Tag: #emotionalheatlh

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Entering the Loop

Some people say, there is no point to systemic advocacy, nothing ever gets better.

A: Do nothing and it could get a whole lot worse. Sometimes just holding the line is making significant progress.

We are entering the loop.

We are going to be all flipped upside down and spin around and we’ll be lucky if we end up where we started, at the end of all of this. But as you will notice the line keeps moving up and keeps advancing.

Loops are inevitable.

Pedulum swings are also inevitable. They are part of how system works. We expect them and know they are coming. And when we get through this one, in the future…there will be more loops. Society has been through many loops. They have been part of our progress.

Sometimes the pendulum swings and it shows people how devastating and wrong they were. History is marked by hard learned lessons. Humanities slip is showing. When resources are tight, the dark side seeps out. More of it.

So, here we are.

These are the cards we have been delt. The only question now is, what are we going to do with it? How do we take this and build what we have been seeking. A tighter community? New court decisions?

If we want to help people, we are going to need to figure out how to turn this shit into fertilizer.

I often reflect on nature when I am trying to mentally or emotionally sort things out. Nature is brutal and intelligent. I have been trying to process our shift in provincial government power.

Elephants know the water is okay to drink because the hippos are in it. Hippos fight in the water. They shit in it. When they fight and swim around they stir everything up in the water. The elephants know that the water isn’t toxic from bacteria of stagnate water. The ecosystem is active, processing it’s environment.

Movement = health.

Things are moving! Time to have a spa mud bath in the swirling hippo manure and get to work.

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Courage

Advocacy means stepping into the unknown and taking a risk.

It is dancing along the lines of your comfort zone. Never knowing how people will respond to you, until they do.

Sometimes you need to be fearless. Focus on the process and let go of the outcomes. Whatever will be will be. But the point is to be doing it. Pushing the line ever so slowly. Planting the seeds for the years to come. Standing up and making a statement when necessary. Magic does happen.

You also need thick skin.

Know that everyone out there isn’t going to like you or understand you. They will judge you and talk about you behind your back. If you are going to be out there in the public eye, this unfortunately comes with the package. To a point. Nowadays…my goodness. It seems to have gotten out of control.

Not everyone is comfortable putting themselves out there. It is a place of vulnerability and unpredictability.

There have been a lot of people who have been so passionate about improving public education that they have pushed themselves into territory they wouldn’t choose on their own. It’s easier to be a bystander, casting judgment from the bleachers. Sitting safely in the unidentifiable area. Much more difficult to be the person in the ring, under the spotlight. When the dream system is so far from today’s reality, those in the ring will never be considered to be doing enough.

I hope all of the people who have been campaigning for the municipal elections are proud of their courage. I wish you all the time you need to decompress and refill your cups.

What I absolutely love is all the engagement that I have been a witness to. I have always wished that more people would attend board meetings, and I hope there is a deeper interest moving forward.

There was a student in my geography class who sat beside me in high school. He was the most vocal anti-religious person I knew. He also knew the bible inside and out and quoted it like every word was ingrained in his head. I wondered if he had a photographic memory. I remember commenting to him something about how interested I was that he knew the bible so well and yet disagreed with it so passionately. He said his father told him that you can’t disagree with something that you don’t know anything about.

If we want to disagree with the systems, we need to figure out how they really work.

To all of the people who took the risk and put themselves out there running for the municipal elections, my hat’s off to you. If you didn’t make it in, I hope this experience has made you a better version of yourself.

Not everyone is suited for a role in politics, and we don’t need to be. We can cover our own zone.

So for now, a day after the elections, I hope you are all resting and optimistic for the next 4 years.

Risk
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To explore feelings is to risk exposing our true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd is to risk loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try at all is to risk failure.
But to risk we must,
Because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing
– _____________

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What is “doing” healing?

I have talked about my healing process from coming out of the K-12 education system with my kids, who are ND and have invisible disabilities, on my other website P.A.T.H. I have titled these two blogs Life After K-12 and Life After K-12 – 6 months later.

In these blogs, I talk about “doing” healing. It’s an activity. An action. Healing doesn’t just happen over time. It’s something you have to be determined to do, face and work at it.

So what did I do? And what do I do to maintain myself in systemic work?

