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This month’s edition of “5 great quotes” (plus one terrific picture) gives us some ideas about how to develop a different mindset around the economic woes affecting our nation and us personally. Once again, here are words of wisdom from current and ancient sages:

1. Susan Salisbury Richards

The only difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how we use them.

2. Jamie Paolinetti

Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.

3. Bernadette Roberts

When there is no longer a cyclone, there is no longer an eye.  So the storms, crises and sufferings of life are a way of finding the eye.  When everything is going our way we do not see the eye and feel no need to look for it.  But when everything is going against us, then we find the eye.

4. Theodore Rubin

The problem isn’t that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.

5. Charles C. West

We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn it is God who is shaking them.1

Takeaway points: Shifting our perspectives can help us make it through this difficult, if not harrowing, economic time.

What’s your favorite quote? Do you have suggestions as to how we can be resilient in this economy?

I’ve written about our superpowers previously and I love how we can use them to not only increase our own resiliency, but to help others bounce back as well.

I also love a good, heartwarming-if-not-a-bit-sappy story occasionally and I’ve got a great one for you today. Sometimes it’s the most innocent of us all that have the greatest powers to change others’ lives.

Please watch this short video to be reminded of a very simple truth.

Takeaway points: Love rules.

What are your thoughts about Jackson’s superpower?

Photo by Linds 🙂

Serious illness, along with the physical challenges, can bring out some very strange dynamics in relationships with friends and family. Some people disappear, others hover and become intrusive to meet their own needs to help, while still others worry incessantly about what the “right” thing to do might be.

I’ve always advocated for specificity – from both the helpers and the ill person. Rather than saying, “Let me know what I can do to help,” it’s more effective for friends to offer something concrete: “Do you need groceries? Can I walk the dogs for you?” Or, look the ill person in the eyes and ask, “What do you need right now?”

The same goes for the person who is ill. The more specific she can be with support people, the better for everyone involved. Which leads me to this great example from my friend, Cathy.

Cathy is a recently retired UC Davis professor. An active participant in dog agility sports, Cathy began to feel run-down and achy several months ago. After a myriad of tests and lots of false starts on a diagnosis, the true picture was finally revealed: metastatic non-smoker’s lung cancer. The cancer had spread to her bones – the cause of the aching – and several organs.

After overcoming her initial shock, Cathy has taken up her journey with cancer in a quite remarkable way. More of her story will be told in later posts on this blog. For now, though, I want to share an email she wrote to her friends and family. She demonstrates a perfect way to tell those who love her exactly what she needs. (I have put some of the important points in bold font.)

People have been sharing a number of thoughts with me (thank you!) so I wanted to talk about those things a little in this announcement. One common comment that I get is that each person wants to help, but the rides are taken really quickly, so I’m imagining that people feel like they can’t do much. At the same time, several people have asked whether I want to deal with emails from them. Actually, those two topics dovetail nicely, because staying in touch with me on how you are doing is the best way people can help me now.

The fact is that I don’t need much physical assistance. That’s a good thing, like really good. I’m feeling so much better because of treatment–and I’m tolerating treatment so well, that I am virtually self-sufficient. After this last treatment, my cancer pain is almost completely gone. The last lingering place, the pain from the met in my right shoulder, is fading away, and the rest of the pain that I had been having since March is completely gone. The pain I am treating now is from the chemo, probably the Taxol, which causes joint pain. And as my oncologist tells me, that is all wonderful news. The treatment is working. So, perhaps you can see it from my point of view. Being self-sufficient and living independently as I always have done is an incredibly important part of my healing process. I’d feel so much worse, in other words, if I needed much more of your help with rides, errands, and other chores.

Meanwhile, I love getting emails from people. You might not think that is much help, but it really IS help to hear from you. It helps me tremendously to know that people have me in their thoughts. And I love hearing about what you are doing, what is keeping you busy these days, because I’m still sticking close to home until my chemo is done (mid September). I’m pretty bored with talking about me and how I’m doing :-), although you know you are all welcome to ask any questions that you have. I miss hearing about your dogs, your agility trials, or if you’re on campus, how your research, fieldwork, teaching and so on is coming, or your vacation, etc. Many of you have been sending me those newsy emails, and I want to let you know that you can’t send too many of those. And it’s real help, every bit as much as driving me somewhere or helping me with chores.

