Who’s Got Your Back?

Who’s got your back?  Anyone?  One of our biggest jobs in life is to nurture relationships with those we can support and with those who will support us.

It’s often not until you need someone that you realise how few of these people you have when you really need them, and yet, when your back’s against the wall, you may well find that someone comes out of the woodwork to make that difference you’re looking for.

It’s always surprising who’s around when life goes pear shaped.  Some you expect would be there or even might be there, are not there.  Others you don’t factor in as caring end up being there for you.  And then there’s the total stranger that becomes a key acquaintance and even a Godsend during that phase of crisis.

The main thing when the chips are down is how much we need others—not to reinforce to us how unfair the world is, but those who will just sit, who will just park their judgement, who will journey with us as a friend.

Friends always seem to know what we need, and when we encounter such a friend in a real personal crisis a friend like this teaches us, perhaps for the first time, the value in helping.

I find this is the number one goal in life: to find contentment in serving others, to know that there’s a great deal of value in caring, and in being saved by the love of others converts us to being that kind of saving influence in others’ lives.  Of course, we’re not ‘saviours’, because we don’t need to be, and we really cannot be.

We’re simply that help to people that they define is helpful at just the time they need it.

Who’s got your back?  And maybe reverse it around—whose back do you have?

The truly great thing about helping and serving others is that there’s always a need out there.  Never is there a time when everyone’s sweet.  And in having been helped ourselves, God gives us a sense for who might be dejected and forlorn.

It’s times of suffering that teach us how much we need each other.  They also show us how intrinsic this kind of compassion is.  It works for everyone touched by trauma and pain, and once you’ve been touched, you always connect with the downhearted.

Trauma and pain are conversion experiences if we don’t anesthetise ourselves.

Life will always get us down if we let it.  We must insulate ourselves as best we can from trauma, and it’s people and relating and humour and being real and vulnerable that does this.

When you’ve had your back protected, something in you wants desperately to have others’ backs. Caring is a blessed contagion.

Finally, as a good mentor of over 30 years pointed out, all of what I’ve discussed here is underpinned by our impetus, our motivation, our passion—of pursuing connection intentionally.  This connotes the will to break past barriers that would relegate these ideas as pipedreams.  We must convert the will to connect and be connected with the drive to act.

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Men, women, we need each other

You don’t need to mix in funeral circles long before you hear week after week sad and happy stories of life.  Stories—all our stories—are interesting.  We must get beyond the thought that our story isn’t interesting, worth investing in, worth listening to.

One of the commonest paradoxes I hear almost every day is the fact that we, as human beings, isolate ourselves when we most need connection.

When we isolate ourselves, it’s often because we can’t be vulnerable—it’s shame or it’s guilt or it’s fear, or it’s that we don’t want to be a burden, or for some strange reason we don’t feel we’re worthy of being invested in.

Isolating ourselves is the sure-fire way to enter the sinkhole syndrome.  It’s a refusing of all help because we feel we can trust our vulnerability to nobody.

We feel alone so we stay alone, thinking all along that we’re safest there in our isolation.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m astonished how many couples and individuals leave it to the death knell to invest in counselling—that would otherwise have called the truth into the light so it could be faced.

But in our isolation, we stay cocooned in a place where only the enemy can get us there.

If there’s one reason fellowships like church and AA work, it’s because it’s community—men, women, we need each other.

Being together is an intransigent force for good.  Simply by being around people who are healthy, we who are unhealthy begin to grow and thrive.  But we must first take the risk to take the step into the light.

Sometimes we’ve isolated ourselves because it’s been people who have hurt us.  A place, a situation, a people group triggers us.  We’d be far better off facing those situations in some safe way to reconcile them—always with an open mind and heart to learn.

We need each other.  And not just men for men and women for women.  We need to be in platonic community.  We need to be able to appreciate others, and when finally, others are valued and prized and esteemed in our eyes, watch what’s happening in our hearts.

Watch what happens to your mental health when you thrust yourself into healthy, mature, lifegiving community.  Along with good sleep patterns, diet, and exercise, it always improves.  Simply being in loving, joyous community will help so many spiritual maladies.

And do you know the test of a loving community?  You can tell your truth, you can risk sharing your real thoughts, you can be vulnerable—without feeling it’s a risk, without being fearful you’ll disappoint people, or worse, betray them.

Loving community is about being free to be the best first versions of who WE are.

