Introduction

Over the last eight months, as I take care of Debbie as she battles cancer, I get a lot of compliments. Oh, Jerry, you are so patient, kind, gentle, compassionate, such a great father, we only wish more men were……..

I smile because most of these people who make these comments never knew me as a teenager.

For the first 12 years of my life, I drove my two female cousins crazy. I was sent off to boarding school. At St. Andrews, in grade 8, I and a friend of mine went into the girls’ dormitory and lit a whole bunch of crackers. The principal could have barred me but she did not. Every morning she would play badminton with me and my friend.

In grade 9, this same friend and I broke into the kitchen late at night for food. My friend turned the whole cauldron of soup. The principal had every reason to disbar us. She made us assistant prefects for a whole dorm. One late evening while all the boys were asleep,  I tied the pajamas of all the boys together and my friend was flicking the lights. I am sure parents complained to the principal, but she never gave up on us.

In grade 10, the frogs were brought for us to dissect on Monday. On Sunday we broke into the lab and I started grilling the frogs over the bunsen burner. This SAME friend decided to mix pure silver with hydrochloric acid. Next thing I know the whole lab is on fire. My mom got a big bill.

There are countless other things we did. The principal never gave up on us.

Today as my dear friend who trades metals, another prefect who lives in New York and import clothes and another prefect who is in San Fran, we talk and laugh on Whatsapp. We made it this far because the principal never gave up on us.

I met Sara in the youth group as a private school brat, spoiled, opinionated, hubris, and super righteous. Sara always laughed, listened and just loved me unconditionally. I honestly believe that I made it through all those insecurities because of her just being there for me.

Sara is the third person in my Women of Wisdom series. Women of Wisdom have been around since the beginning of time. If you look at Jewish culture Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah, Miriam, Deborah, and Esther come to mind.

None of the women in my Women of Wisdom series are perfect. They have been chosen because they have been at the top of the mountain and at the bottom. They have been deep in the tunnel and have come out on the other side. They have scars.

Here is my call to action. Read this interview a couple of times. Think of a bete noire or an outlier you know. They are wired differently like me. Reach out and love them unconditionally.  Has someone made a difference in your life? Reach out to them and thank them. How about has someone hurt you or just disappointed you? Forgive them. You will feel empowered and free.

Sara, welcome to my Women of Wisdom series. NO PRESSURE.  Please introduce yourself to my global audience?

Hello Jerry.  It’s lovely to chat with you. And I’m certainly honored to be asked to this Women of Wisdom series.  I’m guessing your readers are looking for information and a perspective they cannot get by googling these topics, but rather lived experience.

Who am I?  I’m introspective, a thinker, a problem solver in a quiet way. I’m driven by a deep desire to understand humanity. I deeply believe there are no throw-away people.  Everybody matters, everyone counts: whether they can contribute to society in a given moment or not.

I often see people as buried treasure, the latch to the chest locked by shame, grief, trauma. I walk beside them until they are empowered to open the chest, work through the debilitating fear, and live the lives they long for.

When I was introduced to Dr. Marshall Rosenberg and the concept of nonviolence, I felt I’d come home. Mutuality? YES, power alongside instead of power over? YES!

I had my fabulous 65^th birthday last year.  I was born the 3^rd of 7 in a small farming community in the Midwest USA.  2 weeks after my 7^th birthday my mom died of a brain tumor leaving 4 bewildered children and a heartbroken husband with a farm to run.

After 35 years as a minister’s wife and on the staff of churches from 30 – 1500 members, I now co-own In It 4 Life Counselling and Education. I am in private practice with both online and in-person clients. I’m a Registered Professional Counsellor RPC with the Canadian Professional Counsellor’s Association. I’ve had over 10,000 client hours.

I have a B.Ed. from Harding University in Searcy, AK and teaching is still my happy place.

