therapy | most hopeful

Jun 12 2016

grief and trauma, learning to live, on, social work, to my students, what students are teaching me, what they are teaching me

an open letter to my students

An Open Letter to My Students on the Eve of the Orlando Shooting.

June 12, 2016

Dear Students,

You likely woke up today as I did: late. You may or may not have turned on the news as is my morning wake-up custom, coffee in hand and multiple snoozes later. Within moments it became clear that there was yet another mass shooting while we were sleeping. This morning’s shooting at a gay night club in Orlando. Over 100 dead and injured.

I remember thinking ‘My soon-to-be godson is to be baptized today. My responsibilities seem yet-again larger now.’

I’m late to the service by a few minutes this morning; I know you’re not surprised. I stood too long at the television in my bedroom, clenching the wooden ledge on top of the dresser left in the room by my great, great-aunts who were the unusual of their era; they were highly educated, remarkably fashionable, and unusually independent women from a time where that was not allowed. No doubt they were recipients of both celebration and judgment. The dresser left in the bedroom of this house they used which I now sleep in has new fingernail marks as of this morning, left accidentally as I should have been dressing for a baptismal service but was instead being washed again in the blood of others.

“I also remember this, and wish I did not,” as Didion once said. I remember that I was not surprised.

Yet another killing, this time the largest mass shooting in our states’ history and the largest terrorist attack on US soil since my freshmen year of college when I sat in a lecture hall of Blanchard at Wheaton and watched the towers fall before my eyes.

I remember this morning thinking that I was surprised that morning as an 18-year-old hopeful, but that I am not surprised now as a 32-year-old hopeful. And it is the hopefulness of my better wiring which has been wanting to talk to all of you all day long today, even though you’ve managed to sneak away from me for the summer. I’ve managed to talk to you in one of our random, side conversations all day long in my head regardless. Then I decided that I hope you might hear it.

Many of you value your faith deeply; I do as well. Because of this, those who believe differently from you are owed your love and honor. The faith you claim has told you so; the faith leaders you are bothered by have challenged this. Follow your faith.

Many of you think
public policy,
issues of social policy and social welfare,
wealth and poverty,
emails to your governors and senators and representatives
(unanswered as most of them go…which you will remember),
childhood development and influence,
family structure and complexity,
group norms and roles,
mob mentalities and social capacities,
and research formulas and findings
aren’t connected in any real way
to your deep desire to help those who are in need.

The crimes of today should remind you that these things are all connected.

The language and now law signed in by Governor Bill Haslam in Tennessee that allow therapists to legally hate and discriminate by refusing counseling to those of the LGBTQ community affected by today’s mass shooting is an issue of policy, welfare, wealth and poverty, legislators who listen and those who ignore (and are paid to do so, which you will remember), legislation and its [silent] funders, biological development and its influences, structure, complexity, norms, roles, mob mentalities and social capacities, research and its findings…

This language and this legislation and these legislators and these voices are the authors of the men and women who will come into your offices and onto your caseloads wounded, orphans of those killed by this morning’s violence, orphans of those who had parents who lived lives of silence or submission to a norm, or stood silently in the back of your sanctuaries on mornings like these as you went to church and thought it was a regular Sunday morning.

I felt the need all day long today, now pushing the clock to make it honest, to let you know that I expect the world of you.

I am pretty sure I have told you this. You will be the best.

I expect a whole other kind of world from you. I expect you to wake up on days like today with the news of the moment and the heart of a saint that is both willing to break the rules and willing to break the norms to dig your fingernails into the wooden ledge on top of the dresser and be late for something planned and appropriate because you decided you had to stand up and speak out for something possibly inappropriate because it puts all of our humanity at risk.

So in class, when I hound you and harass you and rap at you and sing at you and yell at you and take points from you and even when I feed you in an effort to buy you, please know this: I do all these things so that some day, some Sunday morning when someone is waking up and committing to go to church and pledge gratefully to be a godfather for a young man or young woman who has not yet learned to distrust the world…

I do all these things so that you will remember that it will never be okay for us to not be surprised at this kind of hateful news that greeted us this morning.

