Practicing what I preach... further thoughts

Okay, so my last blog post was Friday and I enjoyed the experiencing of processing my thoughts and feelings and coming to a good conclusion. Apparently, I was resting on my laurels too soon.

Monday morning rolls around and it turns out that my rededication to shoring up my paperwork weakness was short-lived. Despite my best efforts to make sure all my paperwork was up-to-date (I even stayed late on Friday to accomplish it!), I somehow failed to note that my end-of-month billing was due by 8AM on Monday.

Monday+end of month billing+audit+Murphy's Law = bad day. At about 9 am, my phone started ringing. My supervisor... wanting to know when I planned on getting my billing turned in. I had to rearrange my entire morning, drop two clients and reschedule two others, go back to the office and knock out the billing. Fortunately, because all my files were in order because of last week, it didn't take very long. But... you guessed it... because I missed the 8AM deadline, another write up for my HR file.

I found myself feeling and behaving much the same as on Friday, when I was confronted with a similar 'deadline' that I missed. I was a little angry, I found myself doing the justifying self-talk. My supervisor behaved exactly as I expected... just a reminder that my billing was late and that I had another disciplinary sheet to acknowledge when I turned it in. When I interacted with my supervisor, I was short, abrupt and with none of my normal pleasant demeanor. I didn't want to be lectured and I didn't want to be forced to offer up a wimpy excuse for my billing (also, I didn't have one). To be blunt: I was rude.

So, if someone is having a bad day (whether it is of his own making or not)... do they have a right to be ugly to others? Should they be given a pass because of their circumstances?

Looking back on my conclusions Friday, I reaffirm, being responsible for one's own feelings and behaviors is TOUGH. It is harder than I expected even. I felt good about myself that I was able to do it, even if I didn't do it very well. But I think something is missing. Even though I was processing some difficult emotions, even though, I was able to let go of my anger and blame, even though I was a little embarrassed ... I still damaged my relationship with my supervisor by my behavior. I can be completely out of the box toward her (Arbinger language) yet ignoring that I need to repair and reconnect.

It reminds me of the following story: There once was a boy who got angry very easily. Often, when he lost his temper, he would say, shout or scream things that were very hurtful. In an effort to help him learn some skill in regulating his anger, his grandfather, who he loved very much, instructed him to take a hammer and nails and pound a nail in the back fence each time he lost his temper. The first day, the boy went through almost an entire bag of nails. Over time, he learned that it was easier to cool down before reacting than it was to go and get a nail and pound it into the fence and he learned some skill in keeping an even temper. Finally, after a time of demonstrating his emotional skill, his grandfather instructed him to pull a nail out of the fence each day he went without losing his temper. After a while, the boy had removed all the nails he'd pounded into the fence. He told his grandfather about it and took him outside to show him. His grandfather pointed out, "Now, look at the fence. Even though you have removed all the nails, the damage to the fence remains. So it is with our anger. Words spoken in anger, leave scars. They will change your relationships.

Now, I don't believe that is the end of the story for me, but I think it highlights the tendency of most people: Once we've stopped the behavior, we expect that things will just be normal. We fail to follow through with what needs to be done to make things right again. So... the component that I was missing in my conclusions was: Ask myself what I need to do in order to make things right again.

There is a shortage of that line of thinking in this world. Again... I teach this stuff to other people! I should be able to apply it to myself, right? Argh! This relationship stuff is harder than it looks.

Full circle... let's make a spiritual application! God does the hard work of maintaining relationship with us. If ever there is distance between us, it is sure to be of our own doing, as God is constantly working to draw us near to Him. And far from wanting to destroy us, hurt us or punish us, God offers grace, mercy and forgiveness. And more than just putting it in the past, God renews and restores! Revelation 21:5a, "He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!'" What can I do, but follow His example?

-jeff

Practicing what I preach

Okay, full disclosure here... I am a work in progress. I do not feel like I often get to the point that I actually have to use the tools that I advocate in my therapy practice. I would like to think that I am self-aware and practicing enough discipline in my everyday life that I hardly ever get to the point that I enter the blame-game and the justification for anger cycle. But I did this last week. Here's what happened.

The company I work for holds a contract with the State of Texas to provide crisis counseling for at-risk youth and their families. Because it is a state contract, the company is required to undergo an annual audit to make certain that the contract is being carried out. Our audit starts next week. This year, I resolved to recognize that anxiety, like so much other stuff, flows downhill and that I would decline any invitation to be as anxious as the administrators about the audit. I would just keep doing my job the way I do my job and let them worry about whether the i's are dotted and t's are crossed.

