In Reflection - Preventing Life Challenges from Becoming “Internalized Barriers”

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the July issue of the True Livelihood Newsletter!  Some of my longtime subscribers may have noticed that I have ceased to be militant with myself about sending a new issue every month.  The truth is that after seven years of publishing this newsletter on a monthly basis, I am now more inclined to take the time pressure off and call it a “periodic newsletter”.  With our commitment to keeping this newsletter free and accessible to as many people as possible, the writing of these articles has sometimes had to take a back seat to my day job - my work as a trainer.  Such was the reality this spring.  I realize now that writing an article every other month may be more suitable for my schedule, but I want to remain open to the possibility of writing more frequently when the spirit moves me, thus – welcome to my periodic newsletter! 

This issue is “In Reflection” to the April/May issue on Employment Barriers.  Having received numerous wonderful questions from readers, I chose four to respond to in this issue which I think may hold the greatest appeal to the general readership.  Enjoy! 
 

Eight Questions to Uncover Barriers in Our Thinking

Dear Denise, I remember once in a workshop on “30 Ways to Shine” you talked about helping people get past “barriers in their thinking”.  Do you have a listing of those barriers or suggestions on how to help people get past the limitations that they have created in their own minds?  Thanks for your article on barriers – I plan to make it required reading for anyone who works at our agency!

Director of Employment Services, Miami, Florida

I touch briefly on the issue of “barriers in our thinking” in 30 Ways to Shine, but I am happy to reprint an excerpt from a previous newsletter dealing with the same issue.  Rather than providing a list of those barriers, I pose eight questions that help us discern where we are placing our focus, how we are using our attention, and how we can more effectively employ a more creative, expansive and positive perspective when we are faced with a challenging situation.  I think questions like these can be very useful in harnessing “our best thinking” when our thoughts would otherwise weave a web of worry, concern, self-doubt, and/or fear.  You may notice that I pose them in the first person, as they are meant to serve more as catalysts for self-reflection than as queries requiring a direct answer.   

Questions to Harness Perspective in Challenging Situations:

• Have I reduced some complex reality to black and white or am I making room for shades of gray, knowing that reality is rarely an all or nothing proposition? Is my thinking limiting and restrictive, or is it creative and expansive?
   

• Am I wasting time blaming someone or something for having caused a situation, or am I focusing on the lesson or opportunity it presents?  Is my thinking stuck on the problem, or is it seeking solutions? 
   

• Am I playing fortune-teller by predicting a worrisome outcome that I can’t survive, or am I entertaining the entire spectrum of possible outcomes, knowing that one way or another I will get through it?  Is my imagination stuck on the worse case scenario or is it working in a more logical and realistic way? 
   

• Am I pretending to know what another person might be thinking, or feeling, or am I willing to replace mind-reading with a stance of curiosity, and openness? 
   

• Am I interpreting this situation through the filter of a prior negative experience, or do I refuse to hold myself hostage to the past? Is my thinking based on fear and doubt, or is it allowing room for hope and faith?
   

• Am I reacting to this situation based solely on my emotions, or am I willing to respond to the whole of the situation beyond my feelings about it?   Is my thinking impulsive and emotional, or is it calm and reflective?  
   

• Am I exaggerating the effect this situation will have on others and the world, or am I mature enough to know that I cannot play God by trying to take responsibility for other people’s lives?
   

• Am I thinking in a way that is causing me to feel scattered, lost or confused, or am I focusing on the aspect of this situation that is within my control?  Is my thinking defeatist or strategic?

It seems only fair to add that having recently applied these questions to myself while in the throes of my own private misery with regard to flying and traveling, I certainly didn’t find them to offer a cure-all or a panacea in the moment.  The idea that “Airports suck, flying is for the birds, and I can’t take one more flight” was my story, and gosh darn it, I was sticking’ to it – perspective be damned!  It is only in retrospect that I am willing to admit that, even within the iron grip of my own self-made suffering, these questions served to remind me that my present reality did not reflect the entire story.  Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I acknowledged a larger backdrop, a greater context in which I knew that “This too shall pass.”  In other words, when plagued by barriers in our thinking about a challenging situation, even if the questions fail to have an immediate affect on how we feel, we can take comfort in the fact that they will remind us of what we know! 
 

Uncovering the Good in Adversity - Listening for the Story within the Story

Dear Denise, Your article on barriers to employment was very thought-provoking made me think about how we tend to focus on the negative aspects of a person’s life, assuming that with the facts, we know their deeper truth. Do you have any ideas about how we can avoid those assumptions and, instead, learn more about the person’s experience? Your newsletters provide ongoing inspiration – please keep them coming!

Supervisor, Mental Health Agency, San Diego, California 

Reading this message reminded me of another discussion from a series of articles I wrote in 2008 of this newsletter about “Seeing Beyond Barriers to Passion and Possibility”, particularly about “listening for the story within the story”.  Here is an excerpt that I think speaks directly to this reader’s question:

“Often in telling their stories, we will hear about a person’s struggles, challenges, or difficulties – many of which we have labeled as ‘employment barriers”.  While it is important to listen deeply to the person’s version of the story, we need not accept the surface story as the whole story.  What we often fail to see in our own traumatic or difficult life experiences is the tale of courage, strength or resourcefulness that is also part of the story.  We need to be listening for the gifts and strengths that a person may have developed, but which they have failed to claim simply because they have been so invested in other aspects of the situation.  Often what we perceive on the surface as a barrier or a limitation, can later be understood as an asset, or a place of treasure we never would have bothered looking. 