These are all going to sound small and insignificant, but it’s the consistency and doing these things whether you are in the mood or not. A lot of these items are a privilege to be able to do and access. It’s not an all-or-nothing; this is a prescriptive list that you need to all of it or don’t even bother. Little bits of everything consistently over time will build. Whatever speaks to you.

  • Be out in nature. It’s grounding, and the science behind our contact with nature and our mental health is solid. It will encourage reflection and feelings of peace.
  • Counselling. I am lucky that I get free counselling due to the nature of my work. I take full advantage of access to that and appreciate my counsellor very much.
  • Regulate my nervous system. Look up box breathing, meditation with guided YouTube videos, tapping, butterfly taps, stretching & movement, massage/touch/physical closeness to another person, and exercise. Research nervous system regulation activities. Intense emotions come up; launch into nervous system regulation activities immediately. Movement allows the emotion to flow through you. Emotions are like weather. We name it to tame it and watch them pass by.
  • Write and journal. Everyday. Get it out of you.
  • Gratitude List. As part of my journaling, I write things that I am grateful for. I particularly look for the little things I am grateful for amongst the challenging situation I was in.
  • Read. I read books about healing. Poems. Read about human resiliency and bibliographies.
  • Learn. I have been learning a lot about neuroplasticity and how malleable our brains are. How much influence we have in deciding to change our brains.
  • Be selective about your social media. There are some very helpful people offering great information on our brains and psychological health. I recommend the Pocket Psychologist.
  • Rest. I don’t overschedule myself. I need a lot of down time/alone time. I make sure I get it. Having healthy sleep hygiene. As I was healing, I noticed I was getting a lot more energy, and I was sleeping better at night.
  • Processing with a friend who gets it. I have friends who totally get this world and understand healing.
  • Mentor. Find people who are optimistic and who know or have skills that you would like to learn from.
  • Activity. Find an outlet. Helping people can be incredibly healing. Action. Either volunteer in the area that created the challenge to create change, or create your own volunteer activity.
  • Naturalpath. I started seeing a naturopathic doctor to optimize my physical health.

Apply. Rinse. Repeat.

This is what has worked for me.

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Planting Seeds

ID: Black and white image of a fluffy dandelion with some of the seeds flying into the air

Systemic Advocacy is all about planting seeds.

This is my visual when I think of what I am trying to do. I put something out there, wish it well, and off my seeds go.

Where they land and if they germinate into something else, I will never know the full extent.

We get meaningful feedback that recharges our batteries from time to time. But we will never have every single person write us an impact statement. The good or the bad. If you are experienced in systemic advocacy, you are well aware that you often wonder what kind of an impact you are making.

There are a lot of things that people do that no one is aware of. You don’t always have a witness to your important conversations, your insights and next steps, the pivots, allllll of the ka-billion little puzzle pieces that you assemble with people spread out.

I know a lot of people who do systemic advocacy, and they all have their hands in numerous little pots. They have all of these connections, and they have access to these pots because of the years of doing this work. They have built up this web of connections over time. The building of relationships expands your access. You get invited in more often; you get voted in. Through relationships, people listen to you. You get to listen to other people. They feel safe with you, so they open up and talk.

I am in a parents’ Facebook group, and I will always remember the night I went and posted that I was taking my human rights complaint to a hearing. I had mixed responses. Some people cheered me on. Others tried to discourage me. (I think it was well-intended, and they wanted to save me the impending discomfort.) But I will always remember this one person’s comment. They gave me this quote:

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” – Dalai Lama from an African proverb.

The next morning I set my alarm for 6 am to start working on hearing preparation. I had a mosquito that sat on my screen for an hour. Buzzing around and then landing somewhere else on my screen. That quote helped carry me through. Just be the mosquito, Kim, you can keep buzzing.

Facebook post: May 20, 2121 "So It's 5:35am. I was sent the disclosure document letter from the Human Rights Tribunal last night at 8:25 pm. (I didn't know they send emails that late, but apparently they do). So, I am up early getting to work. I actually naturally woke up at 4:15 am. When I feel nauseous about all of this I remind myself, to be the mostquito. Keep going...be the mosquito. "If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito. - Dalai Lama" Guess who decided to join me for my work this morning...it's been walking/flying around the computer screen for over an hour now. ID: Picture ofa mosquito on a computer screen.

Thank you to all of the people who have blown their seeds into the wind, never really knowing the impact. The mosquito seed from a parent cheering me on was 5 years ago. Do they know what this has all blossomed into?