I have both in-person clients and those I meet via video conferencing in the UK, Europe, and across the breadth of the USA and Canada. I mentor a Graduate student in Clinical Counselling in Manila, Philippines, and in December I initiated a mental health project to train 6 HOPE Worldwide Philippines staff in mental health tools.

I’m a Certified Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist®. In the last 2 years, I’ve become connected with 2 of the Aboriginal foster parents’ societies in Vancouver, BC where I live. I equip foster parents and staff with tools to unravel the tangled emotions associated with loss and trauma and move forward with hope and purpose.

This summer I was privileged to be on the team that edited the online Helping Children with Loss workshop and was the first Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist® in North America to deliver the program.

The deeper I get into the human mind, the more I value each person’s story. Anyone in the nadir of despair.

Two years after graduating from high school, my best friend committed suicide. I had no clue what mental health meant or was. Please explain what is mental health?

Jerry, how very difficult it is to have a friend who died by suicide. Those are often the moments our minds circle back to trying to find the meaning. How? Why? Could I have done something? How could I not have known?

Of course, there isn’t one answer to this question. But I’ll explain mental health the way I describe it to my clients and their families.

Mental health refers to our state of mind, our perception of events. Our sense of well-being both within ourselves (Me) and in the social network of our lives (WE).

Do you remember the movie, The Princess Bride? Do you remember the dark foreboding Fire Swamp with rodents of unusual size and lightning sand ready to destroy the unwary? That is the experience some have when they explore their own minds and behavior. Their thoughts are bewildering, their behavior inexplicable, and seemingly unchangeable. They do not make sense to themselves. They are living in the black hole of despair and life on their regular life street seems a distant memory.

They feel as if they are in a bubble separated from others; that they are invisible, even immobilized.

Our thoughts revolve around three worlds: our past, our present, and our future.

In mental illness, we view our past as unchangeable and negative. We do not hold positive memories of love or the small successes that make life meaningful. Instead, our minds often circle whirling in a painful, endless story of hopelessness and failure.

In our present, we live in a state of fear and anxiety. We have a deep belief that we cannot effect change in our own lives.

As we consider our future, the squirrel of our anxious mind jumps from branch to branch collecting fear dreams and worry nuts hoarding them close inside us.

Let me explain. As we consider our future, our anxious mind seeks and collects disturbing possible futures. Our mind bounces from imagined scenario to scenario leaving our body with elevated heart rate, higher blood pressure,  short shallow breaths.  Our thoughts race in circles, but go nowhere.

As I get older, I realize that there are biological factors like genetics and brain chemistry. But trauma, abuse, and family history also play an important role. For brain chemistry, we can take drugs but to deal with trauma and abuse we need psychological help. Help me understand what this psychological help is all about?

I also believe that Psychosis and altered states of reality do exist that require medication and care by a psychiatrist or psychologist.

As a mental health counselor, I’m the guide who walks alongside the client; empowering, equipping, resonating with tender empathy. I do not come with my own agenda but rather seek to help my clients find the path they long for.

Counselors are more like the physiotherapists of the mind. We help the client find and practice new ways of thinking and seeing themselves and the world around them. Then we guide them in the work of building new pathways in the brain so they can strengthen those new paths.

There are so many magazines on physical health, makeup, financial health but the psychological, emotional, and mental health gets ignored. In so many cultures it is a taboo, I am so glad in Canada we talk about it. In your practice what are you seeing these days and how talking about it helps us and our families?

Jerry, so many people rushed into my mind at this question.  Slow down brain….

Now in the days of social distancing due to Covid-19, I’m seeing some positives and some deepening challenges.

I see people looking for help for what they describe as a hollow emptiness in their chests. A sense of alarming aloneness does not shift even when with people. This sense of panic occurs when they have not developed secure attachment as children. This secure sense of self can be developed and strengthened at any age. But it is more and more common these days.