So keep those emails coming and know that it’s a great help to me. For the local folks, we can also find times to get together but if you’re busy, know that email works really well for me. Once again, keeping me in your thoughts is incredibly important to my healing. Thank you for all of the help that you have already provided and will in the future.

Can you hear all of Cathy’s supporters breathing a collective sigh of relief? Now they know what to do! My partner, Andrea, exemplified many people’s experience when she wrote back to Cathy and said, “I’m so glad to hear you want e-mails from us! I have been afraid to bug you.”

The key here for both sides – ill person and supporters – is to determine what is needed. This, as Cathy says, is an incredibly important part of the healing process.

Takeaway points: Specificity rules! Hopefully, the person who is sick will be able to say what she needs and what is most helpful in her healing. If it’s a struggle for her, take the lead if you are a friend or family member: ask her what she needs and guide her toward understanding what is most effective in her healing.

What are your thoughts about helping or asking for help?

If you are ill, or a caregiver for someone who is, let’s talk about how you can survive – and even thrive – on this journey. Call me at 650-529-9059 or email me for an appointment.

Agency – from Latin, agere, to do, act.

Some people have “aha” moments and I occasionally have them as well. I have to admit, though, that I had a “duh . . .” moment the other day. Driving home from my office, the radio tuned to NPR (as always), I was listening to Marketplace. Kai Ryssdal was running down the numbers from the stock market which were all over the place that day, the Dow finally ending 600 points below where it began.

My mind started wandering. What is the deal with this economy? This is just like 2008 again. I wish people wouldn’t panic about the stock market, it will settle down. But it makes me anxious about the economy to hear this news. And it must be affecting my clients, too, because some of them have cancelled this week saying they are concerned about money.

Vaguely, I heard Kai say, “Commentator Robert Reich says the problem isn’t just a failure to compromise. It’s that it takes our eye way off the ball.”

I returned to my mental meandering.

What can I say about resiliency now when this sure looks like it’s a double-dip in our recession? Some of my friends’ spouses have lost their jobs . . . what happens if Andrea loses hers? I guess it’s just a matter of taking a breath, accepting what’s going on, and being grateful that we both still have jobs. But I wish there was something I could do . . .

My line of thinking was beginning to make me feel a wisp of panic in my stomach so I brought myself back into the present. Robert Reich was wrapping up his commentary. “We’re slouching toward a double dip because we’re getting the problem wrong. We’re not in a debt crisis. Our current crisis is jobs, wages and growth . . . The only hope now is voters will tell their members of Congress, who are on recess back home, to enact a bold jobs plan to jumpstart the economy.”

Duh . . .

I smirked at myself lightheartedly. Hello? You can do something. It’s as easy as writing to my Congresspeople and Senators. And telling them to do something and do it differently.

I had zeroed in on one of the tools in my resiliency toolkit that is most apt to get rusty: Doing something! My default reaction is to calm myself by breathing, accepting reality, and trying to find the gifts in a crisis or during adversity. Those are all great skills and have helped me immeasurably over the years, but a key component of resiliency is to have a sense of agency, to take action when possible to resolve the crisis.

So, this morning, I emailed both of my Senators and my Congresswoman with my thoughts about the economy and suggestions as to what they should concentrate on to get our country back on track. Will my emails resolve the crisis? Not by themselves, but maybe united with the voices of other citizens they will get the attention of our elected officials.

And, I feel a little more powerful, less like a victim of what’s happening “out there” because I chose to do something “in here,” something within my control.

I hope your sense of agency isn’t as rusty as mine, but if it is, get out there and do something about it!

By the way, if you would like to contact your elected officials, this is a great site to find out who they are and learn how to contact them directly.

Takeaway points: While other resiliency skills such as acceptance, getting social support, and finding the gifts in the moment are terrific and necessary, sometimes it helps to actually become an agent of change and do something.

