Sunday Musings - April 14, 2024
Healer or Jailer
As clergy, health care professionals and teachers our mission is to do all we can to help each other thrive or to use the term some Gallup researchers are now using “flourish” during this life journey. This may mean something different for each of us. Those who have been tortured, abused, and lived through the repeated trauma of war, poverty, chronic illness, or spiritual deprivation need our understanding and unconditional support. They may often be treated as lazy, burdens or nuisances by many of our neighbors who do not understand mental and emotional illness. Many think of mental and emotional illness as weaknesses. Some of us in the teaching or helping professions find it difficult to convey both a respect for the emotional, mental, and physical pain individuals and families share with us and the assurance that one can flourish following emotional, mental, and physical injury or abuse. Too often we may err by conveying the message that one is damaged and an invalid for life. If any of us believe we are damaged or an invalid for life, we may sit down and just exist for the remaining days of our journey. We teachers and helping professionals can err by not conveying empathy for the pain the person has endured or not validating their inner strength. Neither extreme is helpful and will not allow a person to flourish.
I have often sat in the courtroom and listened to a colleague testify that a person has been damaged for life; implying they will be unable to flourish; that they are a permanent invalid. I have often testified that an injured person can heal and have a flourishing life. Healing does not imply that one gets rid of the pain but implies one does not have to allow it to determine the remainder of one’s life.
In my office I have often told people that they can have all the loving support they want, but they will get no pats on the head. I believe all of us are stronger and more resilient than we may, at times, feel or believe. I personally know individuals, families and groups who have survived acute trauma and, without denying the trauma have gone on to flourish. My ex-wife, her parents and her one grandmother escaped a country during WWII, spent many years in a refugee camp and lived to flourish. Another friend of mine was confined to a wheelchair at age 12 and became a highly respected and much-loved psychologist. Friends and colleagues who lived through combat and bore witness to the death of many of their friends went on to heal and to then help others to heal. Some individuals, such as the Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, grew up in the projects with an alcoholic father, a mother who was often at work and a younger brother for whom she was responsible much of the time. Such individuals are resilient, but do become hard/emotionally shut down.
Anyone who has been to a wake, especially for a person who suffered the trauma of racism and other abuse, knows that many of those celebrating the life of the deceased can share both laughter and tears.
In the teachings and helping professions we must learn to walk the often-thin line with individuals and families between empathy and affirming their inner resilience. We must laugh and cry with them. Sometimes the laughter is misinterpreted as denial of the pain. A colleague of mine - a psychiatrist - used to hear clients/patients laughing in my office and decide they were faking the extent of their depression or other symptoms of pain. He fell into the trap of dualities; of seeing people as either sick or well; as either sad/depressed or joyful. He seemed unable to grasp that one ca be simultaneously both.
Most of we humans experience acute pain. Some of us experience chronic emotional and/or physical pain. Pain does not have to mean the absence of joy. Paradoxically when we allow ourselves to express the dept of our pain, we also have access to the depth of joy. It is my personal and professional experience that all passion - all strong emotions - reside in the same place in our body. When we block one, we block the other.
I suspect it is our role as teachers, health care professionals, friends, and parents to support others in carrying joy in one hand and grief in the other. As Cory Booker said to Judge Jackson at her confirmation hearings for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, “They cannot take away our joy,”. Senator Booker would be last to discount the traumas of racism and sexism, but he knows, if we are to flourish, we must simultaneously hold fast to our joy.
Written April 14, 2024
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Healer or Jailer
As clergy, health care professionals and teachers our mission is to do all we can to help each other thrive or to use the term some Gallup researchers are now using “flourish” during this life journey. This may mean something different for each of us. Those who have been tortured, abused, and lived through the repeated trauma of war, poverty, chronic illness, or spiritual deprivation need our understanding and unconditional support. They may often be treated as lazy, burdens or nuisances by many of our neighbors who do not understand mental and emotional illness. Many think of mental and emotional illness as weaknesses. Some of us in the teaching or helping professions find it difficult to convey both a respect for the emotional, mental, and physical pain individuals and families share with us and the assurance that one can flourish following emotional, mental, and physical injury or abuse. Too often we may err by conveying the message that one is damaged and an invalid for life. If any of us believe we are damaged or an invalid for life, we may sit down and just exist for the remaining days of our journey. We teachers and helping professionals can err by not conveying empathy for the pain the person has endured or not validating their inner strength. Neither extreme is helpful and will not allow a person to flourish.
I have often sat in the courtroom and listened to a colleague testify that a person has been damaged for life; implying they will be unable to flourish; that they are a permanent invalid. I have often testified that an injured person can heal and have a flourishing life. Healing does not imply that one gets rid of the pain but implies one does not have to allow it to determine the remainder of one’s life.
In my office I have often told people that they can have all the loving support they want, but they will get no pats on the head. I believe all of us are stronger and more resilient than we may, at times, feel or believe. I personally know individuals, families and groups who have survived acute trauma and, without denying the trauma have gone on to flourish. My ex-wife, her parents and her one grandmother escaped a country during WWII, spent many years in a refugee camp and lived to flourish. Another friend of mine was confined to a wheelchair at age 12 and became a highly respected and much-loved psychologist. Friends and colleagues who lived through combat and bore witness to the death of many of their friends went on to heal and to then help others to heal. Some individuals, such as the Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, grew up in the projects with an alcoholic father, a mother who was often at work and a younger brother for whom she was responsible much of the time. Such individuals are resilient, but do become hard/emotionally shut down.
Anyone who has been to a wake, especially for a person who suffered the trauma of racism and other abuse, knows that many of those celebrating the life of the deceased can share both laughter and tears.
In the teachings and helping professions we must learn to walk the often-thin line with individuals and families between empathy and affirming their inner resilience. We must laugh and cry with them. Sometimes the laughter is misinterpreted as denial of the pain. A colleague of mine - a psychiatrist - used to hear clients/patients laughing in my office and decide they were faking the extent of their depression or other symptoms of pain. He fell into the trap of dualities; of seeing people as either sick or well; as either sad/depressed or joyful. He seemed unable to grasp that one ca be simultaneously both.
Most of we humans experience acute pain. Some of us experience chronic emotional and/or physical pain. Pain does not have to mean the absence of joy. Paradoxically when we allow ourselves to express the dept of our pain, we also have access to the depth of joy. It is my personal and professional experience that all passion - all strong emotions - reside in the same place in our body. When we block one, we block the other.
I suspect it is our role as teachers, health care professionals, friends, and parents to support others in carrying joy in one hand and grief in the other. As Cory Booker said to Judge Jackson at her confirmation hearings for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, “They cannot take away our joy,”. Senator Booker would be last to discount the traumas of racism and sexism, but he knows, if we are to flourish, we must simultaneously hold fast to our joy.
Written April 14, 2024
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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