The past few weeks, my email inbox has been busting at the seams with emails about meeting our numbers, documenting our work and efforts to meet with Youth and Primary Caregivers. "Best Practice" dictates that we should complete paperwork in a timely manner and with the looming audit, that has meant increased scrutiny on our files. I can be quite honest about my attitude toward paperwork: I hate it. (Therapist Jeff says: Jeff's feelings about paperwork reflect his insecurity with his own efforts. Because he projects self-confidence, his lackadaisical performance in keeping up with his paperwork reflects his fear that people will see him for his true self: lazy and lacking internal motivation concerning small details) Yes, I hate paperwork. I justify my hatred of paperwork with a complex series of arguments about small minded bureaucrats who developed the guidelines for our program without any insight to what the actual job entails. Anyhow, the short story is that I have my own timeframe for getting my paperwork finished that does not always match up with deadlines that I have been given.

I feel that because it has been previously established in supervisory sessions with the people who are in charge of my program, that this should be taken into account when evaluating my efforts. Read: it has caused problems before. Truth is, my supervisors have all been reasonably flexible in allowing me leeway with my paperwork deadlines. However, with the added anxiety and desire to present the best possible filing for the auditors, the grace extended to me regarding my timeliness vanished. And that is what it has always been: grace. Now, understand, I am a good worker. I believe the outcome of my efforts readily reflect that I am a great therapist and gifted clinician. I get my work done, and I do make most of my deadlines, but paperwork and time management continue to be growth areas for me.

I was up at the office late on Thursday making sure all my paperwork was done, all my files were in compliance. I looked over the bevy of emails regarding requests from my supervisor and, confident that I answered them all, I stumbled off to bed to get a few hours sleep before I got up to do it all over again. Friday morning, I attended several meetings and then prepared to go meet with some more of my families, I stopped off at my supervisor's office to show off at how caught up I was on all my paperwork. "What about those extra notes I'd asked about on your closed files? The ones the auditors requested...?" D'OH! I'd somehow overlooked those! Despite the fact I was on my way out the door to a school to meet with a family, I promised I'd get them done immediately.

I rushed back to my desk and banged out the four notes. Now, my files were not incomplete or in bad shape. The notes were simply to assist the auditors and invite them to not scrutinize the file and nit-pick it. It took me about 25 minutes to update the files and I carried them back to my supervisor, feeling good that I was being a team player and done my best to be helpful. My supervisor thanked me for my efforts and then handed me a note to sign. It was a written notice that I'd been given a verbal warning due to not having those extra notes by 11:00 AM. It would go in my HR record. It had been emailed to the program director.

Suddenly, my feelings of helpful pride shifted to seething anger that I was being reprimanded for missing a deadline by an hour and a half. In my mind, my self-talk went something like this: "Why? I know that I missed the deadline, but it was an arbitrary one made up for this occasion... it is not like there were dire consequences... This doesn't have to be done, I'm being singled out for this... It is unfair... It is mean spirited... I would have handled this totally differently if I were the supervisor... this is how you go about ruining morale... I'm being set up to fail..." and on and on in this fashion.

For several long minutes, I stared at the paper, weighing whether to make a big scene about it or suck it up, sign it and let it go. The minutes stretched out and I knew that my silence and inaction were communicating to my supervisor that I was struggling about how to respond. I knew that anything I said would sound defensive and self-justifying. I knew that my supervisor had the technical truth to support the reprimand. I had a choice to make.

Now, I want to point out that this whole thought process took several minutes. I stood there like a idiot while I literally thought all this through and came to my decision point. I surrendered the thought that my supervisor was responsible for my anger. I swallowed the blame I wanted to level and let go of the self-justifying arguments that popped up in my head. I signed the form and left the office.

I decided to not be angry. It was harder than I thought it would be! I kept wanting to step back in my anger box and allow it to dictate the rest of my day. But the more I thought about it, the more I clung to the notion that if I teach others this stuff about being responsible for one's own emotions and behavior, then I better be able to back it up with my own experience.

Was my supervisor wrong to reprimand me? Technically, no. Subjectively? Maybe. It is possible to do the right thing but to go about it in a way that invites defensiveness. Was it within my supervisor's power to let it go and to not document the incident? Yes, but that is not the point. Truth is, by not being more proactive with my own behavior and attitude toward the paperwork, I was inviting my supervisor to see me as lazy with my paperwork. Doing my part to help out with the audit was all well and good, but really has very little to do with my own previous behavior. It is just a handy self-justifying argument I tucked away to allow me to blame someone else for my angry feelings.