My university professor that encouraged me to not drop out. She has no idea what I am up to now.

Grateful for all of the people who have shared their seeds with me, and I hope to pass along my own, knowing full well I have no idea where they are going and to the full extent they will grow.

For the people who do give me feedback, I so appreciate it. It encourages me to keep going. I must be on the right track.

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Embracing Grief

Anger is for things we can change. Grief is for things we cannot.

Anger has been my fuel. It has propelled me forward. I felt I was doing something. The action kept my sanity.

I really didn’t feel like I was choosing to advocate on a systemic level. That type of advocacy chose me. I unknowingly had my ankle tethered to a long rope attached to a bull. The school district smacked the bull, and that bull took off.

Anger, when funnelled well, can be a beautiful emotion. Filled with love. We can run on anger. Do things we never imagined.

For me, as I advocate and navigate all different kinds of systems, I still find myself grieving. Every now and then, it sneaks up on me when I am not prepared. Why am I sad all of a sudden?

To process the reality of systems. What they are, and what they are not. Grief is about acceptance. The non-death loss.

Embracing times to grieve and acknowledging the sadness has been really beneficial for my mental health.

Naming emotions and being aware of them, I believe, will assist you in your advocacy. The more self-aware you are, the more you can regulate and know when you need breaks. You can catch yourself before you start to dip.

Crying is so beneficial for our brains. It triggers our parasympathetic nervous system and helps our body to lower our emotional distress. It’s soothing and releases feel-good chemicals.

Sometimes we need to take a moment and embrace the grief. It really is sad that the _______________ system does _______________. It is sad that all these people are stuck navigating it.

I may not change things today by 2 o’clock, but I am not helpless. I can do what I can in my corner of the world. I can help other people.

Grief, like weather, comes and goes.

However, my actions are consistent. I am optimistic; all I can do is try.

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Suffering is Not Your Identity

I have met some people who feel they need to suffer in order to be an advocate.

Ummm….no.

I mean, you can suffer if you want to. Go for it. Don’t let me stop you. But it certainly isn’t a requirement.

Many advocates become advocates because of lived experience. We have a certain peek behind the curtain that others don’t see. We are the ones who get it. Our level of empathy is there because we have been there.

Advocacy requires some level of internal capacity, to take advocacy on. If you are still drowning, systemic advocacy isn’t going to be on your to-do list. Waking up tomorrow is the priority.

A lot of advocates become advocates when the drowning has stopped, and they have their feet at least somewhat planted on the shore. They may wade back into the water a bit, but they aren’t currently in crisis. Advocates are the ones throwing out life preserver vests and cheering you on.

Some artists and writers think they need to suffer for their art.

I don’t believe that.

People have survivor’s guilt.

That! I can relate to.

Just a little note on suffering, since I brought it up. This is completely my opinion, and I don’t know if there is evidence of this anywhere, but I believe there are stages of suffering. The first stage is crisis. You are absolutely living in the moment. But as you move up, there is a level of suffering that you can live with and “suffer well”. This book hits on this point: How to Suffer Well by Peter Hollins. If you can learn to suffer well, you can live in that zone where you get a lot of shit done and can create a lot of movement. But I wouldn’t suggest you eternally live there. Do what you want to do, and then you can get out and move the needle in other ways.

But showing people that you can heal…that you can go beyond just survival and thrive after whatever your joint experience is, in my view, is a gift in its own. By not suffering, you can be evidence that things CAN turn out differently.

So, if you are an advocate who has healed enough to be able to give back….radiate all the progress you have worked so hard for. People need to see hope, not misery, in the ones they are seeking help from.

You don’t need to take on suffering as an identity to help people. It’s what you experienced and survived, but not who you are.

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Under the Microscope

Systemic change is not meant to be examined under a microscope. It is intended to be viewed through the zoom-out lens.

Don’t examine the ant that is part of the anthill. Be the hawk flying above that is spending years surveying the changing landscape.

If you want to see if the needle has moved, the smallest time period I would recommend would be a 10-year comparison period.

And really the best view would be 40-50 years.

What has changed in the last 40 years?

Are we getting somewhere?

What issues have changed? Which ones are persistent and have remained?

If you are going to judge your systemic advocacy progress on the last 6 months of your work, you will absolutely frustrate yourself. You will feel like you have gotten nowhere. Which will not necessarily be true.

Systemic work is about seed planting. Things grow over time.