When we’re benefactors of such a freedom as being able to speak our truth, we see the value, and we invite others into that spacious expanse where trust abounds.

We need each other.  We need others to validate us, and in seeing the value in this, we take that lead and love others even as we enjoy their love.

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Your right to feel safe in your relationship

You have every right to feel safe in your relationship. In any relationship. Especially in marriage.

But it’s often a journey to get there — to arrive in this place through work on both sides of the equation. And this is not excusing abuse, for which there is no excuse! But it is the necessary concession we need to make if ongoing repentance and continued growth is evident.

None of us wants to give up on a relationship with potential where we believe the other person is trying from their heart. No; we want and need to believe in their capacity to grow. Until they refuse to grow, refusing to be challenged. And we need to believe fervently that we’re committed to ensuring they feel safe around us and act accordingly.

We still have every right to feel safe, to be free of anxiety pertaining to a person’s presence.

We still have every right to feel safe regarding what we do, what we don’t do, what we say, what we think, with the ability to voice what we think, and carry out what we believe is right.

To have our living and our being rest acceptably within the state of sanctuary.

More is the pity that we don’t always feel safe. And it is tragic when we cannot say it. It’s the saving grace of a relationship that where we don’t feel safe our partner can simply hear us out, and not judge us, or feel accused or unworthy.

A right relationship is about feeling 
right about the relationship.

And marriage is about such right relationship. Where both feel they can communicate and exist in the presence of safety.

For both it will take maturity, the ability to be and remain in the adult space. For both, security, a definitive sense-of-self that acknowledges and accepts personal flaws. For both, faith, which is trust in one another. For both, commitment, to keep serving the other. For both, intimacy, to keep reaching toward the other in closeness and connection. For both, safety, knowing that space for peace is afforded to both by both, and yes, to agree to disagree and have that respected.

Where there is no such assurance for safety, doubts for the rightness of the relationship are exposed.

Feeling safe in your relationship is an incredible blessing where there’s great reason for gratitude.

Here’s the point: if you believe it’s your right to be safe in your relationship, you’ll also afford that safety to your partner, and to other people you’re in relationships with. They have their right to feel safe too.

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Responding to life’s hurts when you’re overwhelmed

We don’t need to go looking for the things of life that hurt us.  They come at us either by the losses that arrive at 4PM on some idle Tuesday, those that are nobody’s fault, or by the losses that are attributable to our relationships—when people disappoint, hurt, betray, or abandon us.

None of us are saved the indignity of being crushed by life.

And every time we’re crushed by a circumstance—a loss, a relationship that breaks down, an abuse that occurs, a trauma we’re exposed to, a plan that doesn’t work out, a break we don’t get, a serious disease of injury we suffer—we’re tempted to go two harmful ways in response.

We’re sorely tempted to either deny it’s happened or become enraged, to play the blame game or get even, to put down or to shut down.

And it’s understandable that we’re tempted to react when suddenly, with no warning, the walls of life close in, and we’re overwhelmed.

If we don’t overcome the temptation to escape or attack, we’ll probably do one or the other or both.  To escape is to hurt ourselves.  To attack is to hurt others.  Neither works nor helps.

Escaping fixes nothing even if it feels good for the moment.  Attacking likewise puts the blame either where it doesn’t belong or where it’s going to do harm.

We’re tempted to react because there’s a need to respond.  But it’s wise to delay our response for a short time to face our situation in contrite stillness.  This isn’t easy, but it’s doable.

The key to a good response, a wise decision that will serve us and others well, is to take the time and consider all the consequences of our potential actions before we commit to them.  This takes a humble, vulnerable strength.

Of all life skills, this is the most valuable life skill: to respond to life’s losses the best you can.

In neither escaping by denying, blaming others or things, or shutting down, nor attacking by anger, fighting, bullying, or putting down, we face a conundrum.

What will we do?  When faced with the options, all that stares us in the face is to run and hide or to fight our way out.

But there’s a third way, and that’s to face the fury of what overwhelms us.  It’s to lament what’s occurred.

What happens as we face and lament what’s happened is it naturally overwhelms us to the point that we seek the support we need.

It’s okay to want to be angry or to run and hide, at least initially.  It’s okay to react the wrong way initially.  But if we’re going to reconcile what’s happened, we need to think our way through the maze of emotions toward good sustainable decisions.

Talking with others who are wise, taking time out to reflect and to lament, facing and feeling our pain, and getting whatever help we need; these are good things to do.

