Monthly Archives: November 2016

Being a Thankful Leader

Faith, Topics in Leadership, Work

thank-you

I spend a lot of  time at work thinking about  problems. Problems from funding changes, to regulatory changes, to juggling the budget, to trying to hire good staff in the midst of a statewide workforce shortage, to making sure our agency is on the forefront of meeting the housing, trauma recovery, and mental health needs of our community. There are many times it feels overwhelming. Today though, on Thanksgiving, I want to take the time to share the specific blessings I experienced this year.

  • After more than a year of looking for a full time  psychiatrist God provided a great one. He is a wonderful team player and his patients love him.
  • One of our key administrators moved and we were able to find a highly qualified replacement who is a great problem solver.
  • This week two experienced social workers walked in and applied for jobs we had openings for.
  • This week a great employee who had taken another job came back.
  • We had an opening for a cleaning position and were able to fill it with a real go-getter who had just lost hours at another job.
  • After looking for a support staff for several weeks we just hired a really dynamic candidate.
  • Our clinical director has created a tight-knit  team of counselors and case managers that work together and get great results.
  • Our HR manager  has developed a fantastic orientation for new employees and is putting together a great recruitment and retention plan.
  • Our domestic violence shelter has started several new support groups.
  • A state and local grant allowed us to expand services to our county jail.
  • After a major local tragedy our agency was able to provide critical incident stress support to several local groups.
  • We have opportunities to expand our equine therapy program.
  • This year we partnered with our local schools to start a kindergarten readiness program.
  • We’ve identified several other partnerships we can develop to have an even greater impact in our community.
  • Our financial statements look solid.
  • Our shelter director had gotten new grants and strengthened funding for all its programs.
  • We have purchased new billing software which will strengthen our accounts receivable.
  • We’ve been nominated for social service agency of  the year through our local chamber of commerce.

So many blessings. So many answers to prayer.

Personally I’m blessed with an amazing wife and soulmate. I have three amazing daughters. I’m blessed with friends, a great church and opportunities  to use the gifts God has given me.

May all if you have a peaceful Thanksgiving. Let’s also try to count our blessings a lot more often.

What in the World Happened to Coffee?

Life, The Joy (and humor) of raising girls.

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On Saturday my wife and I were Christmas shopping at a local mall. We wandered into a fancy kitchen store to get ideas for gifts for our family. We got to the section of the store where they displayed coffee makers. As I am staring at the 22 rows of various machines all designed to do one thing, mix coffee grounds and water together, I have an incredible flashback to the simple ceramic coffee percolator my aunt used to make her coffee in. I compared her simple electric appliance to the pour-over, french press, computerized, grinding, steaming, and cold brewing options of today. I looked at my wife and asked “What in the world has happened to coffee?”

I have been a coffee drinker my whole life. It is a comfort food for me. I remember coming home from high school and drinking coffee and eating homemade cookies with my mom. I remember mom perking a full pot for my dad before he went off to work the midnight shift at a local hospital. Growing up, the coffee was brewed in a stove top percolator. I can remember watching every night as the water bubbling up into the glass top turned from clear to dark brown meaning the java was ready to be served. Later my parents switched to a Mr. Coffee drip machine. Still, sometimes, my dad would simply boil the grounds in water in a pot on the stove when he didn’t want to mess with the coffee maker. They usually bought the brand that was on sale. It didn’t really matter whether it was Folgers, or Maxwell House, Hills Brothers, or A&P.  Nowadays I don’t buy the large container my parents used to get. I go for a little higher end beans in the 12 oz bags. My coffee sensitivity has been honed.

My love for coffee has been transferred to my three daughters. Each one of them is a serious consumer of the magical beverage. My oldest has a special coffee nook in her apartment. My middle daughter works at a specialty coffee shop and is learning to roast beans. My youngest has two or three cups every morning. It seems to becoming one of the tides that bind.