I’m counting on you.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

Tagged #UTMSWRK300, #UTMSWRK350, #UTMSWRK400, anxiety, baptism, children, Christianity, church, class, communitas, community, counseling, donald jordan, faith, friends, God, godfather, hope, imagination, jesus, justice, kingdom, learning, loss, love, most hopeful, orlando, orlandoshooting, peace, prayer, pulse, Religion and Spirituality, social work, socialwork, students, therapy, trauma, truth, UTMSWRK

May 03 2014

I am alive.

I’m not sure if it comes from my stomach, or maybe from my lungs, or if it actually originates in my throat itself. The language, though, is quite apt that it chokes me up suddenly. I may be speaking about something that feels important but only distantly related to me, and I feel it clench in my throat and somehow trigger the possibility of tears. I may be accidentally thinking of visiting someone who is no longer here to visit. I may be caught by surprise remembering rhythms that no longer exist. It may be the newness of new lives, new relationships, new opportunities, new challenges that do it.

Whatever it is, it comes seemingly out of nowhere and reminds me, ultimately, that I am alive.

I am alive.

If it’s singing at volumes and octaves that I would never sing in front of someone else, it’s the reminder of being alive. If it’s weeping suddenly because life is more confusing than anyone ever said it would be, it’s the reminder that I’m alive. If it’s a ten-second gap with a client where something happens and all of both of us comes crashing into a single pregnant and powerful moment and we sit in silence knowing that something beyond us has happened, it’s the reminder that I’m alive. A dance with the dogs. A drive with the windows down. A game with a child. Laughter with friends. Tears in startling places. Thin space with students or friends or clients or coworkers.

We are alive.

There’s the challenge, of course. Even when longing to freeze the moment because it feels like it’s perfect enough and true enough and thick enough to rest in it forever, I can’t because life doesn’t freeze that way. Even when longing to make the moment disappear because it feels like it’s too empty and ugly and sticky and deathly to be worth existing in, I can’t because life doesn’t erase that way.

But in the space between wanting to make something last forever and wanting to make something never have happened at all, I remember that I am alive. And being alive itself is worth savoring and leaning into with all the goodness and all the crap of it, trusting that in leaning into both the goodness and the crap, we lean more into our true selves.

And we are alive.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged alive, challenge, classroom, Clients, confused, friends, hopeful, hoping, i am alive, living, longing, students, summer, therapy, trusting, we

Feb 23 2014

2 Comments

grief and trauma, learning to live, social work, what they are teaching me

to my clients: an open letter

I’ve told you often that I respect you. At least I think I have. I know I’ve thought it. I know I’ve told other people I do. I think I’ve told you that I do, but in case, let it be known. I respect you. I sit with you and hear of your ability to wait it out, to push through, to keep moving forward, to hold out hope, even when everything suggests there’s no point.

“Catch me up. What’s changed since I last saw you?”

It’s my go-to phrase, you know. Because I’m thinking about all kinds of things, and even though I’ve read my notes from the last time you sat in my office, I may have likely remembered wrongly the things that were most important to you, and the things that I should be asking about this time. So, I say, “Catch me up. What’s changed since I last saw you?”

But don’t think I don’t remember you. As soon as you open your mouth, I pair your name with your face. And your name + face combination ignites a memory of our last conversation…of our previous conversations…about your protests against what is wrong in the world, your protests against what is wrong in your world, your protests against what you are not okay with in you.

And I make space. And I ask questions. And every now and then you say, “Donald, what should I do?”

And I always say, “You know I have no idea what you should do.”

And sometimes you say, “Then what am I paying you for?”
And sometimes you say, “Then what the #*&% am I paying you for?”

And I say in return, “I can’t give you advice. Who am I to tell you what to do? My job is to help you figure it out, not to tell you. Because I have no idea…and mostly because you will figure it out. You have the capacity to move forward; I’m just here to help you uncover it. What do you think you should…..”

