orr-training-services-llc

Humor and Humility in Helping

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 15:46:20 GMT

It’s said that humility is an essential part of wisdom, and I fully subscribe to this. After all, the wiser one gets, the more one realizes all that is yet to be known. And the wiser one gets, the more vision one has of the fallibility of everyone, including – and especially – one’s self. Paradoxically, having humility actually garners us more trust from others. I don’t know about you, but I don’t fully trust (or like very much) someone who tries to convey that they know or can do everything. In its own way, humor invites trust, too, and it is also, of course, one of our greatest and most universal coping skills. Think of it: every single culture/society in the world employs it and always has, which says to me that it is an evolutionary asset.

To my thinking, humility and humor go hand-in-hand. Truly funny people tap into the goldmine of human frailty and imperfection – of which there is an endless source! – and normalize our waywardness and goofiness as humans. And humble people naturally invite a higher level of trust and comfort. In this way, these two things together are great strengths to have as helpers and influencers.

Of course, it’s never appropriate to use humor to belittle or demean who we are helping, and therefore the ‘safest’ place to start using humor with a client is with one’s self. You may have heard the saying, “If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re missing out on a lot of free entertainment”, and there is no dearth of things we can find about which to tease and laugh at ourselves (also without belittling ourselves). I find laughing at myself to be one of the simplest and earliest ways in which to connect with clients and invite them to begin being authentic with me. It’s also good modeling – a ‘permission slip’, if you will, for them to loosen up on themselves and be able to use humor in this same way to navigate through difficult things.

Once in a while I run into someone who seems quite unable to admit to imperfection, taking themselves far too seriously to be willing to chuckle at a mess-up or a weakness they have. I find myself feeling sad for people like that, as it’s a sign that they may be bottling up a whole lot of healing laughter and authenticity. If a client is like this, I think it’s important to gently introduce these two vastly useful commodities, no matter what their problems are, and no matter how severe or trivial their concerns. Because humility and humor are twin, ubiquitous mortal widgets that can be applied in a thousand helpful, enlightening ways, and can help us become – and remain – more humane, more authentic, more hopeful, and more flexible in our journeys toward healing and growth.

Our Babies

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 16:32:26 GMT

There’s a saying I like: “There’s no such thing as other people’s children.” I like it because I believe it’s true. We might consider that our collective duty as adults on the planet is to look after the children ~ all the children. It’s also unconscionable to hold any child accountable for any lack or fault someone might assess on the parents’ part. As a therapist and teacher, I emphasize that blaming parents (which often leads to withholding help) does not lead to solutions; even while we hold parents accountable for their choices, our focus can be on asking for each child’s sake, “What does this child and family need to be healthy and well?”

Much longitudinal research has been done to show (as if we couldn’t guess it on our own) that providing all families of newborns with the resources, support, and services they need to be able to feed, clothe, shelter and nurture their child, and to have access to quality medical care and early-childhood education, results in a myriad of positive results: less domestic violence, less physical illness, less mental illness, higher school attendance rates, better grades, higher graduation rates, less delinquency and criminality, more family involvement with neighbors and community, and more – all of which benefit community and society as a whole in various significant ways.

No one’s talking about buying families luxury goods, extraneous material things, or Disney tickets. We’re ultimately talking about – in many cases – holding families above the abyss, making it possible and more feasible for them to raise their child in a healthy way, alleviating some stress and some of the grave difficulties that interfere with a child’s optimal development.

So aside from the moral and ethical imperative to collectively care for babies and children, it also serves us in a very real, very practical sense to do so, for not only would we ensure more decent lives and a fair chance for less-privileged children, but we would engage in pro-active, preventative measures that benefit the family unit, the social network of that family, the wider community, and society en masse.

Our best bet in this regard is to elect people who have this imperative in mind, whose proposals and policies speak to the priority of ensuring that babies and children get what they need, no matter the circumstances. It ultimately saves money, as well as lives. It also saves our hearts.

The Collective “We”

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 16:24:51 GMT

Aren’t we all in this together? Isn’t this what every major philosophical, spiritual, and scientific endeavor has proffered all though human history?