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Taking time to process hard news before responding

If there’s one life lesson I’m thankful to have received over and again through the past ten years, it’s to delay my judgement and response in the highly emotive and cognitively fluid processing time.

Many times I’ve made ill-considered decisions that have often wrought dire consequences.

It’s like when you get feedback that is negative or unexpected that throws you for a loop.  That usually takes me 1-2 days to process.  When I’ve waited, I’ve responded better.

Or when you’re called upon to make a crucial life decision.  That can take me 1-2 months to process.  When I’ve waited, I’ve responded better.

Or when you’ve experienced life-paralysing loss.  That grief, experience has shown me, can take 1-3 years to process.

Without processing time, we tend to fall into the trap of thinking incorrectly and doing wrongly. Instead, we need to respect our and others’ processes.

We need to give certain situations the time and space they need.

“Processing” is probably the best word to describe that nebulous, liminal space where prejudgement is both folly and potentially harmful.

You don’t have all the information to hand, so making an adjudication is both unfair and perilous.

“Processing” is an utterly mysterious thing.  We don’t know what we’re truly dealing with until the processing is done, and we can say with confidence, “Ah, I’m finally there, finally in a place where there is peace and perspective and purpose for what came that I had no answer for.”

Prejudging is attitudinal and responding is behavioural, and behaviours of punishment are predicated on attitudes of judgement.  When attitudes of judgement are foiled, behaviours of punishment are nullified.

This is a place of safety for ourselves and others.

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and not know how to respond.  It’s okay because that’s life.  

Which of us hasn’t had news that sent us absolutely reeling for hours or days or longer?  Processing what comes in takes time because trauma responses are often involved.

Whenever I’ve prejudged—as if I’ve known (yet I didn’t)—and responded—as if I thought I was capable (but wasn’t)—in the processing time, I’ve inevitably discovered later on that I either harmed myself or others or both, especially in important working and familial relationships.

Sometimes we trust our judgement and responses too much, and in that triggering time of fight, flight, freeze and fawn we may THINK we’ve got all the information at our disposal, but it’s a fact that anxiety is what drives the reaction.  And it is so often a REACTION, and not the more ordered, considered response the situation called for.

It’s different, of course, when there’s no time to pray through or consider the information at hand and we MUST decide.  But so often we’re actually not under that kind of time pressure.

It’s like the email that fires us up.  Written communication is the worst.  Come back and read it again tomorrow.  Chances are it’ll read different when we’ve calmed down.  Do we really need to call the person back when either they or we (or both of us) are upset?

Wisdom delays that situation, if possible, for the sake of space to reflect.

One of the wisest things any of us can do is be aware of the role of anxiety in a pressure-cooker moment.  Strategically withdraw.  Only re-engage when you’re sure you’re back in your reasonable, reliable, realistic, logical and responsible adult space once more.

Your processing time is to be respected.  Everyone else’s processing time is also to be respected.  When people take this responsibility seriously—to take their emotions and cognitions seriously enough to delay judging and responding—less harm is done.

People who place you under pressure to respond may be satisfied with any reaction, and worse, you may feel goaded.  It’s better to resist pressure as well as not put others under such pressure.

As much as we can, we need to ensure we don’t fold to others’ pressure for us to react out of emotion. We also need to give others that space.  A good boundary to enforce is allowing the time required to consider and respond appropriately.

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Prejudge and respond, NOT, in the processing time

If there’s one life lesson I’m thankful to have received over and again through the past ten years, it’s to delay my judgement and response in the highly emotive and cognitively fluid processing time.

Many times I’ve made ill-considered decisions that have often wrought dire consequences.

It’s like when you get feedback that is negative or unexpected that throws you for a loop.  That usually takes me 1-2 days to process.  When I’ve waited, I’ve responded better.

Or when you’re called upon to make a crucial life decision.  That can take me 1-2 months to process.  When I’ve waited, I’ve responded better.

Or when you’ve experienced life-paralysing loss.  That grief, experience has shown me, can take 1-3 years to process.

Without processing time, we tend to fall into the trap of thinking incorrectly and doing wrongly. Instead, we need to respect our and others’ processes.

We need to give certain situations the time and space they need.

“Processing” is probably the best word to describe that nebulous, liminal space where prejudgement is both folly and potentially harmful.

You don’t have all the information to hand, so making an adjudication is both unfair and perilous.