+++

I feel pretty clever, you know. In between our conversations I remind myself that you are the expert on your own world, and your choices are yours and not mine. When you succeed, you’ve heard me say the credit belongs to you. When you move ahead in ways you are not happy with, that choice belongs to you too. You’ve heard me say that too. I’m off the hook either way, you see.

Until lately.

Lately I’ve realized that you’ve put me on the hook. In fact, I’ve put myself on the hook.

In light of recent events where I’m left wrestling with my reality, my thoughts, my assumptions, my work, my faith and my world, I hear the words I’ve put in the space between you and me. I hear the questions I’ve posed to you in your reality, your thoughts, your assumptions, your work, your faith, and your world posed back at me. I hear my won questions. I hear my own challenges. I hear my own fears and anxieties.

You don’t have anything on me, by the way. I’ve got you beat. You aren’t any crazier than me; so sorry to let you down. We share our insanity which is also known as “being human”…something you’ve also heard me say before. So while you’ve put me on the hook, you’ve also helped me wait it out, push through, move forward, and hold out hope.

Your courage to lean into your own protest against the darkness has given me quite a challenge to meet.
Your ability to be both your sorrow and your joy has posed in me quite a standard to achieve.
Your insistence on pushing toward vulnerability, justice and peace even in from within the darkness of shutting down, admitting defeat and giving in to chaos has left me with quite a choice.

I’ve changed seats before with you, you know. I’ve made you literally switch places with me in my office, because we both quickly become aware that you know what to do and you need to hear yourself say it.

That’s what is happening now. We’ve switched seats, and then switched again. I’ve walked into your office, and you’ve switched seats with me. I hear the things I’ve pushed you toward coming out of your own mouths with your own individual languages of courage, ability, and insistence, and I’m left with little choice but to do what I have to do.
To move forward.
To push ahead.
To be sorrow and to be joy.
To hold injustice and demand justice.
To comprehend in complexity and to act in simplicity.
To hurt in ways that accept the reality of the way things are, and to choose in ways that foretell the reality of the way things will be.

It’s terrifying. But then again, you know that. You’ve already been here. You’ve already left here. That’s why I respect you. I hope I’ve told you. I think I have. I know I’ve thought it. I know I’ve told other people I do. I think I’ve told you that I do, but in case, let it be known. I respect you. I sit with you and hear of your ability to wait it out, to push through, to keep moving forward, to hold out hope, even when everything suggests there’s no point, and you leave me with no choice but to follow your lead.

djordan
Bandera
Downtown Chicago

Tagged a letter to my clients, bravery, clinical social work, counseling, Courage, insistence, learning, learning as a way of leading, learning from, learning with, letter, listening, open letter, psychology, social work, therapy

Nov 04 2013

1 Comment

social work, what they are teaching me

digging for the possible

On days where I’m ready to practice my craft, and I’ve slept long enough and I’m not trying to finish other things in my head while pretending to listen to someone else, I find myself digging for the possible with the clients who sit and speak and hurt and wonder in my office.

On days where I’m not ready to practice the craft, or on days where I forget it is actually a craft to be practiced, or on days where I’m so absorbed in my own speaking and hurting and wondering…it’s on those kinds of days where I don’t dig for the possible, but rather restate the obvious. My laziness or distraction pushes me to remind others of their own faults, hurts, weaknesses, and burning realities that they––no doubt––know and feel and ultimately honor much more than I ever could.

But on the days where I’m tuned in, dialed up, hunkered down, it becomes magical. To be a voice given some privilege in a room, I get to ask the questions that uncover the great strength and fortitude and creativity and resilience of the people sitting in my office, telling stories more honest than I’ve every dared to tell.

And as we dig through the rubble for the possibilities of their futures, I become immediately honored and terrified that what might happen in the room depends to a certain extent on the state in which I show up to work.

