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What have you done for me lately?

Sharon Hayes — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:20:05 +0000

With U.S. Thanksgiving around the corner, I thought I’d share some thoughts about giving and gratitude.

With the economy the way that it is, with so many people having a really difficult go of things, it’s easy to forget about the many people in our world who are in desperate need in some way. The direness of the situation hit me like a slap in the face when I heard about the recent report from the United Nations that 1 billion people worldwide are facing starvation. To put this in perspective, if one were to count non-stop, it would take over 31 years to count to 1 billion.

The worldwide water crisis is also very bleak. Here are some startling statistics from Water.org. Almost 900 million people worldwide lack access to clean water. When you consider that all it takes to provide clean water for a lifetime for someone is $25, you have to wonder why it is even an issue.

Malaria is one of the harshest sicknesses that is something we can combat. Malaria accounts for 500 million illnesses per year with more than 1 million dying from it. Bed nets – which provide a protective barrier between mosquitoes and people – are one of the most effective ways we know to combat malaria. One net costs $10 to get to a family in need – preventing illness and potentially saving lives. Nothingbutnets.net provides some useful information.

It seems like every few months, at least one part of the world is hit by sudden devastation due to natural catastrophes resulting in lives lost, people sick, people who lose their homes. Organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross and others providing ongoing support to areas in need as well as emergency assistance when tragedy strikes. Most organizations such as these have monthly giving programs to provide ongoing financial support for as little as $10 or $15 a month.

Aside from financial support, giving time to volunteer is something that can be even more rewarding. I’m not referring to simply tweeting a link but getting out there and taking some kind of action. If you need some ideas, here are some different things I’ve given time to over the years:

Provided respite care for autistic children for 2 years. I’d take out a teenager with severe autism for an outing every week to give caregivers a break.
Volunteered at an institution for autistic children on a weekly basis for a couple of hours. I worked with younger children on arts and crafts.
Volunteered at the Montreal General Hospital Snack bar – which was staffed by volunteers.
Visited senior’s home. I’d play cards or board games with them. More than half had no regular visitors.
Volunteered at my family church’s soup kitchen and bazaars.
Put up a website during the ice storm that hit the Northeast to provide updates. We had a team together that helped people out of town know the whereabouts of family members. We helped coordinate bringing generators and other items in.
Put up a website to raise awareness of the devastation in Myanmar and raised funds for Doctors Without Borders & other organizations through direct contributions.
Read daily local news articles for a blind association.
Was a big sister for a high school girl who had been shuffled from one foster care family to another.
Volunteered at a homeless shelter to assist at holiday meals.
While on student council at Champlain College in my role of activities coordinator, I oversaw dozens of fundraising activities.

Don’t think you have the time? Think again. I am not some wonder woman (really!) yet I worked full-time through my last years of high school, college, and university; carried a full course load (and maintained great grades), had a social life, was involved in extra-curricular activities & sports yet I still managed to find time to volunteer weekly. It doesn’t need to be a weekly commitment. Finding 2-3 events you can help with each year that take a couple of hours each can make a huge difference.

There are other ways to make a difference. Many charitable organizations need “stuff.” Often you can get a receipt you can use for tax purposes for donating items you may have thrown out anyway. We gave our last car away. Unused clothing. Books to the local library. Getting some ideas?

Aside from the obvious benefits of giving in some way – to the recipients of what you give, the “feel good” benefit you derive and potential tax deductions (I am being realistic here – it is a motivator for many ) – there are some other benefits:

Our lives become richer, especially in cases where we volunteer in a more hands-on way.
It helps us better appreciate what we have.
It helps us to feel more complete.
I think it can also help prevent depression. I’ve noticed that most fellow volunteers tend to be much happier people overall. Most I have talked to about this said that they have gotten back so much more than they have given through volunteering.
As with working out (see my About page here), I’ve noticed that when I have an active giving plan – financial and volunteering – the rest of my life seems to flow much better as well.

With Thanksgiving around the corner and a new year not that far ahead, maybe it’s time to consider your own giving plan for the year ahead. Don’t leave the thinking for emergency situations. It’s a lot easier for most of us to come up with $5-10 a week than to come up with $250 or $500 during a crisis. What do you do now and what will you do?