All of that being said, after 40 years of drinking coffee every day, I have to ask: what has happened to coffee? It used to be simple, black or with cream and/or sugar. Now it comes in endless flavors, with soy milk, with steamed milk, as a  latte, as a frappe, or any number of other choices. I need a dictionary to order a drink at most coffee shops. My daughter who roasts coffee wants a certain kind of coffee maker for Christmas. It took her a half hour to explain the way it mixes coffee grounds and water is superior to the way my coffee pot does. I’m not convinced.

Tomorrow morning I’ll have my simple black coffee as I get ready for the day. The same drink I have had for the last 40 years.  I know my three daughters will be having a black coffee too. Theirs may come out of a fancy machine or a trendy pour-over gadget. In the end I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s that enchanting drink that has been shared in my family for generations. I may not understand how complicated it has become but I do appreciate it as a beverage that has created fond memories and a connection between generations past and future.

corning-ware-coffee  My aunt’s electric percolator *

stove-top-perculator   My parents’ stove top percolator *

*examples

When Your World Gets Rocked

Faith, Life, Mental Health

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It is likely to happen to to all of us at least once.  One of the things that has given us a sense of security in life goes away. It may by the loss of a job, the loss of a loved one, the loss of our home, the loss of our health or the loss of an election. When it happens we are filled with emotions that range from disbelief, to fear, to anger, to despair. I have seen it happen to many people over the years. One of the most frequent places I saw it was when I worked at a psychiatric hospital that had a program for older adults. Men and women who came there were seeking help  for depression, anxiety, psychotic disorders  or suicidal thinking.

As time went on I started to see a pattern in the people we worked with. They were all in their 70s and 80s. They all had similar patterns of loss. It may have began with retirement from a job that had given them a sense of purpose, followed by health issues that prevented them from being as active as they once were, followed by giving up their home for a smaller living space, followed by the death of friends who were also aging, and then often the the final straw, giving up their driver’s license.

What was interesting about this process was this: though many of the older adults had similar losses and came into the program with similar despondency, some of them got better while others continued to struggle. As I spent time with the individuals in the program  I noticed that those who got better had developed  resources that were  more deep and enduring than their losses. They had well to draw from that ran deeper than their circumstances. Resources that were stronger than their losses. The sources of strength centered around three themes.

The first resource was emotionally intimate relationships. Even  though the death of a spouse was common theme, the older adults who got better had grown roots in other relationships. Their soul mate was gone but they had children, grand children, siblings and friends who buoyed them  in the loss. People they could cry with, vent to, and be themselves with. Though they felt the loss of their spouse or loved one,  they knew they were not alone in their pain.

The second resource was meaningful activity. Some of the folks had hobbies such as building simple furniture to give to those in need, others volunteered at Head Start and cradled preschoolers who were having a rough day,  some were in service clubs, others made candy and gave it away, some gardened or even had a part time job. What made the activity a resource for healing was that it involved generosity. Whatever the activity was, it gave them a sense of putting something good back into the world.

The final resource was a strong spiritual practice. This often included prayer, reading sacred texts, and participating in religious services with like minded believers.  What this resource gave those who got  better was  a place to go with all of the questions that had no answer and  with a way to make sense of a very difficult and sometimes complicated life. It was this resource that allowed the older adults to experience a sense that though their world felt like it was falling apart, there was a greater power at work that could and would hold them together.

The lessons I learned a few years ago from some 70 and 80 year old sojourners was that three things made a difference. Relationships, activities that provide a sense of purpose, and a  practicing  faith in God. I encourage us all to invest in these  resources. That way when difficult times rock our world, we will have the strength we need to cope.

“It’s not your job to fix broken men.”

Life, Mental Health

broken 

It’s Not Your Job To Fix Broken Men

“It’s not your job to fix broken men.” I wrote down this quote after watching  Private Violence (http://www.privateviolence.com), an HBO Documentary about the disturbing reality of  partner violence against women. I want my three daughters to know it’s not their job to fix broken men. I want my daughter’s friends to know this. I want the young girls, the moms, and the grandmas who come to the mental health center and domestic violence shelter I work for to know this.

