Category: #14 – MAY, 2016

Burnout – Jeffrey Johnson

The first 2 times I attempted to write this piece, I couldn’t. Writing about the burnout I had experienced literally brought back the brain fog, the emotionally drained state of mind that dragged my body down with it, the ocean of grief and guilt I was drowning in during the worst months and years of my life.

In late 2011, I was working in a dysfunctional behavior school, separated from many of the teacher-counselors from my previous school who I viewed as family. This included my teaching partner Callahan, who became a brother and best friend through some really great and difficult times. I was feeling out of place, angry, and disrespected by the leadership of the organization for various reasons.

Then, in October, my maternal grandmother suffered a major stroke that paralyzed her on the left side of her body. We’d grown much closer after the passing of my mother in 2009, and all the grief I’d swallowed down so I could function during mom’s death was resurfacing uncontrollably in the ER and eventually the ICU of Hillcrest Hospital, watching with uncertainty while my gentle and loving Gramma was hanging on by a thread. By Thanksgiving, I found myself in a depressed stupor and barely able to talk.

By day I was getting cursed out, roughed up in physical restraints, and generally extremely frustrated by problematic leadership and in the evenings I was watching my grandmother’s body and mind betray her bit by bit. I remember when her dementia started, when she had confused me with my younger brother. I thought this was her usual confusion of my name with my brother’s or my uncle’s name. It wasn’t. She really thought I was Micah and she realized it. “Oh Lord, I’m losing my mind…” It was like another knife in an already gaping emotional wound.

To top it all off, I’d failed at romance once again and descended into a spiral with self medication. Every evening I lived in a cloud until bedtime. I stopped hanging out with most of my friends and wasn’t returning calls. When I did talk to them and they asked how I was doing, I was always “fine man, I’m good.”

I was dealing with grief, trauma, loneliness, financial hardship, and embarrassment that I couldn’t get things to work right. Eventually, I was burned out.

Burnout feels just like it sounds. It’s like your insides are literally charred and smoldering-your brain, your lungs, your heart, your gut. It feels like your whole Self is balled up and buried under layers of confusion and loss.

Eventually I retreated into the computer room as a daily routine. I drank and smoked and escaped into random YouTube videos and whatever else you find on the interweb once the rabbit-hole has sucked you in.

The shame you experience makes it really difficult, because you won’t reach out for help, or talk to someone about how you are feeling, for the most part. It wasn’t until a couple of friends were hearing how bad a time I was having and suggested I take leave from work that I decided to talk to anyone. I had to talk to a counsellor and get assessed in order to request FMLA, which I ended up not needing since I had so much sick-time left to use.

If you see yourself in what I just described, you are burnt out and it is affecting your work and your social life. It is making you hard to live with. It is sucking all the motivation out of you and making you a slave to your problems. It’s causing you to be complacent about your health, your finances, your long term goals and dreams. I’m not blaming you at all. I just want you to be real about how badly this is crushing you. I want you to pull out of the nosedive.

You have probably lost interest in things you used to enjoy. You probably lose patience quicker than you used to. You probably feel like there’s nothing you can do to change work, or home, or whatever other situation there is. You are probably doing a lot of escaping into nostalgia, trying to get a hold of feelings from a bygone time when things were easier (Youtube videos of old Transformers episodes was where I went. My mother used to like to watch that with my brother and I). Escaping is probably making you ignore some very real obligations like paying college loans or doing cleaning around the apartment. You are literally sick right now. You need to get healthy and you need to be proactive and assertive about that.

We work in crisis. We see blood, urine, feaces and phlegm. We get screamed at and threatened, experiencing the vicarious trauma that comes with dealing with traumatized clients and mental health consumers. Our bodies crash into other bodies, bone hitting bone and flesh twisting and skin rubbing off on concrete. We examine the scars we get in the mirror and try to sort out the thoughts and feelings. And we are expected to bounce right back from every episode like we aren’t affected. We see things that we can’t unsee. We often feel like no one could relate to our stories. That is sometimes the case. We have to be aware that it’s easy to martyr ourselves and that being a martyr is not heroic. It’s messing up your access to a life that has a lot of beauty and goodness in it.

It’s making you sloppy on the job as well. People are counting on you to keep them safe, whether they are your colleagues, clients, or the general public. You have to operate within very strict protocols on the job-program rules, state and federal laws,Medicaid billing, etc. If you are getting sloppy you can make a career ending mistake, or a mistake that gets you or someone else hurt or killed. If you find yourself not caring, you need to step away.

You are going to have to do some things you might not normally do or have never done before.