P.S. I hope you realize that the “me” in the title of this post was referring to the world at large and not me as a person

Letting Go

Sharon Hayes — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:47:23 +0000

Writing my last blog post required a huge amount of energy. Once it was done, I felt empowered. What helped more was reading the comments, the DMs, the IM’s, the emails and the tweets I have received since writing it. I knew before writing it that we all put up walls to some degree. I knew that most of us also wear masks – rarely truly letting people in to see who we really are. But the validation – actually knowing I wasn’t alone in how I was feeling and that I wasn’t alone from a friendship point of view – greatly contributed to the emotional strength I now possess.

In my last blog post, I made it seem like there were only 2 ways to deal with emotional burdens: trying to decipher things or burying them. A couple of conversations with good friends reminded me there is a 3rd – and much healthier way – simply learning when to truly let go.

I’ve already shared that I have trouble dealing with emotional things. It’s difficult enough to figure out why I feel the way I do, never mind taking into account someone else’s emotions and the reasons they feel and do the things they do. You can analyze what it was about you that caused them to feel or do whatever it is that they felt or did and find yourself going nowhere but crazy. The truth of the matter is, it is often nothing about you, but entirely about the other person.

If you separate out from the situation what is/was under your control from them, sometimes you’ll find there were things you could have done differently. You can choose to take personal responsibility for those behaviors and emotions then chalk it up to – sometimes a painful – learning experience and then let go of the rest.

Perhaps because I’m a strong person I have always had an issue with truly letting go. I equated letting go with a sign of weakness. But, really, is it? By not letting go – and releasing whatever emotions you attach to a situation or a person – you are giving it more power. Holding onto things, trying to sort through things that often have no answer in logic, is actually weakness is it not?

There are a number of things I’ve written/tweeted relating to this over the course of this year. I think at some level, I knew what I should be doing from a logical standpoint; I just needed the emotional side to catch up. Here is one of those tweets:

“Truly letting go of something can not only change your mindset but it can change your life.”

Many years ago, I was in a place where I had let myself start to feel. At the time, I was in a relationship that was troubling. It was someone I was very close with who had, in my opinion, taken on a bad behavioral pattern of saying and doing things to intentionally cause pain. I confronted him about it – saying we either had to end our friendship or things had to change. His response to me was: “I do not do things to hurt you. It’s how you choose to respond that causes the pain you feel.” I felt he was being cruel by not making an effort to understand why I was hurt. In retrospect, I realize he was right. He was at a very bad place in his life. I let his words and actions hurt me. In doing so, I gave up personal power. I walked away from what had been a very good friendship because I let something that wasn’t at all about me/our relationship but relating to other things he was going through impact how I felt.

With serious prompting from one of my friends, I realized it was time to take my own advice. In 3 specific circumstances that were bothering me – emotional baggage if you will – I decided not only to let go, but to take personal responsibility for that which was mine and to also tell the people. I received closure in doing so. After all, isn’t a lack of closure one of the major reasons we have pain from many situations? The ball was in their court for how they chose to respond, if they responded at all.

My state of mind was not at a place where I actually had let go before writing/sending the emails. But through the process of getting it out there, I had a mindshift. I also now have my personal power back. I’ve let situations that were draining me on some level make the shift to being learning experiences.

This isn’t about putting walls up. This isn’t about stopping myself from feeling. It’s about recognizing that sometimes – no matter how we feel, what we did, what damages were done – the only thing we can change is how we choose to react and when we’ve decided we’ve given up enough on an emotional level to something or someone.

Putting Up Walls

Sharon Hayes — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:26:11 +0000

As I write this, I feel crushed and drained.

For several months, I’ve wanted to start this blog. I’ve felt the need to have some outlet where I could express “stuff” that has been going on inside of me. Countless times, I’ve found myself staring at the WordPress editing box. Sometimes as many as a dozen sentences will actually get typed. Then I end up backing up when I realize that I’m simply not comfortable putting myself out there to the extent that I feel the need to. A few days ago, the reason why I was having this difficulty clicked. Ironically, it is the reason why I wanted to start this blog to begin with. I’ve lived most of my life putting up walls. No, this isn’t uncommon. I suspect to some extent everyone does it. But I’m not so certain if the way I handle things is normal.

