Let’s Get it started
Many years ago, my mentor said something that has resonated with me throughout my personal and professional life: “You cannot ask someone to do something that you are not willing to do yourself.”
I have been working in the mental health field for two decades. During that time, I have had the privilege of watching many people change their lives, including my clients, friends, family, colleagues, and enemies.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2021) reported nearly one in five U.S. adults (51.5 million people) live with a mental illness, of which about 8 million people 18 and older have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These statistics may indicate that many mental health professionals bear their own traumatic stories and the physical and emotional adverse effects of their exposure to trauma, just like their clients. These effects are compounded by the intuitive and empathic nature of our work, often resulting in burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma.
So what happens when we are re-traumatized and our autonomic state creates our story and our defense?
For some of us, it means we bail, we flee, we do whatever it is going to take to find a way out. It's not always so obvious either; it may even look like what our culture defines as success. Maybe it's the 50+ hours you work and the few hours left at the end of the week you find yourself chillin’ by the pool or on a boat drunk or high. It feels safe here.
Perhaps instead you put up your armor and orchestrate a battle; the army you face may bear overalls and pigtails or black suits and ties. Your demands, explosive behavior, and need for control have labeled you on the playground as a bully, amongst friends and family as an a@shole, and at work, they likely wish you were fired. It's safe here or at least you are.
Maybe instead of yelling and demanding, you try to blend in, fix or help anyone in need, even if it's at your own expense. Boundaries are lost, and you attach yourself to anyone willing to have you, even those in the past who have hurt you. You are thinking nothing is ever going to change, so you’ll appease whoever and forfeit what you value. In this place, maybe you're well-liked but no one really knows you. Even you. It's safe here. Or is it?
Or like the majority, you just freeze. You can’t think, can’t respond, and certainly are not capable of making any real decisions. You feel stuck or numb with a growing distance between yourself and the people and things you value. You don’t say anything and you tolerate the spaces you're in because in your mind there is nothing better for you out there. This place is really familiar, comfy in fact, but is it safe?
All of this is to protect ourselves.
But more often, it perpetuates the problems we are experiencing and prevents us from moving between the spaces of where we are, and where we need to be.
I know because I did it. I was often in a blended state; angry, but rendered powerless, unable to make the move I needed to live my best life. So I made the life I was living my best false narrative, especially when it related to my career. I was immobilized for 10 years or longer. I put myself in a cage, convinced it was built just for me. Until one day, I realized the cage was just an illusion.
The stress of the imposter, the anxiety of the unknown, and the trauma of not ever being enough had become a narrative I got sick of playing, and START finally became more than a dream but fully realized.
We challenge our clients to consider how they respond to stress, how their anxiety is holding them back, and what strengths they built from the times in their lives that they felt the most challenging, and often we encourage them to STOP doing one thing to START something else. Something else lends itself to so much possibility. Once I realized there was no cage, I really began to see that.
I am convinced we all have something we are eager to get started, an idea we have been sitting on for years, or something new dreamed up just this morning. Maybe it's less about starting something and more about stopping something. Stopping or starting regardless of why or how, makes room for something else, for a new story to emerge.
In my willingness to be “willing to do something” I would ask of my clients, I STARTED something and that has proved to be more than I could have asked for.
How does your start begin?
trusting yourself or someone else?
letting go or letting in?
creating a limit or setting one?
saying yes instead of no?
Mine begins with a swift kick in the ass to get out of my own way and START something that I should have years ago. I want the river in my backyard. Flowing, Rowing, Growing, and Glowing!
#Startit #riverlife #rowtogetherstaytogether
There was a dream
And one day I could see it
Like a bird in a cage, I broke in and demanded that somebody free it
You can start something new at any time. We’re here to encourage, support, and inspire. This latest blog inspired our current creative project, “Start It”. Participants utilize a notebook to write about something they want to start doing for themselves. They then leave their book somewhere for others to find, read, and get motivated to start something of their own. Be a part of the change! Please click the button below to participate in our Start It project.