be mobilized BUT only for so long in duration or intensity and then we move on to immobilization/ collapse. This is the foundation of Porges Polyvagal Theory. My experience was intense energy spent to be present in video sessions, writing emails and making phone calls and then at the end of the day, collapse.

My typical work evening routine includes sitting in my favorite chair with a tea tray and watching something neutral or funny on Netflix or other media. I often listen to music and write depending on what I am feeling or need. This week, I was completely unable to have any sensation in my ears or eyes at night. I couldn't find comfort in a show or a song because I couldn't tolerate the stimulus. So strange. (AL #4- comfort activities). Oh! That hits a nerve! How many of you have lost routine comfort activities- gym, rec centre, swimming pool, social outings, window shopping, cafe sitting? Yikes! Everyone of us is feeling that!

That's my view. What's yours? What hard-to-define and lost-without-closure-or-meaning-making loss are you feeling? You're welcome to comment from your own perspective about your own experiences if you would like. Be nice, of course. We're all in this together, friends.

Feeling Safe

Help people feel safe and you will change the world.
-Stephen Porges. 

I have been really focused on safety and what it means to feel safe. I was talking about this in the last several months after finding polyvagal theory and its application to children living out of parental care. Many of the people I see are children involved with Children's Services. In the case of many of these children, they have been neglected to different degrees and witnessed violence and intoxication. 

Their brains have adapted for survival first. They do not have the same trajectory of brain and holistic development as a child who has been raised in a felt sense of safety. For these kids, their brains are so adapted to survival, that even when they are moved to a safe home they don't immediately feel safe. It can take months of stability and predictability and caregivers in small moments of therapeutic intervention and providing corrective experiences for the trajectory to shift a few degrees into a new direction.  

And what happens when all of their adults begin to feel unsafe? These children are like the proverbial canary in the coal mine. They will respond faster than others to the sense of tension in the air. And the air is full of tension this week- especially in larger group care facilities. It's a steep learning curve with information changing daily.

We humans in the Western world are not used to high and on-going levels of uncertainty and safety. The exceptions are plenty and these kids I described are the example. For most of us though we have multiple places where we feel relatively safe. For example, maybe work is challenging, and your supervisor is mean, but when you go home to your children or partner or you go to the gym you feel safe. You see people you know and you re-set through small or significant social interactions. We feel better about our self when we have social relationships that mirror the best aspects of our self. 

Now, we are all home. We are all feeling unsafe and tense- intermittently between feeling calm enough, distracted or simply numbed out. When our nervous systems have been activated and we can no longer sustain that level of activation we collapse. Likely many of us are hopping between activated and collapse. At least the people I've been speaking to who are juggling uncertainty on multiple fronts. 

So how do we find a way to become safe again. Is it okay to feel safe when we are (in that moment) in fact safe? How do I help my body know that it is safe? 

First, remember you deserve to care for yourself as much as anyone else deserves your care. Next find two minutes and a quiet place. 

Close your eyes and imagine a place that is calming for you. By the ocean or lake on your last vacation... or in the woods or maybe swimming lengths at the pool. Any place you have experienced as feeling calm and safe. 

Take a few deep breaths. Don't worry about counting. Just begin to slow your breath- each time going more slowly-- inhale, hold and exhale. If you feel drawn to taking long breaths and holding longer and exhaling longer, do that. If it is harder to take your breath out of your chest and into your belly, breathe as deeply as you can. No shame. No judgement. 

Feel your feet on the ground. Imagine there are roots coming from the bottoms of your feet. With every exhale you can breathe out through the bottom of the feet and release any tension…down down…. down from the bottoms of your feet and into the earth. Allow the earth to take that energy to recycle it into something else. You can let go of anything you no longer need to hold on to. 

Allow yourself to stay in this state for a few minutes. Give thanks to what or who moves you to do that and tell yourself: I'm doing the best that I can and that is enough. 

The last thing any of us need at this time is shame and judgement. Shame is frequently the emotion that fuels the anxiety/ stress/ feeling of unsafe. We are all in this together. We are all worthy of love and belonging. We all deserve support and to be seen for a human who is trying their best in these interesting times.  

Take care friends.