I’ve lived most of my life on the surface. I had some really bad things happen when I was young. That combined with an incredibly difficult relationship with my mother resulted in two things: recurring issues with eating disorders and letting myself live a surface happiness to avoid dealing with massive pain inside.

Most people put up walls of varying kinds. There’s the public me – who is sociable, outgoing, fun-loving, confident and not afraid to express herself. That is who I want to be. But bubbling beneath the surface is a completely different person. Someone that never really dealt with issues that should have been dealt with..who goes through this continual cycle of feeling the need to deal with it then realizing the best way to deal is just to avoid. I rationalize it away by saying you can’t undo the past. I’m not into psychological mumbo-jumbo.

On September 11th, it will be 10 years since my mother died. More than an anniversary of a loss of a person, I identify with it as the anniversary of a loss of the ability to get closure on some very difficult things. After she died, I had to take care of my dad. He moved in with me not long after and had started to have health issues of his own.

I think it took probably a year for me to realize the pain associated with my mother’s death. I was too busy making sure my father was okay to deal with my own emotional issues. For the second time in my life, I wasn’t able to cope on an emotional level. I couldn’t block out what I was dealing with. I decided it was time to get professional help. (Note: the only time in my life I’d ever seen any kind of therapist was when I was very young because of my purported “genius” level IQ and concern by educators that I wasn’t maximizing my abilities.)

I went to see one psychologist. Since I was never one to talk about the things going on inside me, never mind doing so with a stranger, it was very difficult to get started. Once I did, everything just started coming out. He didn’t say very much during the session. At the end of it, he said to me he didn’t feel I needed therapy. He thought what I needed was to get pregnant and start my own family. In his words: to create my own happiness to replace the bad. Say what? Needless to say this left me more than slightly disenchanted with the idea of seeing a therapist.

One of my good friends is a counselor. Although she knows a lot of what I’ve dealt with, in spite of our friendship, I’ve never been able to let her in the full way. Around 6 months after the failed session with the psychologist, she encouraged me to see someone else. She suggested it was failure on the part of the psychologist and at the very least, I could benefit from talking with a professional.

I saw my GP and talked to him. I wanted a referral to a psychiatrist. I felt myself slowly becoming unhinged. My GP’s initial solution was to put me on anti-depressants. He said he didn’t feel I needed them. He said I seemed like an incredibly strong person. I had the prescription filled, but never took one.

I saw the psychiatrist. I went through a couple of questionnaires. Diagnosis: perfectly “normal.” After a brief discussion, he said most people would not have been able to cope with some of the things I have. Ergo, I am a strong person.

Just over a year ago, I decided to give a distance therapist a try. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find someone that I thought would be a good fit. The initial session went well. She had me do some follow-up work on my own. But instead of dealing with the emotional baggage inside of me, her focus in the next session was on helping me formulate a plan to change the exterior. I tried to explain to her – the reason everyone thinks I am strong is because the exterior seems to be mostly together. It’s the inside that is having issues. I was frustrated. I saw we weren’t going to get anywhere so that was my last session.

I’ve worked hard lately at trying to let people in. There are probably a few dozen people that know bits and pieces. There are fewer than 10 that know more. Taking the walls down that I’ve worked so hard at putting up hasn’t been easy. I’m used to being the person there for people. I’m not used to letting others even get a glimpse of what is inside. It’s difficult. I am someone that thrives on logic. The cut and dry answers to things. But the minute emotional stuff comes up or I let myself open up, it becomes very difficult. People feel selectively “safe” for me. This isn’t a reflection on them as individuals but more about me. When you open up to someone, when you let the walls come down, along with it come expectations. I’ve always had a difficult time asking for what I need from people. This is part of what I struggle with. When expectations aren’t met from someone you’ve taken the walls down for, how do you react?

Part of me desperately wants to go back to the old me – the person that was fully functional on the outside, where I just didn’t think so damn much and over-analyze every relationship with the people in my life. It was easier. You have no expectations of receiving or worry about how people will perceive your shared vulnerability, there is no disappointment. But the other side of me realizes that if I ever want to find true happiness, I need to get myself to the point where the exterior is a true reflection of what is inside of me. I used to think if I kept the walls up, eventually I’d get there. Now I realize that it can only happen by taking them down.