Go camping. Start taking yoga. Paint. Write poetry. Find a support group and talk to other people who know what you are going through. Eat whole foods. GET ENOUGH SLEEP. Take walks often. Go to the art museum. Visit friends and family you don’t often get to see. GET ENOUGH SLEEP. Drink more water. Go hear a live band. If you are religious at all, find a good house of worship with a good community. GET ENOUGH SLEEP.

I bet everything I suggested is stuff you already know to do.

When you are burnt out you get stubborn. You’re stubborn because you feel like that will protect you. You are in survival mode, and survival mode is only good for dealing with imminent danger. You do anything that confirms the world view that nothing can change, that all is basically lost. It’s basically emotional self-harm. You make statements and engage in behaviors that perpetuate the burnout. You know you are doing it, too. You have to interrupt it. You have to do something new. It will be uncomfortable at first, mainly because you are challenging your own personal reality, the story you tell yourself about who you are and what the world is like. You are confronting all the terrible things you tell yourself because of the terrible things you have endured.

Don’t self-medicate as a long-term strategy, it doesn’t work. Don’t rely on a new lover to rescue you from your thoughts and feelings, you’ll be sorely disappointed if they let you down. Also, if you attract someone in that state, you are probably attracting someone going through the same stuff. That’s a lot of unhealthy stuff in a relationship. Don’t stay up til 3am every night. The lack of sleep is making you more depressed, and it’s messing with your metabolism. Don’t isolate yourself. Don’t stick it out at a job if you don’t have to. Don’t stay indoors all-day, everyday. Don’t ignore it when your friends and family tell you they are worried about you. Don’t avoid sunshine and fresh air.

Again-you know all of this. You have to get proactive. You have to make the changes.

I don’t self-medicate at all any more. I workout every other day. I am stretching my hands into as many spaces for training in and teaching martial arts and self defense as I can so I can do what I love and earn cash in the process. I am staying close to people with high energy and lots of ambition. I’m not trying to press religion on anyone, but for me that helps to order my existence and have something firm to stand on when everything else feels like it’s going haywire (it usually just feels that way). I get outside when the sun is shining as much as I can. I take B Complex vitamins and Omega 3 supplements. I drink lots of water. I get lots of rest. I hang out with friends who keep encouraging me to be my best self. Otherwise that burnout from 5 years ago will creep back into my consciousness again, wreaking havoc on my internal process and progress. Life is not perfect, but I’m more clear headed about what I can do to make the best of what I have. I feel the bad stuff resurfacing every few days, but I’m a lot better at pushing past it to do something-anything-productive and healthy.

You know this stuff. And if you didn’t know, I hope this gives you some ideas so that you can manage your burnout and rise above it.

What I experienced cost me relationships, shot holes in personal goals, and left me feeling like a loser. If this is where you are, you have power to change it. It may take a gargantuan effort. It may take a longer time than you planned. It may guide you in completely different directions than you planned. That’s fine. Be open to the process. It’s ok to have weaknesses. It’s ok to fail. It’s not ok to quit on yourself. Burnout convinces you it’s over, or close to over. But you still have power. Use it.

ARE YOU THE WEAK LINK? – Mark Hatmaker

 

 First, let’s set the stage. The following quote is an extract from Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex by First-Mate Owen Chase. In 1820 Chase was aboard the ill-fated ship that was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale (the basis for the fictional account Moby-Dick by Melville.) The survivors spent 95 days at sea in harrowing conditions and ultimately cannibalism was relied upon to survive.

I offer the below extract and the commentary to follow for a very specific purpose.

“I found it on this occasion true, that misery does indeed love company; unaided, and unencouraged by each other, there were with us many whose weak minds, I am confident, would have sunk under the dismal retrospections of the past catastrophe, and who did not possess either sense or firmness enough to contemplate our approaching destiny, without the cheering of some more determined countenance than their own.”

First, note there is no bitterness or burden detected in that honest observation by Mr. Chase. Just a stark relation of fact-some people rely upon others to get them through the very same circumstances all are currently facing.

Those among us who have this “determined countenance” are the heroes of the world, they have the grit and determination to do what must be done, when it must be done, and often they must do so with the, and let’s call a spade a spade here, they must do it with the additional burden of taking up fellow victim’s slack.

They must do their job, pull their weight, and perhaps that of others all the while playing a bit of cheerleader for those less adapted/willing/prepared to step up.

Lest anyone think I am being too harsh here, keep in mind Mr. Chase and everyone else are all in the same boat-literally. At this point in time all are equals in adversity but there is some tangible difference indeed.

Now, it just may be that possession of a “determined countenance” is an inborn quality that we may simply have or have not in varying degrees, but I do not think this is the case.

Training and acclimatization seem to shape the human being in so many fields of endeavor I fail to see how we cannot expect that we can grow and expand our own capacities for a “determined countenance.”

Our bodies respond to exercise, our minds respond to education, our spirits respond to edification-perhaps our resolve, our survival prospects can and do also respond to training.