Creating a new normal that society just accepts. Raising the bar. Changing expectations.

Micro level advocacy progress: you can see the steps. You can see the incline or decline.

Macro level advocacy progress: the steps are invisible. They are forever moving and floating around, changing levels and going up and down. Constantly taking steps forward, one step back.

Save yourself the mental anguish. You are torturing yourself with your own mental framework. This is where we can become our own mountain. We all have our moments of frustration and wanting to scream from a mountain top. After we wake up everyone on the mountain top, we need to walk down off the mountain.

I highly suggest you save yourself and don’t apply the micro-level view to a macro-level problem. You will get bitter, burn out and weed yourself out unnecessarily.

Keep yourself in the game and change your lens. Examining ants = burnout = risk of health problems.

Understand systemic change = be the hawk.

All the little things add up over time.

Systemic advocacy involves multiple approaches from multiple groups. Which is why we need everyone. We need the legal route; we the community building route. We need the loud advocates, and we need the behind the scenes quiet advocates. We launch litigation and build case law, and different groups collaborate and pull people closer to us. We build. Slowly. One shovel at a time. Taking legal advancements and APPLYING it. Because laws are nothing unless they are used by the people who need them, especially when the system would prefer for them not to exist.

Systemic change takes teams, sustained over long periods of time.

It is hopeful to see so many people eager to engage with the process.

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Sometimes You Just Need to Laugh

Systems can be so ridiculous, so ludicrous, so illogical, so over the top that you just need to laugh, or you’ll go hysterical.

I come out of meetings with Ottawa and wonder what planet am I on. They must come from planet Make-No-Sense.

The circles that systems send you through and then defend them like it is purely logical is a friggen joke.

They can be so over the top; what on Earth is there to do? Where do you even start with this ridiculousness?

It all seems so HUGE.

Try to explain this to someone else, and you just have to laugh. It turns into a comedy show. I envision this all as a cartoon. A Broadway musical. All explained in song.

The sad part is, is that these systems cause a lot of harm.

And there is no quick fix.

No simple solution.

So, in those moments when you finish the most ridiculous meetings, you just don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Choose to laugh.

You have to look at the ridiculousness and make jokes around the office. Find the comics that resemble the meetings. And think of the songs that would be perfect to explain all of this in the Broadway musical of all this.

Save yourself to keep yourself in the game.

You can choose to keep yourself afloat, and a great way to do that, I have found, is through comedy.

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Consistency

Like anything in life, what is sometimes deemed impossible becomes possible through consistency.

It’s the little things that we do that really add up.

Systemic advocacy is no different.

The decisions that we don’t think are a big deal every single day are actually our foundation.

The larger system assumes that you will go away. That is why all of them engage in some form of delay strategies, or they come up with projects to keep you busy.

Whatever kind of self-care you can do every day, that is the consistency that will keep your cup full and at capacity to be at that level of consistency.

So, taking your vitamins, drinking enough water during the day, writing, meditating, connecting with friends, or whatever else you do to keep yourself healthy, that is all creating the foundation that will keep you in the best position to keep you afloat.

In terms of the long term systemic projects, ask yourself – what is the one thing I can do today that will help move things along? It can be as simple as one email. Or reviewing and prioritizing your tasks.

The machine doesn’t like the persistent, consistent ones.

Consistently take care of yourself. It’s a decision you make every day. You can choose.

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Move from “let it go” to “park it for now”

If you are doing systemic advocacy here are some truths you will need to absorb.

  1. This is not going to be solved today or tomorrow, or possibly anytime soon.
  2. This will be an issue that even if becomes “complete” will be forever fragile so never really over.
  3. Working harder, or doing more will not necessarily mean that it will be resolved sooner.

Some things you are just going to need to “let go” in that moment. However, it doesn’t mean that you are letting it go forever.

You will be returning to the issue, it may not be advantageous to focus on it now.

And so we park it.

We put it in our mental parking lot.

Write it down on the park it for now list, and you will come back to it later. There may be circumstances that will change, when suddenly it becomes the time to focus on the issue. Timing can sometimes be everything and you aren’t going to be able to solve everything at once.

So be gentle with yourself. Trying to force the pace to speed up will sometimes be shooting yourself in the foot. Review, and go over what you have control over and what you do not.

The machine would love for you to burn out and go away.

Self care and rest is resistance because it keeps you in the game.