And with the stakes so high, if stakes are viewed as gifts, to whom much is given much is required.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged archaeology of hope, counseling, hope, listening, possibilities, resilience, social work, social worker, therapy, truth

Apr 12 2013

1 Comment

learning to live, social work, what they are teaching me

worried about big legos

During a week filled with worries about class schedules, family illness, nonprofit fundraisers, big decisions, and tax nightmares, I found myself most concerned Wednesday afternoon about whether or not I would have a chance in the “intergalactic battle” being created at my feet with enormous legos.

I needed to type out a quick note for his grandmother on letterhead before our session was over, and I asked him if he preferred I do it at the beginning or the end. He said he would start building his army while I typed the letter, and then I could build mine, and then the war.

Halfway through the paragraph-long letter, I caught myself looking down at my feet and thinking, “How am I going to beat him? He’s built a fortress around his robots, and he has soldiers lining the wall on the inside and outside! I need to get finished with this letter so I have a chance at all!”

He was talking the entire time I was typing, which was adding to my stress. “You know I’m going to beat you, Donald. This wall is impenetrable. And these robots can break through all of your walls. Are you getting scared yet, Donald?”

And I WAS getting scared. I found myself trying to type faster so I could get to work on my own fortress and walls and robots.

So for about fifty minutes on Wednesday afternoon, I was laying on the floor in my office with an incredibly brave nine-year-old, who recently found his mother dead in her bed and called the police, worried about whether I had enough mega blocks to make an army big enough to contend with his.

I didn’t, of course. He won, not that I was trying to go easy on him; I wanted to win, but he beat me. We began to talk about his planning, his bravery, his skill, his initiative. These were all the things which led him to beating me in our intergalactic war on the bamboo rug in my office. There were all the things which also led him to cope in miraculous and hope-affirming ways with the loss of his mother and a world turned upside down.

And it would be his lesson in these things which made me consider my class schedule, family illness, nonprofit fundraisers, big decisions and tax nightmares with the eyes of a nine-year-old who is much braver and stronger than I.

Every conversation is privilege with answers waiting to be found by all involved. If it doesn’t feel that way, our arrogance is leading.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged childhood, children, death, grief, identity, imagination, Lego, loss of a parent, mapping, mega blocks, narrative theory, narrative therapy, play, play therapy, social work, therapy

Jan 16 2013

the illusion of the one thing

Privileged, I sat and listened to seven different people today, varying in ages and colors and backgrounds and struggles, all sharing the clouds in which they find themselves. I saw myself in them today, all of us looking for the one way of thinking about it or labeling it or diagnosing it that would set them, set me, set all of us free. If that one thing was found, they could get the right medicine or the right outlook or take the right action or make the right choice to fix it all.

“Fixing it all” is of course the goal they hurried in with, and the goal I hurry in most places with. It is, of course, the goal that all of us most often run into the cloudy situations with. Tell me the one thing that will fix all of this.

We scramble and wrestle and our ears turn red and our voices raise and tears fall and our heart rate takes off. Everything in us is trying to churn together to locate, isolate and intervene on that one thing.

Our inevitable not finding it leads to our heartbrokenness, growing frustration and often to our hopelessness.
And there is in the places where we sit quietly, listening to the clock tick, watching the moth walk across the window, feeling that part of our sock that isn’t fitting right, we begin to let go the illusion of the one thing. And we take a breath, and we see that in the middle of the cloudy struggle, there is still a ticking clock. Still across the window a walking moth, still a tangled sock buried deep down in our boot.

And in those moments, we realize the cloudy struggle isn’t all that is true. And there, our hope begins.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged Clocks and Timers, controlling, counseling, doubt, hope, listening, optimism, running, social work, stress, therapy, wanting, Windows, wondering diagnosing, worry, Wrestling

Jan 07 2013

2 Comments

learning to live, social work, what they are teaching me

dinner at the coffee table

I don’t know why it has all come together in my brain this way.

Growing up, I remember being furious that this rule was put in place, even in middle and high school, that I MUST be present at the dinner table at least three or four nights a week. If I went out after that, that was one thing. If I ate or not was another thing, but my presence at the dinner table was required three or four nights a week. (I don’t remember which, so obviously it wasn’t as traumatic as I would like to pretend.)

