Binding Broken Hearts is the title of my latest project. I feel this is more than a way to divert my attention when I don't want to clean house - it is a way I can turn some of my challenges into a blessing. Last Sunday I was doing a little topic search in the Bible to see what it had to say about broken hearts and this is what I found:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty unto the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. (Isaiah 61:1)
Here is another version, from Luke 4:18:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
I normally think of the miracles of Christ as related to miraculous healing from physical wounds and defects. These verses, particularly the one from Luke which was used by Jesus to announce the his mission among those who knew him in Nazareth, speak more of spiritual wounds and broken hearts than they do of broken bodies. As I think about my own desire to heal unseen wounds, does that mean this calling is directed through the Spirit of God?
Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men. Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind, and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day. Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work; For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul; And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work. Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence. Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen (Doctrine & Covenants, section 4)
Here are some other verses that speak to the need for what I am trying to do:
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. (Psalm 34:18
Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. (Psalm 69:20)
He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)
...by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken. (Proverbs 15:13)
Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives and lost the confidence of your children...many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds. (Jacob 2:35)
The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. (Proverbs 27:7)
These verses help give me purpose in my work. I feel that I am being led to make a difference to people who really are feeling the dark side of life.
Even after outlining the workshop, I continue to find new sources that help me understand this difficult process of healing from emotional wounds. This week I have been reading "The Body Keeps Score" by Bessel Van der Kolk. This is an amazing book that outlines what psychologists have learned about helping their clients to overcome the effects of trauma in their lives. I love the stories that are told through compassion, and the practical tools that are making a difference in helping people move beyond the darkness that has kept them trapped, cut off from real loving relationships with others. As I was nearing the end of this book, I started looking over my notes for the second part of the workshop, related to emotional development. I started feeling that I needed to have more information about the role of the heart in our relationships and healing. I really feel the heart has solutions that are beyond what the mind can offer. Since I feel strongly that my project does not originate with me, and is meant to bless others, I expect that my hunches and additional lines of inquiry really will continue to open new avenues. I have a few book ordered that will teach me more about what the heart has to offer in the healing of trauma. I can't wait to get back to work this coming week!
This week's chapter from the "Resolved" book was about Financial Management. I agree this is something important to work on, and I will mention that I have been tracking my daily spending to be used as the basis for an updated budget. However, my focus this week was on completely different things.
As I mentioned last week, I feel that friendship is something that I could improve at. As it happened, I had an opportunity to put a friendship through the test a couple days ago. Toward the end of a normal phone conversation with a friend, I mentioned some thoughts and questions I had about the goals of one of her family members. I questioned whether she and her husband were taking realistic steps to see that one of their children was prepared to meet those goals. Normally, my position is to let people run their families however they are inspired without comment, but in this case, I felt prompted to initiate the discussion. By the end, she was crying, and although I still felt like I needed to do what I had, I didn't know how she felt about the conversation. The next day I had a text from her that didn't make any sense, and the reply seemed a little terse to me. Within half an hour I called just to see if I owed an apology for anything and to resolve whatever might have been happening related to the strange text.(Remember, I am someone who used to run from the hint of any confrontation. My old self would have ignored any further engagement until I had some sign from her that things were okay or not.) The great thing is that she reassured me that we were still on good terms and she was just confused because I was referring to a text she hadn't sent anyone that morning. This story may seem like nothing important, however to me it represents growth and confidence I have gained.
As for my main goal, this week I finished a rough draft of my 8-part workshop. It is currently in a Powerpoint type format, and I hope to have the first part recorded with the slides and a voice-over to send to people for review and comments. Working toward this goal has pushed me out of my comfort zone, but the real challenge comes when I let my work be available for critique. I feel like I have always been oversensitive to criticism, but perhaps, it will turn out as well as the situation with my friend did. I also found a free presentation program that will take the project to a new level. Unfortunately, I have to learn how to use it from scratch. I think that stage will come after I have had all the parts of the workshop reviewed. Hopefully some time this summer.
