Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Family Anxiety


Following up on my previous post, trauma leaves a mark on a family that will go away after a very long time. The fear of another traumatic event lingers in the back of everyone's mind. Much like Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder, the family's anxiety can be triggered by relatively innocuous events which result is over reacting. Parents can become over protective and children can become hyper-sensitive to any disruptions in their world.
While the immediacy of the loss recedes it is replaced with a constant discomfort and unease as background noise to the daily tasks of life. Happiness becomes brief and anger becomes the norm. To connect these experiences with the trauma is to subject yourself to the pain again. It is easier to find blame in the people or the events of today.
Taking care of ourselves is so important. When families can accept and understand their struggles they find ways to comfort and reassure each other without judgement or resentment.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Another day, another mass shooting.

Another day, another mass shooting. My complacency is frightening. The magnitude of these deaths is more than I care to grasp. It is very hard to sit with an open mind and heart in the midst of so much death, grief, and trauma. And there are no answers. We can make commitments to change, advocate for potential solutions, and analyze the perpetrator. After all is said and done the families of these victims have to carry on with their lives. That is the part we fear the most.
When I am working with a family that has lost a member from a traumatic event I have to pay close attention to the ways they hold each other. Holding happens physically, emotionally and cognitively. Are they spread out in my office? Who is sitting away from the others? Who is sitting the closest together? These observations give me a sense of the families ability to gather as one while respecting the individuality of each.
How responsive are they to each other's expressions of pain, sorrow, and joy? The emotional holding in a family is a dynamic process between nurturing and distancing. We can take care of each other as long as we take care of ourselves.Anxiety looms large in these situations and anger becomes a quick tool for managing fear and uncertainty.
How does the family make decisions? Is there a balance between brain storming and directives? Trauma has a profound impact on our cognitive skills. The experience of overwhelming pain and loss impairs concentration and organizational abilities. Families can vacillate between aggressive command and paralyzingly indecisiveness.
The work we do is hard and challenging. As the weeks pass and they find a rhythm to their experience of pain and loss, they begin the slow and painful process of integrating their loss into their life's journey.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Another Dimension

I have signed on with Bernie Glassman's Zenpeacemakers trip to Rwanda in April 2014. I am excited about going. It has been over 14 years since I last went to Africa. Then it was a trip to St. Nicholas Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. The experiences over there have had a profound impact on my life and I will always be grateful for the children there who taught me so much about love, suffering and forgiveness.
Now it is a trip to mark the 20th anniversary of the genocide. Bearing witness to the survivors and their stories of loss and destruction is a primary goal of this trip. It is the opportunity of a lifetime. To sit with those who endured so much more than any of us can imagine is to sit in the midst of all we fear  and all we abhor. From that perspective the power of the human spirit to overcome and continue to move forward  is to know the deepest joy of this life.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

The Journey Begins

School starts on Tuesday so my beginning of this blog has relevance to all of us. Many years of getting my kids throught the night before first day and  my own childhood fears of what will happen tomorrow continue to color the days and nights of the Labor Day weekend. It was always easier if I began a year of school with friends especially those who were with me during the summer. To be the new kid at school was always a challenge.
To be in the dark about the next day is to be in a very lonely place. A running theme in this blog will be the difference between solitude and isolation. Solitude is a place of reflection and discovery. Isolation is a refuge from our fears. When you can take the experience of isolation and transform it into solitude you are able to connect with fear and doubt with out being controlled by fear and doubt.
I believe that we all have that experience when we walk through those school doors sit at our desks and listen to the teacher's introduction to the upcoming year. The moment at hand is more powerful than the fear of what will be.
Best wishes for  the passing of time, may the hours before that first day be filled with wonderful distractions and may each of us remember that discovery defeats apprehension.

  The bird’s path, winding far, Is right before you.   Water of the Dokei Gorge, You return to the ocean, I to the mountain. - Hof...