As with many things I now reflect back on from growing up, I hated this rule at the time, and yet now I wouldn’t trade anything for it.

And a few nights ago, I joined some incredible friends from present day around their coffee table for dinner. At our home growing up, when I was huffing and puffing about having to be home for dinner around a table, we would every now and then sit around the coffee table, the same one I now have in my den, and eat pizza and watch TV together. I remember being angry that my parents could guess what was going to happen on the TV show, and I was likely more angry about this because I wanted to be anywhere but there at the moment.

But a few nights go, legs crossed over pillows on the floor, eating while sitting around their coffee table, I found myself in a kind of time freeze. The four year old daughter of my friends was pretending to make meals or be a drummer with her metal bowls and plastic whisks, and we were eating sushi with chopsticks out of styrofoam sakura to-go boxes.

There was much that reminded me, though, of growing up. The space for imagination and casualness, and play and informality. The insistence of good food even though it was spread out across a coffee table reminded me of how much has changed, and how little has changed at the same time.

And today, I’m in a counseling session with a family who can’t pay the bills so they share a home with another family. Four parents, five children, three minimum wage jobs, exponential stress. They were sitting in my office, a mom and dad, completely undone by the situation, and parenting skills to reflect the same. As they were talking, I found myself returning to the living room coffee table a few nights ago with incredible friends learning to be good parents, a four year old playing kitchen, and myself wondering how things will be remembered ten years later.

For all of us.

And most of all, I found myself glad that someone made me sit down for dinner three or four nights a week, no matter how unbelievable and unrealistic a request it seemed at the time.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged asking, child, Coffee, Coffee table, conversation, counseling, dinner, imagination, listening, parent, Parenting, social work, therapy, tips

Jul 17 2012

2 Comments

grief and trauma, what they are teaching me

apparently still and incredibly crisp

floored again in dialogue with a client today
the incredible resilience following him into the room
ignored by the very person living under so much
withstanding, but still struggling
struggling with real and reasonable and incredible grief

and still holding it together
hair on, face on, courtesy on, honesty on

the wrestling only barely under the surface of
otherwise apparently still and incredibly crisp waters
all hiding
all hoping
no one notices what a mess
we all show and tell each others stories

and in hiding and hoping no one notices
we all ourselves fail to notice
our fighting resilience as the only thing stronger than our struggles
and the only thing strong than our fight to hide our struggles

until we see it through a dark mirror
that we all look much the same
and we are all incredibly resilient as we float over
otherwise apparently still and incredibly crisp waters

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged conversation, counseling, dialogue, grief, hoping, listen, listening, ptsd, resilience, strength, strong, struggle, therapy, trauma

Jun 30 2012

divine proxy | intro to a series

The notion is not a new one, but it appears to be one seldom discussed explicitly, unless I am missing the entire conversation altogether (please let me know if I am). I want to spend a few posts on the idea of divine proxy. I hit the concept in “Congregation as Expert; a New Way Forward” during the “Culture and Crises” lecture series. It’s something that lurks behind practitioners in the helping fields, especially those practitioners who are Christians, as we falsely imagine that we are the changing force in the lives of our clients. It’s something that lurks in church offices and behind the desks and efforts of those who try to help and change situations being faced by others.

Today, the idea itself could use explanation, however brief.

Divine proxy is the idea that when someone is speaking from authority, whether professional or religious, whether self given, institutionally given, or transcendently given, they are then interacted with, heard or perceived as becoming the official voice of the source of the authority.

So, …

a therapist who speaks on matters of relationships can become the final authority on a specific relationship.

a pastor who speaks on matters of moral or spiritual issues can become the actual voice of God on specific matters with individual people.