“Processing” is an utterly mysterious thing.  We don’t know what we’re truly dealing with until the processing is done, and we can say with confidence, “Ah, I’m finally there, finally in a place where there is peace and perspective and purpose for what came that I had no answer for.”

Prejudging is attitudinal and responding is behavioural, and behaviours of punishment are predicated on attitudes of judgement.  When attitudes of judgement are foiled, behaviours of punishment are nullified.

This is a place of safety for ourselves and others.

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and not know how to respond.  It’s okay because that’s life.  

Which of us hasn’t had news that sent us absolutely reeling for hours or days or longer?  Processing what comes in takes time because trauma responses are often involved.

Whenever I’ve prejudged—as if I’ve known (yet I didn’t)—and responded—as if I thought I was capable (but wasn’t)—in the processing time, I’ve inevitably discovered later on that I either harmed myself or others or both, especially in important working and familial relationships.

Sometimes we trust our judgement and responses too much, and in that triggering time of fight, flight, freeze and fawn we may THINK we’ve got all the information at our disposal, but it’s a fact that anxiety is what drives the reaction.  And it is so often a REACTION, and not the more ordered, considered response the situation called for.

It’s different, of course, when there’s no time to pray through or consider the information at hand and we MUST decide.  But so often we’re actually not under that kind of time pressure.

It’s like the email that fires us up.  Written communication is the worst.  Come back and read it again tomorrow.  Chances are it’ll read different when we’ve calmed down.  Do we really need to call the person back when either they or we (or both of us) are upset?

Wisdom delays that situation, if possible, for the sake of space to reflect.

One of the wisest things any of us can do is be aware of the role of anxiety in a pressure-cooker moment.  Strategically withdraw.  Only re-engage when you’re sure you’re back in your reasonable, reliable, realistic, logical and responsible adult space once more.

Your processing time is to be respected.  Everyone else’s processing time is also to be respected.  When people take this responsibility seriously—to take their emotions and cognitions seriously enough to delay judging and responding—less harm is done.

People who place you under pressure to respond may be satisfied with any reaction, and worse, you may feel goaded.  It’s better to resist pressure as well as not put others under such pressure.

As much as we can, we need to ensure we don’t fold to others’ pressure for us to react out of emotion. We also need to give others that space.  A good boundary to enforce is allowing the time required to consider and respond appropriately.

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Empathy for those black dog moments of dread and isolation

It’s not until you’re there, battling the black dog, that you realise how paralysing such moments are.  The fact is you are alone, you feel alone, and nobody can possibly understand what it is you’re facing—it’s why all that matters is empathy.

Empathy is a language of connection, a dialect that is silent yet present, powerful yet unintrusive, helpful yet passive.  Empathy helps in situations where the afflicted want to be alone.  And if there’s anything the black dog makes us want to do is isolate.

And yet, the desperation of those moments causes us or a loved one to reach out to a friend or helper to get the hope required.  We all must recognise what a risk this is for those being stalked by the black dog.

Empathy is NOTHING about positive psychology, emotional or spiritual bypassing, or of thinking you KNOW what the beleaguered person faces.  Go in there knowing you know NOTHING.

Trust in less is more.  Mere presence and being empathic is what’s needed.  This can be hard for people who want to fix the problem.  YOU can’t fix their problem, and they invariably don’t want you to.

One of the most interesting things about the black dog is the situational haunting.  Many people function fine in their day jobs and fall apart at night, or the other way around if they’re shift workers or FIFO.

Some of the people who are the life of life in your neck of the woods secretly cower under the weight of overwhelming mental health burdens.

It’s amazing what we don’t know when it comes to another person’s coping.  Of course, we all assume everyone copes like we do.

We ascribe to others the measure that’s been afforded us; this is dangerous, because even if you’re “resilient,” your resilience is only one manifestation of it.  None of us have resilience mastered.  All of us have a different capacity for different and unique types of resilience.

One thing we need to strip away is every portion of shame and judgment for mental health, especially when none of us asks for it.  We ought to never pre-judge what a person can and can’t do—let them have a say!  And let them contribute.

Open space.  Hold space.

In a world where we’re only just now coming to appreciate we all carry some form of disability, we’re learning to embrace disability as part of our diversity—of what makes us individual and unique, as whole yet broken people.

Yes, we all have brokenness.  This fact is such an affirmation to us when that black dog just won’t let go.

What’s required for assisting a person being howled down is a host of many things, depending on what they need.  Some of us need presence without pressure, some of us need encouragement to function, some of us just need someone to talk to—to be with us.