My point in posting this is not to gain sympathy or even admiration for my self-analysis. I wanted to point out that handling one's own emotions can be difficult. If I had entered into a blame cycle, who knows where it would have ended up? I can guess at some outcomes: I might have decided that being a team player wasn't worth it if I was going to be treated so badly. I might have started subtly sabotaging efforts to meet our numbers or do things that would put my supervisor in a bad position. I might have subtly started undercutting the management by my own way of being toward the company. I might let bitterness suck the joy out of the job I love.... etc. The end result is that I would also have diminished myself in the process. That is not the person I wish to be, or become.

This experience is another reminder that grace is an amazing gift. I'm thankful that God invites us into His kingdom, where we experience no accusations or blame or guilt, despite our continued deservedness. Over and over, God invites us to be better, accept His perfection and clothe ourselves with it. God's redemption of my broken, sinful heart is not a one-time event, but a continual process whereby I (hopefully) become more like Him each cycle. This time, I hope that I've picked up some pointers about being gracious... not only to myself, but to those that I feel have wronged me (whether they actually have wronged me or not). God is gracious. Thank God.

-jeff

Training exercise

This week should be pretty exciting for me and for my co-workers and for some kids who come from some hurtful backgrounds. I recently accepted a job working for New Horizons, a company which works with families and children who are either at risk for all sorts of legal, physical, and emotional problems or have already experienced them. Specifically, I'll be working as part of the direct care staff at the Audrey Grace House, a residential treatment center for troubled adolescents.

As part of our training, the staff of AGH spent some time at the Ranch, in Goldthwaite, TX, another of New Horizon's facilities. Early in our training, the instructor, Randy Fry, led us in an exercise that was designed to give us some perspective into the lives of the kids we'd be serving. He asked us each to take a sheet of paper and tear it into three smaller pieces. On each slip of paper, we were instructed to jot down a person, place or thing that was important to us, personally. Nobody shared what they wrote down, but we were further instructed to stack them in order of importance. Silently, we each weighed our connection to the person/place/thing on each slip of paper and sorted them accordingly. Then Randy said, "Now that you have listed and sorted the three things that are most important to you, take the third most important thing, crumple it up and throw it away. Imagine that it was ripped from you." We each did as we were instructed, crushing the slip of paper into a wad and tossing it into the middle of the circle of chairs. "Now, you've lost that important thing, but what if your next most valuable thing was also taken away from you? Throw away your next paper." Slowly, we processed the implication of what Randy was saying. Several of us hung on to our papers, the weight of what they represented in our lives holding us back. "Go on, throw them away, " said Randy quietly. When we'd all tossed our crumpled treasures in the middle, he instructed us to do it one final time. "Now, take that thing that is most important to you and throw away too." As each of us considered the person/place/thing we'd written on the slip of paper, the paper became more than a paper, it was a real thing. It represented, for most of us, a spouse, a parent, a child, or a relative. We sat in silence for a few moments. Then Randy said, "This little exercise that we've just done is what happens in reality for most of the kids that come to us. They have had their homes, their families, their treasures all ripped away from them. It is understandable that they are scared, angry, fearful, resentful. Most people have a hard time seeing the kid underneath their acting out behavior."

We spent a while processing what we were feeling during the exercise. For me, I'd had a bit of a dilemma trying to select what three things were most important. I have three children and a wife... those are four things and I only got three slips of paper. On one of the slips of paper, I'd written the name of my son, Ethan. I had decided to let him represent all three of my kids because he has been the child who has, until recently, demanded so much of my attention because of his diabetes. When it came time to crumple up and throw away that slip of paper, I couldn't do it. Intellectually, I knew that it was just a piece of paper and this was just a training exercise. Emotionally, I was experiencing a shadow of the pain and hurt that losing him, losing any of my children, would bring. The thought occurred to me then, in the middle of the exercise, that because of his medical condition, the possibility of losing him was more of a reality than I'd like to admit. All it would take is a lapse in our vigilance with his diabetes and he could be in a coma within a day.

The point of the exercise was to help this group of staff, who will be working directly with hurting kids, develop empathy, an ability to see past their anger and acting out and to love them. It was a good exercise.

Keep the Audrey Grace House in your prayers as we begin a journey with this new facility.

God, be with the staff as you bring these kids into our circle of influence. Give us eyes to see them as you see them. Use us as your arms to comfort them, your hands to guide them and your voice to encourage them to grow and prosper despite their trauma. Be with the kids and help them to be responsive to the love that we have to offer them. So many of them have developed a hardness, a shell meant to protect them from being hurt or disappointed yet again. Bless the work of the treatment center as we help the kids to learn about themselves and learn to function at home, at school. Heal the hurts and let your grace and mercy abound, in their lives and in ours. Shape us into the instruments of your love and mercy, as we have received them from your Son.