Empathy ~ The Great Connector

Thu, 12 May 2022 13:38:27 GMT

I like to call empathy “the great connector”. Here’s why: humans are such that, when shown empathy (and its cousin, compassion), they tend to respond to that person with more trust and openness – a sense of ‘safety’, if you will, that their emotional experience is being recognized. There’s a general evolutionary theory about why this is so, which posits, in a nutshell, that way back when we all lived in tribes, empathic response to one another further ensured the tribe’s survival as individuals were looking out for one another’s well-being in this way and thereby able to tend to one another in supportive ways. At any rate, it is true that expressing empathy toward someone else tends to both tamp down the intensity of the emotion they are experiencing, and deepen the rapport, which opens the door further to being able to influence someone. Of course, this can be misused to manipulate or mislead another – but for the sake of this essay, let’s focus on the power of using empathy to build strong connections both personally and professionally, and thereby have relationships that are more collaborative and fruitful. Expressing empathy doesn’t mean you know exactly how someone feels (I never say that to a person, as it can be off-mark and even feel dismissive), but that you, as one human to another, recognize the emotion being conveyed. An additional benefit of expressing empathy is that one sometimes one has the opportunity to broaden another’s ‘repertoire’, if you will, of the variety of human emotions; many people kind of conflate various emotional experiences through the funnel of just one or two general emotions – anger, for instance – which doesn’t accurately reflect the more fine-tuned variance of human emotion. It is said that to be psychologically healthy, we need to be able to identify with the plethora of specific emotions in order to navigate and process them in a healthy way. Empathy is, importantly, to be distinguished from sympathy: sympathy is ‘feeling sorry for’, while empathy is recognizing and reflecting another’s emotion. This is an important distinction, lest one decide to “not show empathy” to another because that other has done something repugnant or is off-putting. But if we want to be effective communicators, helpers, and influencers, expressing empathy is a tool in the toolbox we can’t afford to be without. It also, as a byproduct, builds our own finesse with recognizing emotions in ourselves. It’s free to do, it’s not complicated, and continues to be, to put a hard shine on it, a ‘survival tool’ for the species. Try expressing empathy in a specific way today with someone you love – it can be as simple as “You seem very frustrated”, or “You’re really disappointed in that, it seems”, and see what happens. Practice it often, and notice its immediate and long-term benefits.

Healing from Trauma

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 15:19:19 GMT

The fascinating and profound things that have been researched and discovered about the sources of trauma, what it does to the body and brain, and what it takes to heal from trauma is informing the entire world of treatment. We have learned that the effects of trauma/extreme chronic stress don’t just “go away” – that they stay in the body, the nervous system, and the brain, until healing happens. Sometimes a powerfully positive, nurturing, and safe relationship provides much of this healing – you know, “people heal people”. This is true. This has always been true. Additionally, we’ve discovered a myriad of evidence-based activities, practices, and experiences that are effective in re-setting the autonomic nervous system, calming the brain’s activities, and reversing the physical manifestations of trauma (we know that a traumatized person is at higher risk for just about any medical condition or disease, higher levels of pain, and substance abuse, for instance). These include, but are not limited to: being in nature, jumping on a trampoline, chanting, meditating, mindfulness practices, grounding exercises, dancing, singing, laughing, awe-inspiring art and views, extra physical rest, being in community, slowing down, altruism, theater work, being in and around water, and the list goes on. Ancient cultures instinctively knew – and practiced – some of these things; many cultures traditionally engaged in drumming circles, community dancing, nature journeys, living mindfully, creative endeavors.

What if we more readily and broadly took what we’ve learned about healing from trauma and applied it in a preventative way – both personally and as a society? What if we realized that if we looked after all babies and toddlers to ensure that they have a safe, nurturing, non-deprived environment so that their nervous systems could be calmer, their brains could develop more normally, and their physical health wasn’t compromised by extreme stress? What if we supported all parents in ways that reduced their stressors regarding having enough food, having shelter, having time and childcare and choices that made raising a family a more secure and peaceful experience? What if we modelled – individually and as a community – ways to live peacefully and compassionately, with empathy for what others are going through and what they need, whether from an agency or from supportive relationships? Since we all influence each other in countless ways, whether we realize it or not, what would be the collective positive impact of designing our communities and our national policies in ways that are both preventative and healing? How might people’s psyches be freed up to pursue enriching, creative, supportive, healing activities and relationships and community work that benefitted not only individuals, but society at large? How might we save time, energy, and money that is currently being spent on arrests and incarceration, mental health facilities, medical disease, school discipline, homelessness, recovering from violence and upheaval, and the like? How might our society be moved into a more safe, supportive, healthy, creative, and enriching entity that led to further evolution along the path of peace and prosperity for the collective? How might each and every one of us benefit, in ways small and large, if we literally took care of one another as individuals, yes, but also as a country? It is, after all, in the Constitution: the welfare of all (my italics). We could live up to that, if we so choose.

Connection, despair, connection.

Tue, 08 Mar 2022 13:41:41 GMT

I don’t think we can authentically separate out the way we live our daily lives from what is happening in Ukraine, from the violence and despair we’re witnessing – and feeling – from what has happened time and time and time again in human history. As we learn more and more about how we are literally connected via brain science, it should not be difficult to extrapolate this out to recognize that the exponential sum of how we raise our children, how we teach spirituality, how we either promote greed and overpowering others or compassion and generosity, and whether or not we collectively make sure that others have the basic needs of life met, figures integrally into the kinds of humans we raise who may eventually come into positions of power, for good or worse. It is a heavy and heartfelt time. I challenge myself, and I respectfully challenge you, to examine what actions you may take to promote the complete care of babies and children, the support of families, the nurturing of young people in the hope and belief that we can grow and support evolved and compassionate and critical-thinking adults who will one day run the world.