I also see unresolved complex grief often caused by a series of painful losses in a short period of time. These losses have overwhelmed their ability to recover, leaving them immobilized or even believing they are irrevocably broken as people.  There is a very important difference between believing you have done something that you feel bad about and believing that there is something inherently wrong with you as a human being.

I have mixed thoughts about talking about mental health needs.  Jerry, who we talk to makes quite a big difference. I find young people often rely on their friend-group for advice and support for mental health issues. I have seen this lead to teens taking on the trauma of their friends even when they have not experienced the trauma.

In Helping Children with Loss by the Grief Recovery Method® we teach adults to lead the way. To model emotional honesty. Our children imitate this and learn that their uncomfortable emotions are welcome in the family. They don’t need to stuff them away in their hearts or block emotions with drugs, sex, video games, etc. But rather their heart, their pain, and their grief are held with respect and honor.

Let’s talk about family. How did marriage and motherhood change you as a person? After four decades of marriage, what are you still learning about this institution?

My mother died of a brain tumor within a couple of weeks of my 7^th birthday, leaving 4 lost confused children, ages 12-2, and a grieving husband with a farm to run.  I never had a Hollywood fairy tale idea of marriage or family.

What I did have is a childhood shaped in the arms of a rural community, faith community, and the neighbors on RR#1 who kept an eye on us. Through all these experiences I formed a picture of what a secure relationship looked like. I dated, had my heart thoroughly broken, learned some tough lessons about myself, and landed in a more grounded place determined to lead with my head, not my romantic heart.

42 years later, I’d say it was a pretty good place to start. Head over heels in love, with my feet firmly tethered to reality. We suffered a lot. Learned a lot.

Then, 12 years ago my husband starting having medical symptoms. At one point I foresaw the very real possibility that he would be disabled or even die.

It was a watershed moment for me. We had been very close, able to communicate about most topics. We even worked together. We didn’t like the uneasy edgy feeling of tension between us and resolved issues fairly quickly.

My eyes opened in a painful moment of personal clarity. I needed to form a clearer picture of the ME in WE. How would I make a living? What did I think about topics of faith, social issues, racism, politics? The man who had stood by my side was now facing his own battle and was not always available to me.

He survived, but he is in nearly constant pain. He went back to school, earned a Master’s degree. We both shifted out of the ministry. I started my own business. Our relationship grew richer & deeper as the ME and YOU grew.  I’m still learning to be more HONEST and to invite his honesty.

So that’s what I’d say, Jerry. We’ve tested the edges of our trust in each other and found we can tolerate, and dare I say even enjoy much more than we imagined. We can disagree, fight through differing opinions and NOT agree and it’s still OK. I once thought the goal was the unified US, but now see the energy & growth that comes from being YOU and ME.

A 27-year-old woman wants to get married. Tell her some of the qualities she needs to look for in a man?

So, to a 27-year old woman I’d say:

You’ve probably suffered already in relationships. Had your heartbroken. Lost your confidence. 30 is now on the horizon.

Are you feeling CONFUSED and intensely alone as you try to figure out this thing called love? Your married friends and family offer advice and try to set you up.

You feel yourself pulling back as soon as a guy gets close to you. Or frantic when they don’t answer your calls.

You have your list, like an order from Starbucks, extra HOT, a bit of sugar, no caffeine. Ha!  Did I just make a joke?  Seriously though, already by 27, your walls might be 2 ft thick ready to protect your heart from pain.

As difficult as it is, turn your mind and heart gently towards your own emotions. Seek some support, work through those painful experiences, and learn a new path to love.  It will clear your relationship blocks to see the person you want to connect with.

It’s an ancient truth. Falling in love makes you a little bit crazy, so keep your head in the game.

Do you enjoy talking together? Does he listen, really listen to you? Do you like listening to him? Does he irritate you? When you’ve had a rift, a break in connection, can you mend the relationship? Not bury the pain, but actually repair your tender connection.