If anyone reading this wants to be on the review committee (someone I send the rough draft presentations to), please let me know. The purpose of this project is to educate interested people in a non-shaming, non-blaming perspective on addiction and trauma. My initial interest was addiction based, but the information will be relevant to a much broader audience, including an understanding of how to develop the skills and resources that help people bounce back after adversity of many kinds.
I really enjoyed the topic of friendship this week. Some people seem blessed with networks of supportive people they can lean on and laugh with. I've never found people to be that safe for me. Here are the eight points related to true friendship in this week's chapter of "Resolved":
1. True friends form around a shared insight, interest, or taste, enjoying the common bond uniting them. I had never really thought about friendship being based on certain common ties. I have difficulty opening up to people I don't really know, and my habits and hobbies are often solitary pursuits. I wonder if that is a chicken-egg situation?
2. True friends accept one another, loving each other despite their human imperfections. I guess this is another area made more difficult by introversion. When I am afraid to put my true thoughts or self on display, how can I feel accepted?
3. True friends approve of one another, protecting each other's weaknesses while enhancing each other's strengths.
4. True friends appreciate one another, encouraging, serving, and believing in one another's gifts and talents.
5. True friends listen with empathy, learning the hopes, dreams, fears, and struggles of each other. What a gift that would be. I am trying to be a better listener, but I still have work to do in this area.
6. True friends celebrate one another's success, proud of each other's accomplishments without a hint of envy. I think I do enjoy hearing others' success stories without envy. The celebration comes with more difficulty for me. I'm just not good at celebrating. There always seems to be another responsibility riding the tail of success.
7. True friends are trustworthy, maintaining all confidences shared with unimpeachable honor and self-respect, knowing that gossip separates the best of friends. This week in my trauma homework, I have been reading about the need of a support network. Even professional counselors need a safe person to talk to when things start to get overwhelming. The less safe we feel, the more stress we carry and it takes a toll on our health and ability to continue. Maybe fewer people would need professional counseling if they had real friends.
8. True friends are loyal, respecting and defending one another's character, reputation, and motives, as far as truth allows, while addressing any issues or concerns between them promptly and privately, ensuring misunderstandings never fester. I would have to say that for individuals to be honest about their concerns and not worry that speaking truthfully would damage the relationship, they must be true friends. Because it takes a true friend to believe that painful words can be said with love and also that sometimes we bring up difficult conversations out of concern, not condemnation.
These ideas aren't earth-shattering, but it has been worthwhile for me to think about what beliefs I have that keep me from seeking and maintaining more true friendships. I have found that many relationships are formed of convenience and are quickly lost when situations change. I do like the first point made because it rings true with my experience. Those people who I feel share an understanding or appreciation of some aspect of my life feel safer for me to open up around. It is not until I open up and am still accepted and even appreciated that I feel a friendship has been started. The more obscure or even painful the shared experience is, the deeper that bond reaches because I know I am understood on a level that is based on my true self, not the image I show the world.
On another note, I am excited to report progress on my family life class outline. Right now I have 8 units planned, covering Addiction, Emotional Development, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Trauma, Resilience, Secondary Trauma, Post-traumatic Growth, and resources for help. I have had the opportunity to share some of this with several people I care about who are working through difficult situations and it seems to be helping them. I don't know whether my thoughts are unique in addressing the risk and protective factors associated with addictions, but it is a good summary of what I have learned and I am excited to put the information in a format that others can easily access.
I wonder what the "Resolved" book would have turned into if it had been written by a woman instead of a man. The examples in the book seem to be pulled from business and sports, and there is no getting around "Scoreboard" as a chapter title almost turned me off on reading the chapter. However, it wasn't as bad as I feared. The scoreboard referred to is simply a way of defining whether you are on track with your goal, and getting feedback so that you can continually improve. (Whew! I was not willing to resolve to be more competitive in my work or relationships.)