So, …

if a therapist has a misguided view, or is offering a personal, cultural or biased view on someone else’s specific relational situation, the someone heeds the advice as fact, and acts accordingly whether or not everything in them says otherwise and the result is damaging and more disabling. Or maybe they do heed advice even though they feel otherwise, and it is helpful and healing and the person comes to know that to be true later. Or, the person finally hears what deep down he or she knew all along about the situation, and they are set free because the professional speaking offers a more authoritative voice than the person views his or her own voice as being.

If a pastor has a misguided view, or is offering a personal, cultural, or biased view on someone else’s specific moral or spiritual issues, the someone heeds the view as fact––from God rather than from the individual––and acts accordingly whether or not everything in her or him says otherwise and the result is damaging and more disabling. Or maybe the advice is heeded even though the individual feels otherwise, and it is helpful and healing and the person comes to know that to be true later. Or, the person finally hears what deep down he or she knew all along about the situation, and finally freedom is experienced because a pastor speaking offers a more authoritative voice than the person views his or her own voice as being.

We can quickly see how the influence of authority gives incredible weight, whether someone turns a back and walks away from the perceived authority and the authority represented forever, or someone follows the authority because it is seen as direct from the authority source, and therefore should be heeded.

While it may sound pointless or semantic, the issue quickly becomes incredibly personal and incredibly immediate. I think about people who experience great healing because a pastor sees the presence of divine proxy, and takes great caution to express anger and action toward injustice and evil. I think about the latest story coming out of a megachurch about a spiritual abuse and misogyny that is only headed because the pastor has an unquestioned direct link to God, and questioning is called disloyalty to him…and God. I think about other church experiences where people continued to go home to abusive homes because the pastor says the wife should act more like Jesus to make the husband come around.

So it’s not pointless, and it’s not semantic, and it’s worth the time to consider, even if it’s only mine. So, the first time for a series on mosthopeful.com. We’ll see what happens.

Next up: divine proxy | stories of the phenomenon

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged abuse, Christian, christian counseling, Christianity, church, counseling, danger, distrust, divine proxy, do no harm, God, grief, harm, healing, hoping, Pastor, pastoral counseling, pathology, power, proxy, risk, social work, Spiritual abuse, therapist, therapy, threat, trust

May 07 2012

1 Comment

what they are teaching me

reversing the questions

I find myself often asking questions to clients that I know I need to be asking myself. Much of the art of clinical work has little to do with giving answers or telling people what they need to know, as these things are never beneficial when I am struggling with something.

The art seems instead to be in asking the questions, out loud, that we are unable to ask ourselves when we are holding on with dear life to whatever it is that is holding on to us so tightly. And in all the ways that my clients are generous enough with me to offer the space for me to put a new question in the air, it is in that same moment that I hear that question being asked out loud.

Often, like it was today, the words float in space and I recognize that I am hearing the question posed for the very first time as I ask it to the person sitting across from me…

“Why do you think you need the last word?”

“Why do you think it is so important that they understand what you are saying?”

“Why do you think they heard it one way when you intended something very different?”

“Why do you think that became so unbearable for you? What about it is really so impossible?”

‘Why do you think those words from that person meant so much to you?”

“Why do you think you worry about this particular possibility so much?”

“What is it about you that makes this in particular worth so much?”

The bravery my clients show in speaking their realities into the air offers me the opportunity to hear, usually for the first time, the questions that I have not yet been brave enough to ask myself. And so as they share in their own vulnerability, I am able to take a more honest look at whatever is buried in my quiet interior. I am able to ask myself a question that I didn’t even know I needed to ask.

Paired with the gift this has become is the frightening reality that at whatever moment I think I know enough to tell a client what they should know or need to do…in that moment I am missing the opportunity to learn from them what I need to be asking myself.

Their humility and bravery, and generosity with their humanity, are teaching me a great deal about what it means to be a human being in the world.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged answering, Ask an Expert, asking, bravery, humility, Humorous, listening, out loud, Question, questions, Religion and Spirituality, speaking, therapy

most hopeful

choosing to be most hopeful

Tag Archives: therapy

I am alive.

apparently still and incredibly crisp

reversing the questions