Do you recognize the patterns you find yourself in, as Dr. Sue Johnson describes? Find the Bad Guy, Flee and Pursue, or Freeze and Flee?

And then there is Honesty. I can’t say enough about honesty. We hide a lot of our inner selves; the risk feels too big.  Yet our security builds when we speak the truth and gather our courage and invite our beloved’s truth.

You had three men in your house on a minister’s salary, how did you manage it all? I am sure there were sacrifices involved. Help me understand those sacrifices?

I honestly don’t remember the financial sacrifices. We ate well, took some trips to see family, went to Disneyland. The greater sacrifice was time together. The ministry then was nearly 24/7 and I’ve made achingly heartfelt apologies to my kids about that and the many moves we made where they left good friends behind.

A very dear friend of mine, his wife would go on a shopping binge because of her mental health. What can we say when we notice some signs that something is not OK in our family members, friends, or colleagues?

Did you ever hear or even say these words?  What’s WRONG with you!?!  Our friends, co-workers, family members, behavior can be bewildering to us. Or we think it’s just not our business.

A few years ago, we got a call from someone saying they needed a sub for a volunteer position. My husband took the call. Then immediately called me to the phone.  “Something’s wrong,” he said giving me the phone.

Within 5 minutes, I called the spouse to the phone and explained to them how to access emergency mental health care through their local hospital. “Now,” I said, “Drop what you are doing and go right NOW!” This person was diagnosed with a serious mental health condition and spent nearly a year recovering.

I long for every person, every church, every family, school, club to be trauma-informed. When you are trauma-informed you gently ask the question: What happened? Did something happen, my dear friend, sister, brother, co-worker, that you are having this behavior. Shopping, drinking, isolating, enraged. What happened?

What’s happening to you when you want to go shopping? Do you feel something in your chest, your heart, your hands, or your head?  Do you feel hot, cold, empty, jittery?  Can you recall the first time you felt like this?  It is scary to feel like this?  Whew, does that ever seem big? Can I help you to get help?

When we notice changes in patterns of behavior, think backward, and do a quick life review.

Grief and loss accumulate. I know of people who have some early childhood trauma and losses. Some disappointments early in life; didn’t get on the team, didn’t get into the college program they wanted. Then a hard-romantic breakup in their teens/20s, then get married and find out their spouse hid something from them: debt, cheated on them while dating, things like that, then they or their wife has a miscarriage, then their Mom dies and they just can’t pull life back together.

And that’s when the shopping, alcohol misuse, pornography use, gaming misuse, taking things personally and become easily hurt, emotional withdrawal or bouts of expressed anger creep up.

So, when you see something, go deeper. Seek help for the deeper needs. Behavior always, always, always makes sense. Its the normal response to abnormal circumstances.

Life happens…stress, family issues, divorce, death. Grief is not easy. I have lost two of my best friends in the last 3 years. And sometimes I prefer if someone just listens to me or says they love me. I do not want to hear pat answers. Give us some advice on how we can communicate better when someone is going through a tough time in their life?

You are asking an important and relevant question. Nearly every client I have has some wounding moments caused by well-meaning comments.

In the Grief Recovery Method® we talk about some deeper concepts that help guide our words when another is suffering.

Walk with me through this scenario:

Imagine a woman dies with 3 children and 6 grandchildren.

One family lives next door and grandma babysat the kids after school, creating a warm inviting haven for the grandchildren.

One child is estranged from the parent because of a fight when they were 20 and has not spoken to the parent for 30 years.

One went to University in Berlin, married, and has lived in Europe all their lives. Seeing their parents only from time to time.

Picture, if you will, all of these families arriving for the funeral. Oh my! How many different kinds of relationships are there? How many regrets, losses, longings, grief, unresolved, and undelivered communication are there in the room?

Imagine the grandchildren growing up with very different experiences with grandma.

As much as I wish we could, we simply CANNOT know what another person is experiencing in their loss. Your feelings, thoughts, and experience when your grandparent died belong uniquely to you.  And so, it is with your friends.