I recall a woman who survived a childhood of terrible abuse saying that while she would never have chosen it, she wouldn’t necessarily trade it for a different childhood because she wouldn’t want to lose being the person she has become as a result of it.  A young man who had significant learning disabilities and consequently suffered tremendous alienation from other students in his high school, reported that it was his loneliness and sense of isolation at that time that prompted the writing of his poetry and song-writing which has become the basis of a career he now cherishes.  And then there was the woman who felt as if she was being unfairly perceived as “lazy” for having spent a decade receiving welfare.  What others did not know, she explained, was the fact that she had cared for her ailing mother and essentially raised her three younger siblings on her own over those ten years.  Her deeper story revealed that not only was she not lazy, she was a deeply determined and resourceful woman!

While these stories do not diminish the pain and difficulty that people experience, they do affirm the amazing capability of the human spirit to rise above, overcome, and sometimes even benefit from the most trying of circumstances and conditions!

When listening to people’s stories it is important to hear the story within the story.  What is it about this event that the person relates to or identifies with?  What qualities, beliefs, or values does it reflect? Does identifying with this story enlarge the person’s sense of self or does it diminish it? 

Here are some questions for helping a person find the story within the story:

• Given everything you have experienced, what have you learned about yourself that you might not have otherwise known?
   

• What are some of the qualities, strengths or abilities you have gained as a result of this experience (condition, event, circumstance)?
   

• What do you think has made it possible for you to survive and overcome the obstacles you have faced?
   

• What have you found yourself grateful for in the midst of the challenges you have faced?

Rethinking “job ready”

Dear Denise, I appreciated your article on employment barriers and it has inspired to me to think differently about the people I counsel.  What do you suggest to those of us who work with people whose barriers are not likely to go away before they have to go to work? What if their problems are not solved or fixed in a timely manner and they are not “job ready”, but we are supposed to be finding them work anyway? 

Case Manager, Health and Human Services Agency, Los Angeles, California 

I am grateful for having received this important question, and having given it deep thought, my response is two-fold. 

First, this reader’s question raises the issue of what really constitutes “job readiness”.  I think we can agree that there are certain ducks that need to be in a row before a person can responsibly commit to taking a job.  For example, they would need to be free and able to go to work at the required times, thus, not incarcerated, hospitalized, or committed to something else (like a rehab program) which otherwise requires their presence.  Further, they would need to be of sound enough body and mind to be able to physically and mentally perform to the employer’s standards, with or without on-the-job support.  Practical concerns such as transportation, child care, resources for tools and supplies, etc., are contingent on the particular job offer, so “readiness” in this regard is a relative term, given that they could be good to go with one employer, and not with another.  

Naturally, there are a host of many other factors that can make going to work a lot easier, more convenient, and less stressful in terms of one’s living situation, the quality of one’s primary relationships, and the challenges and pressures of one’s everyday lives.  Unfortunately, as we all know too well, life is a messy business – as soon as we clear up one area of our life, a problem often arises in another.  We finally get the back-taxes paid, and then the car breaks down. Just as the teenager’s crisis has come to an end, there is a knock at your door of a long-lost relative who needs a place to lay her head.  Just when the toddler begins sleeping through the night, you find out you’re pregnant again!   Truth be told, if we were asked to be “ready” before we got married or before we had children, we’d all be single and we would all be childless.  If we only went to work once our lives were in order, none of us would be employed! 

I don’t mean this just in a general way.  I think it is fair to say that we would not ordinarily consider people “job ready” when they are experiencing factors such as an on-going drinking problem, clinical depression, or being in the midst of a personal crisis.  And yet, how many of us know people who are presently employed who have a drinking problem, are struggling with depression, or are in the midst of a personal crisis, who show up for work every day and somehow manage to be effective in their jobs?  In some cases, it is the very going to work everyday that is helping them maintain a sense of normalcy, to sustain a sense of belonging, or to retain a sense of meaning and achievement. 

What I am suggesting is that we rethink the notion of “job readiness” – appreciating that what we are trying to assess is more relative than it is absolute, affected by a multitude of circumstances and nuances that are not likely to be found on a generalized checklist.  I suppose an alternative question to “Is this person job ready?” would be “What kind of employment situation would/could best work given this person’s current circumstances, needs and desires?”  In other words, I don’t think that job readiness is always a “yes or no issue”.  We might help people expand their own sense of readiness by expanding their sense of options, choices and possibilities by asking, “What are you ready for?”    In my experience, we are always ready for something. One person may be ready for full-time paid employment; another is prepared to take a part-time, volunteer job, while a third is challenged simply by showing up to a job readiness class.  Finding out what one is “ready for” is a first good step in helping them attain it.    
 

Accepting the fact that we will never be to help everyone!

My second response to this question is in the form of this month’s Poem of the Month, “Like It or Not” which was brewing in me all spring and took final form in time for this newsletter.  For reasons that will become obvious, it ended up a three-part poem.  I encourage you to print and share copies of this poem with your colleagues and co-workers as it may serve as a catalyst for a discussion about issues that we often feel personally, but fail to share as a “community of helpers”.   

In the spirit of the message from Part III of the poem below, I will close with the simple but profound truth from Aesop: "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."   May you be both the giver and the receiver of many small kindnesses each and every day!

Happy summer!

~ Denise

© Denise Bissonnette, July 2010 (If not used for commercial purposes, this article may be reproduced, all or in part, providing it is credited to "Denise Bissonnette, Diversity World - www.diversityworld.com." If included in a newsletter or other publication, we would appreciate receiving a copy.)