For anyone who is still keeping track of my progress, This week I have spent very little time reading Life Leadership related books or listening to CDs. Instead, I have outlined an 8-part workshop on Addiction and Trauma (which is making considerable progress toward my goal). I suppose that is putting the scoreboard into action. In the long run, it doesn't really matter whether or not I read and listen to anything that has been assigned if I don't actually meet the goal of designing a program to teach as a class. In the process of acting, I have really been inspired in my research as I started to write ideas. I have a vision of making the info into a format that transitions well to online learning. This is part of the growth process of having a vision and working toward goals. In the process we also grow and learn new skills.
The other application of "scorecard" has to do with making sure that I have clearly defined goals for my program and a way to evaluate whether the goals are being met. I have had a lot of data in my head, and I enjoyed writing it into a structure, but until I tried to define clearly what I hoped to accomplish, I had no way to know whether the interesting data was relevant to my purpose of helping others. For anyone who has read this far, I apologize for the boring prose. These blogs aren't my preferred writing style, but they do serve the objective of getting me to write again and be accountable for the 90-day challenge I initiated.
Here is the good stuff:
Program title: "Binding Broken Hearts and Minds"
Description of the problem: "Despite widespread addictions in our society, there is little public awareness of underlying risks or protective factors related to addiction.
The goal of "Binding Broken Hearts" is to reduce stress and anxiety within families dealing with addiction through increased understanding of the nature and roots of addiction and skills to increase emotional resilience.
Program Goals:
1. Participants will be able to distinguish between addictions and bad habits.
2. Participants will understand the role of secure attachments on emotional development and self-regulation.
3. Participants will be able to describe types of trauma and how trauma may lead to addiction.
4. Participants will identify 5 resiliency factors that reduce susceptibility to addiction, including 3 that can be learned or acquired as adults.
I am excited to see this project move forward. Whatever my excuses about 90 day challenge might involve, I am grateful to see the results that have come from focused attention to a worthwhile goal.
Okay, for anyone who has been following this 90-day process, I've been slacking off. At least as far as the listen to two CDs daily. I have actually been watching a variety of videos each day (kind of a YouTube conference). The topics have been related more to a variety of services that people offer to help (me or someone else) get on track to have a better life,related to fitness, forgiveness, fun, etc. Most of these sounded interesting enough when I signed up, but have done very little to help me focus on achieving my Family Life Educator goal. This is partly why I haven't been reporting progress daily - by the time I've watched an hour of some workshop, I don't have enough time to listen to CDs also. (Excuses are done.)
Back on topic, this week is called "Plan and Do". My understanding of how this differs from vision is that vision is the idea of wanting to accomplish something. However, dreaming is not enough. In order to get better at anything, you have to start taking steps. The "plan" part is to decide to act in a way that will stretch you. If it takes 10,000 hours of work before becoming an expert, those 10,000 hours cannot just be a repetition of the same thing over and over. Our abilities only improve when we are willing to try new things, discover what needs improvement, and try again.
My hours of watching videos might relate to this process. One of the possibilities I have for teaching family life skills is to create workshops on specific topics of interest to present either live or on camera. Through watching a dozen different presenters over the last two weeks, I have thought about the need to outline content clearly, to decide whether or not to use visual aids (like a white board), what types of outfits and backgrounds aid or distract from the message, and whether recording a live lecture brings more interest than someone recording for just the camera. In order to move this research into practice, I need to act on what I have observed and try it myself.
"Plan and Do" includes the assumption that not all efforts will be successful. If I am truly inspired in my effort to teach, I have to be willing to try things that are out of my comfort zone, and be willing to make mistakes. (That's the part that makes me nervous.)
I hope by next week I can report something that I have done. Let's say...I will make an outline of my subject matter. Its time to start progressing on my "work in progress".