A gentle “I love you,” “I can’t imagine what this is like for you.” “I’ll wash your dishes,” will likely mean the most to the grieving person who is living in the daze of new grief.

I loved coming to your place as there was always good food. Thanks for being patient, kind, gentle, listening and being empathetic towards me. How important is it that we eat good food but also eat as a family?

Aww, thanks, Jerry.  Feeding you was our way of saying you matter and you are welcome at our table and in our lives. Listening to diverse perspectives over dinners with friends opened my mind and heart. The flow of conversation exposed my sons to the broad kaleidoscope of human experience; opening empathy & curiosity for all of us.

I’ll emphasize the gift of cooking together. Both of my sons are the main cooks in their own families. And no, my husband still doesn’t cook….SIGH..but now he does dishes – a gift of our older years.  I still get calls from the boys, “Mom… Whatcha making for dinner?” Although now I’m often asking them for recipes.

I know you are a woman of deep faith. Walk me through how you came into faith, your story, how does this faith sustain you. Also, help me understand one or two challenging things you have faced in your life and how you overcame it

This is an excerpt from a conversation I wrote between GOD and myself over a decade ago. Perhaps it will give you a window into both suffering and healing.

God to me:

“You are perfect.  I delight in you.  I have known you in your darkest hours when you thought life was not worth living.  I walked beside you that dark night.  I cried out with you when you curled inward holding in a pain so great you felt your body would explode.  I held you in my arms and rocked you to comfort you.  I hold your pain in my arms.  I added my voice to yours in the park when your grief reached the heavens.

And it did, my daughter. I heard from you. I hear from you.

I stood beside you when shattered dreams lay in brightly colored shards at your feet.  I know your hopelessness.  I felt it when my Son hung on the cross.  I watched you as you lay helpless on beds of pain and my love enfolded you with warmth.

I knew the risk I took creating man with the capacity to feel so deeply.  I only gave that gift to humanity.  Only then could you know love – the bounty, the gift.”

Me to God:

“I see the path – the red thread throughout my life.  I’d left so many things outside your grace as though my decisions could move me away from you.  It’s not done until my death and I’m alive.

I had to hit unscalable walls in order to know it wasn’t my work that saved me. I had to face utter despair in order to see hope, grief to know peace, sin to see salvation pure and true.”

I am a big believer in peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, compassion but you have to practice forgiveness and gratitude to move forward. What are your thoughts on this?

I stand on the shoulders of giants in this field. Forgiveness, I find, is an exquisitely intentional action that is completed once with forethought and determination, then repeated every time the offense comes to mind. Forgiveness is an act of my will and decision bathed in the grace given to me, to set myself free from the prison of hatred and pain.

Faith or no faith…life happens. Too many Christians buy into the prosperity gospel even though they do not say it openly. They want the perfect house, the perfect spouse, the perfect life. They forget suffering. We need to embrace it. agree or disagree

Where did we EVER get the idea that having faith meant avoiding suffering?

We want to be happy all the time and then there is joy. We can be joyful in every circumstance. Please talk about this and also how does social media impact us?

I recently taught a class about helping children with a loss to staff and administrators at a private K-12 school. As I discussed the needs of the children before the session, one staff member shared a frequent topic in the staff room. Is perhaps the greatest detriment to happiness the expectation of constant happiness?

If when the challenges of life happen, we have no place/no space for our pain and sorrow to go then who do we talk to?  Who understands?

On the other hand, when mourning is welcomed, modeled, normalized, and held with tender care, children learn they can ride the wave of suffering and come out the other side. YES, it will come again and again. And YES, they will be turned upside down by the current, but they will not be swept out to sea.  That is what we need to teach our children.

Joy comes with perspective. Joy walks softly in awareness of the journey we all must walk.  Joy comes in quietness. Joy in generated from the inside out.

Photo Credit: Jina Hong