As much as I want the women and girls I know to run away from “broken men”, it is not right or  fair to place the responsibility to avoid  one sided, exploitive,and  abusive  relationships on the ladies. It belongs squarely on the men.

Though there are many emotionally healthy and mature men in our culture, I am concerned with the number of guys, young and old, who are emotionally underdeveloped. In relationships this turns into behavior that is self centered in its mildest form  and violently abusive at its extreme.  Over the years in my work in the mental health and abuse recovery field,  I have accumulated a list of behaviors that I regularly see in men who are emotionally immature and who are  exploitive/abusive partners. I propose this list as a survey to guys. In this list  I am outlining  the behaviors I see that are strong indicators that a man is not ready for an emotionally or physically intimate relationship but rather should focus his attention on “growing up” emotionally. The growing up process may take the form of seeing a professional counselor, a spiritual mentor or an accountability group. Here is the list:

  1. If you find yourself believing that your wife or girlfriend is your possession and that you in have every right to control and/or punish her then you are an abusive man. You need to immediately step away and work with specialist to undo this dangerous character trait.  Healthy relationships are built upon a  foundation of freedom, trust, and supporting the intellectual, spiritual, academic, economic, and creative growth of your partner.
  2. If you have ever said to you wife or girlfriend, “if you break up with me I will kill myself,” then you are a manipulative man who is exploiting the kindness and sense of responsibility your partner has. You need to begin to work with a professional to develop a more stable and mature sense of self. Healthy men focus on what they can give to their partner not what they can take. Love flourishes in freedom and is diminished in an environment characterized by threats.
  3. If you choose to have a sexual relationship with your female partner but you expect her to be fully responsible for birth control then you are selfish and too immature for a relationship. You have a lot of inner work to do so that your emotional development becomes much less egocentric. Males  who have grown up to become mature men realize that a sexual relationship involves embracing the responsibility for birth control.
  4. If you verbally degrade your girlfriend in front of others and/or degrade your wife in front of your children then you are abusive. You need reevaluate your behavior in the relationship and deal with your sense of inferiority so that you no longer need to humiliate and control others. Men who are fully emotionally developed want their partner to grow and succeed. They constantly seek to build their partner up.
  5. If you text your girlfriend or wife throughout the day to make sure you know what she is doing or to intimidate her and control her then you are an abusive partner. You are too insecure for a relationship. Step away and seek professional help before entering back into the partnership. Emotionally mature men are not plagued by a concern of their partner being out of their control. They want their partner to flourish.
  6. If you try to keep your wife or girlfriend away from her family or friends then you are an abusive partner. Step away from the relationship and find professional help. Emotionally mature  partners embrace the loved ones of their girlfriend or spouse and seek to integrate with them in positive, healthy  ways.
  7. If you find yourself accusing  your girlfriend or wife of cheating with every guy who looks at her you are too insecure to be in a relationship. Emotionally mature men aren’t paranoid. If jealousy is a dominant emotion for you then  you need to seek help. Do not blame your girlfriend or spouse. They do not make you jealous. You need professional help.
  8. If you attempt to control where your wife or girlfriend works because you are concerned that economically, educationally or positionally they will have more power than you then you are too insecure to be in an emotionally intimate relationship. Step back and seek help. Mature partners seek to have their spouse or significant other become their best self.
  9. If you expect your wife or girlfriend to work, keep up the house (clean, pay bills, prepare meals …), and be the primary childcare provider while you do not do any of the above then you are selfish and immature. Emotionally mature men work hard to do their part for  the family financially, as a parent, and to maintain the household. It is an equal partnership. Don’t be a freeloading male.
  10. If envy, jealousy, and anger are the emotions that describe what you feel toward your partner then please, seek professional help. Relationships characterized by these emotions do not end well.

These 10 descriptions are not a comprehensive list.  There are many other ways abusive and exploitative relationships manifest themselves. If you find yourself with partner who demonstrates these behaviors, please, seek out support. Find the resources you need to move out of the situation. If you are the one with these behaviors then be honest with yourself, step away, seek help, and do the work necessary to develop into a mature, healthy, and supportive partner.