It is important to note that I am not referring to survival adeptness in regard to survival knowledge in the “prepper” sense. While such knowledge can be a plus, we have enough accounts of those with an excess of such knowledge folding when it hits the fan to assume that simply “tactical smarts” is the key. We also have exceedingly numerous accounts of men, women, and children with little to zero hands-on survival training who somehow do just that, survive and in retrospect thrive.

So, yes, survival know-how is a net-positive but it seems to not be the key. Any cursory view of reality shows such as Naked and Afraid highlights this fact that, while all have survival abilities to some degree, the can-do, cheerful, “let’s do this together” individuals do far better than the dour loners or complainers.

Once IT hits the fan, whether that IT be an avenging sperm whale, a catastrophic terrorist attack, or a mild fender-bender we stand in better stead if we are surrounded by proactive calm can-do people who know how to work as a team and take up slack. Nothing (NOTHING) is made easier by adding any additional burden onto an already stressful event-whether that burden be lack of effort, lack of spirit, lack of grit, or simply whining about a situation all are equally steeped in.

So, how do we know whether or not we are this weak link?

My guess is, take a look at your day to day behaviour. Do you regularly lament traffic? Grouse about how someone said something in a tone you didn’t like? Do you expound aloud the following “You know how I get when I get hungry?”

More often than not it is the small things that reveal us. Our trivial behaviour is often our character writ large under stress. Consider this, if we are pernickety and peevish when it gets a little humid out, imagine how we would be on day 88 of ocean survival in an open boat without food.

With this Small Behaviour = Large Behaviour equation in mind, we can take steps to correct if correction is needed or desired. By regularly monitoring our words, our texts, our posts, all of our communication and weeding it of the small peevishness that afflicts us all. My complaint of traffic means absolutely nothing to another person on the face of the planet. All I’ve done is add trivial noise to another’s day. If the stakes were raised and we are in an open boat surviving on a diet of turtle’s blood and facing the prospect of consuming deceased boat-mates, my trivial noise that must be counter-acted by another in equally dire straits is a disservice to the nth degree. In these circumstances my trivia becomes a net drag on the prospects for the entire crew.

With this said, to all of us with a mindset for grit, determination, and survival, let us learn from First Mate Chase’s grueling lesson and begin training ourselves to have this oh, so valuable “determined countenance.”

 

 

 

DISENGAGE THE ATTACK, PT I – Teja Van Wicklen

“Decide to be your own bodyguard.”
~ Lori Harman Gervasi, from her book Fight Like A Girl and Win

Since we can’t count on the cavalry riding in or on our attacker’s ineptitude for our survival, we need a plan, preferably one that is tailored to us. The only way to do this, is to learn what options we have for stopping a person or people who are willing to cheat, and who probably outclass us in strength and fight experience, and piece together our own best strategy. But the plan begins with how well we know ourselves, our situation and our reactions.

I write for regular people and families, so what follows is not for martial arts competitions or face-to-face encounters, necessarily. It is a break down of what average people might want to know about physical fights, including the mental aspects.

At least some of what I am about to lay out here should be common information for most people of a certain age. The fact that it isn’t, is a testament to how cut off we have become from our own ability to protect ourselves from bodily harm. Girls most of all should grow up knowing some of this stuff. Most boys know how to throw, and run by the age of eight. By ten many have a basic understanding of fighting. Young human children, like other predators, play-fight constantly, or, at least, they want to. Games like dodge ball, red-rover and tag are meant to exercise and exorcise the primordial need children have to explore their physical world and test the boundaries of their own strengths. These days animals are more likely to need those skills than we are most of the time, but contact and physicality are still necessary and healthy. They teach appropriate distance and contact, boundary setting and consequences much better than stern faces and finger pointing ever can.

“Social Animals build bonds by playing together,
testing their strengths and limits, and in doing so, they learn trust.”
~ from the TV Show, Nature: Odd Couples

One of the best ways for kids to learn about physical self protection is through their parents. That means we need to learn about it so we can direct our kids towards a healthy and realistic approach to the physical exploration of violence, danger and safety. I am not by any means encouraging you to share all the information in this multi-part article with your kids. But if you have a big-picture view, it follows that you will make a better guide.

Some amount of play fighting as kids or martial arts and self defense training as adults is crucial and empowering. Preparing for life-threatening emergencies wakes up a part of our brain we rarely use, sharpens thought processes and prepares us for all manners of adversity. The thing about violence is, it is somehow a microcosm for everything we do. It is so much a part of our world that understanding it slows time and allows us to see things we didn’t know were there. A person who understands violence is at liberty to strategize and make bold choices in life. Exploring these landscapes will help make you more effective in any situation that requires you to make split second decisions with lasting ramifications.