The central thing is being there for each other; it’s about what the person who’s struggling needs, not what we think they need.

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Mental health help in a more nuanced time than ever

One of the great things about the present time—but one that frustrates the heck out of a lot of people—is we’re living in a more nuanced time, where truths we once just accepted that were more or less true, but just occasionally were not, are being challenged.

While these truths, like, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” do apply a lot of the time, for a good many cases such a maxim does a great deal of harm.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” actually harms those for whom struggles are crushing.  It’s a victim-blaming exercise for those who are crushed under the weight of their circumstances.

Like, some situations do feel like they’re killing us.

Just the same, however, crises ARE the catalyst for much change.  I know in my own life there have been times when I’ve been forced to change—times when without great pressure I would not have changed.

Pressure does transform us, but occasionally it crushes us under its weight.

People should not be victimised if they’re crushed under the weight of their circumstances; they ought to be supported and encouraged.  That way they have a chance of ultimately responding to the pressure in effective ways—without the use of cliches.

When it comes to mental health challenges, it would be fairer to say there are a plethora of dimensions to be considered, and that anyone who feels they ‘know it all’ is probably vocally ignorant of what they do not yet know, yet at least somewhat knowledgeable about what they do know.

I know as a writer on these and other topics I will have inevitably not covered every nuance, and the sad fact is, there are those that my views haven’t represented.

When it comes to the nuances of mental health in a highly nuanced age, where more than ever everyone’s got a voice—and everyone’s experience is ever so slightly different—it’s important we recognise that one-size-fits-all answers are often no longer universally palatable and perhaps never were.

The good news is that cliches are no longer good enough.  Cliches don’t prove care, they indicate otherwise, a flippant regard.  Thank God we live in an age where pat answers that are damaging to some are more on the outer than ever.

A far better way would be to imagine with curiosity and an open heart and mind the uniqueness of each manifestation of mental health, preferring wonder and an insistence that we don’t know it all, that we’re teachable, over feeling like we know when we may not know.

Like, “Teach me what it’s like to feel like you do at present.”  That’s certainly how counsellors typically go about interactions with people who come to them for help.

More and more in the present and foreseeable future, we’ll do less harm and provide more help simply by remaining open to what we still do not know.  More help and less harm are done when we approach mental health situations prepared to learn, no matter how much we supposedly know.

Empathy and humility, borne out in listening and holding space, are perhaps the most important features of a help that actually helps.

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Demand respect and at best what’s given is a token

I was talking with someone today about the kind of person who demands respect from a place of power and how ineffective that is for actually receiving respect.

I guess it all depends on the country you live in and its culture, but those who insist they be respected, because of the role they have or the rank they wear, are only shooting themselves in the foot.  They command enmity.

But a person who has power who shows grace, bears triviality patiently, goes the extra mile for subordinates, that person is a leader, because they’re humble.  They command respect because they don’t command it.

The tokenistic respect that is given anyone who demands it is not only a lie, but it’s comes loaded with pent up disdain that moment things turn pear shaped for the one who rests on their positional power.

Humility is the best master any of us can have, because in putting others first—whoever they are and whatever they do—we create goodwill that is not only reciprocated but that builds respect and confidence through inspiration.

Humility exists solely in belief for the other.  It wants the best for the other.

Humility expressed by putting others first crushes fear in everyone, because social fear—the fear of what a person might do to you or might deprive you of—creates distrust and a constant looking over the shoulder.

But I sense we’ve all experienced someone who doesn’t get that life is a social construct, and they don’t need to be above us in the pecking order to wield their weight.

The person who so intentionally makes life hard for us is also inevitably making life hard for others. One who is disrespected ultimately takes that source of angst with them and it can spill over into their family and others, through anger, sadness, anxiety, or fear.

Disrespect destroys the fabric of relationships, but humility builds and weaves strength into relationships through simple and easy sacrifices made.

Disrespect is a rejection in reciprocation waiting to happen, but humility builds the will for the reciprocation of honour and praise.

Respect people through humility, putting others first, and everyone wins.

Even when we find ourselves on opposite sides, we can respect each other enough to find the other person’s view compatible with their thinking.  Think of the impasses that could be avoided simply in two divergent views appreciating the diversity.

We really don’t need to succumb to another person’s viewpoint to agree with part of it.  Surely we can see that they’re not an idiot, because if we think that, they’ll soon see us with similar derision.

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