What are some things that you can do about tough stuff in your life right now?

The 27-year-old young woman had called for an appointment because her father died six months ago. Now she sat across from me, squirming slightly on the comfortable suede sofa in my office. I asked how I could help her. She fidgeted a bit more, looking down at her hands. “What I want to know is . . .” she started off slowly and then rushed into the rest of the question, “Am I grieving right?”

My client’s question was a valid one considering that the prevailing concept of grief continues to be that there are “stages” one must go through in order to grieve in a healthy manner. The seminal work of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in the 1960’s led to the now-familiar “Five stages of grief.” Interestingly, Kübler-Ross’ work was actually with dying patients and the stages were initially used to describe the process that dying people go through, not those who are grieving. Nonetheless, the segue was soon made to the field of grief and the idea that the bereaved should experience Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance – and pretty much in that order – was popularized in our society.

Kübler-Ross’ research opened up important avenues in the field of bereavement, but it soon became apparent that the 5 Stages were not a one-size-fits-all approach. However, her ideas did encourage and implant the idea about “grief work” or the notion that you must experience some kind of grief response after the death of a loved one. If you didn’t, then you were either an unfeeling person or could expect to have some kind of delayed reaction later.

Thus, my client’s question to me, “Am I grieving right?” reflected her concern that something was wrong with her because she wasn’t experiencing grief in the “normal” way. Recent research by Dr. George Bonanno and others has shown that around half of people who lose a loved one will exhibit only mild symptoms of depression and distress while 10-15% of grievers will experience chronic depression.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of individual differences in grief. When my partner died, I was surprised at the extreme depression, pain, and loss of functioning I went through for months and even years. I, like many others, really did need to “do some work” around my grief and the research demonstrates that some of us will experience more intense reactions that may need the assistance of therapy and grief support groups.

My young client, on the other hand, grieved and sobbed intensely for her father the day he died and since then has been subject to only fleeting, wistful moments of longing for him. For awhile, she wondered if she might be suppressing her “real grief” because she doesn’t tend to be a particularly emotional person. As time has passed, however, she is able to see that she has grieved in the way that naturally worked for her and there is nothing wrong with her process.

As we move out of the “stages of grief” and “grief work” era, we can now see that the answer to “Am I grieving right?” is, inevitably, “Yes.”

Takeaway points: It’s very important to realize that grief comes in many, many forms so we need to be careful about thinking there is a “right” way to grieve. Not everyone will need to do “grief work” and display extreme sadness. Others will be very affected by the loss of a loved one and experience symptoms of depression and difficulty functioning. And then there is everything in between. Grief covers the whole gamut of emotions and experiences and we need to move from thinking of how we and others “should” grieve to an acceptance of individual, natural grief processes.

What are your thoughts about how one “should” grieve? Have you ever been in a situation where someone thought you were grieving “wrong”?

If you are having trouble with grief or loss – and we know that’s okay – I’m available to walk through it with you. Give me a call at 650-529-9059 or email me.

A great tool in your resiliency toolbox is that of rest – for the body, mind, and soul. With that in mind, I’m leaving tomorrow for a few days in Washington State’s gorgeous San Juan Islands. There won’t be any posts for this week other than this one, but I’ll be back next week to talk more about the “right” way to experience trauma and loss. Here’s a teaser from my next post:

The 27-year-old young woman had called for an appointment because her father died six months ago. Now she sat across from me, squirming slightly on the comfortable suede sofa in my office. I asked her how I could help her. She fidgeted a bit more, looking down at her hands. “What I want to know is . . .” she started off slowly and then rushed into the rest of the question, “Am I grieving right?”

Stay tuned . . .

Have a restful week!

Terrific photo of the San Juans from English Camp on San Juan Island by Araddon.

As I continue to read about the aftermath of the tragedies in Norway, I can’t help but wonder how people directly affected by the traumas – and all Norwegians – will be able to avoid unwanted emotional fallout from the events.