So here you are. Someone you may or may not know has targeted you. Or, more precisely, he (remember that he can mean she or the dreaded they) came up with a plan to do something or get something (Intent); he then tested you to see if you would make it easy or hard (Interview); he invited you to a party, waited for you outside your office or lured you to his car (Position); now you’re at ground zero and the Attack is imminent. Let’s make the stakes high – severe bodily harm or death. We want to make an impression on our brain so this information sticks.

Here are some ideas that have been percolating for a while:

The Grand Dilemma

You may very well have to use deadly force to get away from an attack due to strength, leverage and weight discrepancies between you and your attacker or attackers. You are certainly going to have to use every ounce of smarts you are in possession of. And just to make it worse, your maximum force and smarts may not even be enough. He may not be bigger or stronger – he may be a she – but she may have a weapon, be in the throws of a psychotic break or drug induced euphoria, or all of the above. Each set of circumstances is different. There is no one size fits all solution to self defense no matter what anyone tells you. A kick will not always work, neither will pepper spray.

To complicate things further, there are things you can only do legally under threat of death or severe injury, but if you wait to find out what his plan is it can easily be too late. To do or not to do. To kill or maim or to die. These are the decisions we, in a civilized society have to juggle. This is the grand dilemma–what you have to do to survive versus what is legal. To add insult to injury you will probably have a miniscule amount of time to make an educated decision that impacts the rest of your life.

The more information you have and the more decisions you have made ahead of time, the better your position will when you have no time to think. At least, in theory based on books and accounts by people who have been through some serious shit.

Willing and Able

Someone has chosen to hurt you because you are at a disadvantage. You are smaller, weaker, distracted, too nice, have a baby with you, are wearing clothing or shoes you can’t move in. He is, in short, fighting very dirty. He is picking you because he knows he can beat you. Whether or not he turns out to be right may well depend on just how dirty you are WILLING to fight and just how dirty you are ABLE to fight.

Check in with yourself about the following three points:

What do you have to live for? Who do you have to live for? How important are you to yourself and to others? Are you important enough to yourself? And the similar question: If you were in a life or death situation, what could you think of that would give you the strength to do the impossible? A person. A goal. Something else.

What specific lengths would you be willing to go to to survive? Could you kill someone if they were willing to kill you and you knew it in your soul? Could you damage someone irreparably? Poke out an eye? Would you sacrifice a limb to save your child? To what lengths do you think you are willing to go to survive?

Fighting, contrary to Hollywood movies, is very messy stuff. There are bodily fluids, gore and overwhelming emotions that weigh you down and clog your head with black goo. When we see our own blood, or any blood, we freeze in fear, afraid to do anything in case the next thing might be even worse.

It’s alright not to be sure. There isn’t even any data on whether exploring the ugly stuff will really help you in the event of an emergency. But there is a lot of conjecture by military and law enforcement experts that it helps greatly to have some understanding of these preliminary issues to avoid freezing and doing nothing in the event of a catastrophic emergency. And doing nothing in an emergency situation is almost always universally considered the worst thing to do.

If you ever have to make a life or death decision regarding yourself or someone you love, give yourself permission to do whatever you need to do to survive. Make your peace with it now so you don’t stop and question yourself when every second counts.

You may or may not be capable of brutality, but you may need to consider it and give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to protect yourself and your children. Fighting for them means fighting for yourself even when they aren’t with you. You need to give it everything you’ve got unless you want them to have to endure a knock on the door by the police at 3AM to tell them Mommy isn’t coming home tonight, in fact she’s never coming home again. Unless you want your husband or mother, or grown kids to have to identify your body, you’re going to need to fight with everything you have, and not give up, no matter how much blood you see. Besides, the blood might be his.

If you look to the animal kingdom you will find plenty of instances of tiny animals scaring away or fighting off larger predators with Attitude and Determination. These are two things you will need in spades. The more of it you have, the more the other guy’s resolve will falter. And you want him busy second-guessing his choice, because it will help take the wind out of his sails, turn the tables and give you the upper hand. You may need a trigger for this. Think about it now. Your trigger may be the thought of your kids and this guy daring to try and take you away from them. It may be the pure rage of absolute indignation and incredulity. It could be hearing the music from Rocky in your head. It’s all good.

Kathy Jackson teaches women to understand and handle guns. Kathy has six children. She knows that we often protect others with more ferocity than we protect ourselves and she begins her workshops by making eye contact with each woman individually and telling her directly and in no uncertain terms, “You do not need permission from anyone else. You do not have to have someone else to protect or stay alive for. Your life is worth protecting with everything you’ve got. Your life is worth protecting. Period” She makes eye contact with each woman individually and repeats this mantra, because she knows women need to embody it.