Art, Humanity

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 13:53:10 GMT

It is said, rightly so, that art furthers our understanding of the human experience. It’s also true, I believe, that art in all its forms asks us to question everything – to think more carefully and deeply about our own as well as the collective experience.

As helpers, we should avail ourselves of art on a regular basis – music, theater, the fine arts, poetry, literature, movies of substance, sculptures, the spoken word – in order to continue to develop a deeper, richer, more nuanced and fuller recognition of humanity, the world as it is, the world as it could be, the possibilities that abound. In this way, I think, we develop a more meaningful connection with other people, and a greater awareness, perhaps, of what hurting people of all kinds may need most.

It is notable that every culture in the world has a few things in common: music, dance, humor, language, and art. This says to me that art is a fundamental expression, an important way to cope and keep hope, the never-ending tendency for humans to both explore and understand their world. It is healing: research has long named artistic expression and exposure as an evidence-based means of healing from trauma, extreme stress, depression and anxiety, even physical pain and discomfort. In fact, science has discovered that the experience of ‘awe’ – those things that are beautiful and inspirational – reduces our level of cytokines, chemicals in our body that create protective inflammation, but if occurring too long at too-high levels, actually creates illness. In fact, according to Dacher Keltner, the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, instructs that there are important evolutionary reasons for experiencing awe: it’s good for our minds, bodies, and social connections.

Art is a major provenance of experiencing a sense of awe – and thus is, literally, healing. It is also an important source of a deeper understanding of things, events, and people. It enriches us, it develops us, and – I don’t think this is stating things too strongly – it makes us more humane.

Challenge yourself to avail yourself of art in the next week. Consider regular ‘art outings’ as a part of your own growth, perhaps your own healing, and even of developing a finer sense of how we can be an even more empathic and kindly and sensitive person and helper to others. And by the way, a baby’s face and a gorgeous sunset and nature itself are forms of art and awe in their own right – so that’s good news, because it is everywhere.

Helpers

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:08:50 GMT

One of the things I like best about my work is that I get to constantly rub elbows with so many good-hearted, compassionate, earnest people who are committed to serving their fellow human beings. In this often disturbing, disappointing world, I get to be reminded regularly that there are legions of people out there who study, train, and endeavor to provide helpful and healing services to others. And in our society, such work is typically not rewarded in an adequate way by financial compensation or renown (a whole other topic for a whole other blog….), and yet over and over again I meet, talk with, teach and learn from individuals who are on a mission to be of service, to do good in this world, to lift others up. It is medicine for me. I am so grateful for them, and I let them know it. I hope you’ll let these folks know, too, when you come upon them. Perhaps you are one of the Helpers yourself – and if so I hope you’ll affirm yourself for what you are doing, and that you will remember to treat yourself with the honor that you deserve, even if it’s not coming your way from society at large. Because it is imperative work, it is essential work, it is indispensable work, and the countless others’ lives you’ve influenced may not be readily cognizant to you on a day-to-day basis, but I hope you’ll have a knowing that you have been an important part of knitting up the tattered yarns of people’s lives – and thus the world’s fabric – and that without you, so much more would go wrong, and so much less would go well. I love you for it, and I hope you’ll love yourselves for it, too.

The Collective “We”

Sun, 16 Jan 2022 23:22:54 GMT

Aren’t we all in this together? I find it fascinating how science increasingly confirms so many of the things humans have intuited spiritually, philosophically, and practically: our inter-connectedness.

How could it be otherwise? The person who uses a phone has to thank countless others through time who have offered their ingenuity, inventiveness, brain power, physical labor, and dedication toward creating such things. The business person who employs the countless tools of commerce owes a debt to previous and current other minds and bodies, as does the farmer, the beautician, the physician, the artist, the restaurateur, the banker, the truck driver.

None of us operates solely of our own accord untouched by others’ contributions. Neuroscience has proven that even the slightest communication between people simultaneously alters each’s neurochemical transactions. We are constantly influencing each other. We know that eye contact and an engaging tone with babies stimulates parts of their brains that allow for healthy development (and haven’t most of us known this before science proved it?). But this is also true at every age.

If one accepts then, the premise that we are all connected – that we are, in some sense, what Wallace Stegner calls “each other’s consequences” -then we might consider it our job, collectively, to help ensure that we are all taken care of regarding basic human needs – and even that we help to make it more likely that people will make productive and healthy decisions by assisting them: our children, other people’s children, our clients, our patients, our brothers and sisters, our employees, our neighbors, our loved ones, our fellow citizens. If will positively affect them, and thus, it will positively affect us.

Might that not just be our modus operandi: that we as individuals – and as a society – recognize at all times and in all places our inter-connectedness, and thereby look for and follow through with ways in which we can lift up, aid, protect, and support our fellow beings – as individuals, as organizations, as businesses, as governing policy.

What a different world it would be – and someday, may be.

It’s fitting today to quote Dr. Martin Luther King: “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.” The butterfly effect is real. When we help even one person do better, we ultimately help us all.