However, one of the things that is comforting to me is that a growing body of research is finding that people tend to be naturally resilient in the face of loss and trauma. Grief and loss researcher George Bonanno, a professor of psychology at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, writes in his book, The Other Side of Sadness, about the high levels of resilience among people in three extremely traumatic events: the bombing of London in World War II, the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, and the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center towers in 2001.

Surprisingly, the incidence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among New Yorkers following the collapse of the twin towers was quite low and almost non-existent six months later. The people of London, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki during WWII also demonstrated a high amount of resilience.

So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised then, when I read this headline on msnbc.com today: “Oslo bomb victim is back at work after surviving spike through head.” It sounded so crazy I thought it must have originated from a sensational tabloid or something. But no. When I clicked on the link, there she was in living color outside the bombed office building in Oslo, sitting on the ground talking to medical workers with a spike through her head. Somehow, the large wooden splinter had entered Line Nersnaes’ chin, missed her brain and large arteries, and exited through the top of her head.

A little lower on the page was a picture of her looking very calm, a bandage around her head. Her biggest concern? She had been working on a paper that dealt with domestic violence and she was determined to get back to it. The original deadline was August 10^th, but in spite of having no desk or computer, she promises the reader that she’ll have it done before Christmas.

Some will argue that she is still in shock or denial. This may be true or it could just be that Line Nersnaes is one of the many people who has natural resiliency and is calling upon it in this very difficult time.

The bottom line? If you are one of those people who do well in crises or seem to bounce back when others are still floundering, try not to think that you aren’t handling the situation “right.” You are probably just one of the many Line Nersnaes of the world.

And, if you’re like me and have been worrying about the people of Norway, it looks like most of them will be okay in the long run. But let’s still keep them in our thoughts . . .

I’ll explore the idea of “right” reactions to trauma and loss more in my next post.

Takeaway points: Although it has long been held that the “normal” reaction to trauma will include symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, new research is pointing to the fact that, actually, most people are quite resilient in the face of adversity.

Have you ever been more resilient than you thought you would be when something tragic has happened?

Photo courtesy of Beverly & Pack, Flickr Creative Commons

I keep putting off writing this post. I’ve found any number of things to do rather than sit down and write. Why? Because I need to write about the tragedy in Norway.

And I don’t know what to say. Or, more accurately, as I remarked to my friend yesterday, “I’m going to write a blog post about Norway, but what the [expletive deleted] am I supposed to say?”

One man with evil intent kills almost 80 innocent people in the country and city that awards the Nobel Peace Prize. Unthinkably, most of the victims are teenagers. Children at a summer camp.

This kind of devastation has never happened to Norway. Never. Not even in WWII when about the same number of people were injured.

I’m so angry, I could spit blood. I’m so sad, I’ve felt an undercurrent of depression since last Friday. And I’m so shocked, I’ve put off writing about this because there was no way to wrap my mind around it.

How can I talk about resiliency within the magnitude of this tragedy?

Because this is what living resilient lives is all about. It’s not always pretty or romantic or heroic. A lot of times it’s messy and angry and outraged and sad and shocked. This is where you start when something awful happens; you cry and shout and pound your fists. Or you sit quietly, stunned and weeping.

And you keep going.

Two days ago, a memorial service was held at the Oslo Cathedral. The Prime Minister spoke, his voice laden with sorrow. Afterwards, the BBC interviewed one of the chief pastors at the Cathedral. “There is no way out of it,” she said, “but just to go through it.”

Like we did after 9/11, the people of Norway are instinctively practicing resiliency skills they may not have known they had. They are gathering together to comfort each other and remember the lives lost. They are filling the streets carrying white and red roses, hugging each other, talking, and sitting at flower-and-candle-filled memorial sites in stunned silence together, tears rolling down their cheeks.

They are on the first part of the resiliency road. It’s not pretty. Right now, it’s sad.

And they will make it. Together they are finding that the only way out is to go through.

Takeaway points: We often hear the word resiliency and immediately think of something heroic or romantic. Sometimes it’s just not that way. The beginning of the road can be ugly but it is a beginning.

What are your thoughts?