An Unexpected Expression Of Humanity

I’d forgotten what college tour season was like. But here we are meandering from school to school with student ambassadors walking us through their campuses enthusiastically pitching us as to why they feel their school is the ideal place to spend the next four years.

After these tours, the Standard Operating Procedure has been each school’s admission office sending out a generic “thanks for visiting our school” email and reminding us of key dates ahead in the application process. In our old fashioned US Postal Service mailbox, though, we received an unusual surprise.

A hand written personalized Thank You note from one of the student tour guides we had visited. It’s the only Thank You card we’ve received from any of them.

Certainly you don’t decide on a college based upon getting a card in the mail after a tour. But in receiving such a card, Devin the student tour guide differentiated himself from the other equally competent tour guides we’ve interacted with through this process.

Devin’s note stirred up an inner conversation about gratitude and connection. The digital world of emails, texts, and faceless AI interfaces is cold and vastly impersonal especially when compared to the warmth and authenticity found in receiving something hand created specifically for you. Continue reading “An Unexpected Expression Of Humanity” →

You Don’t Owe Yourself An Apology For Being You

Sometimes he shows up unexpectedly. Usually in the form of an unwelcome reference in an unwelcome conversation.

I had to live with him for years. He clung to me always, virtually inseparable. It wasn’t a particularly good relationship, either. Contentious, at times even emotionally abusive. I often didn’t live up to his expectations and I’d be relentlessly reminded each time I failed to do so.

But now he’s dead.

And I don’t miss him.

They never published an obituary in the newspaper for the person I used to be. The tormentor, the self-abuser, the one who did all he could to keep me exactly where I didn’t want to be.

It was a long, often painful passing, a slow transition from one life of familiar limitation and lack Continue reading “You Don’t Owe Yourself An Apology For Being You” →

The Perfect Place To Be Annoyed

There are days when even I don’t like being around me.

Today is one of those days.

It’s been a busy stretch of late. Personal and professional obligations have outpaced my capacity to properly fuel my ability to take care of them. Quality sleep and quality nutrition have been the collateral damage in my attempt to balance all that needs to be balanced.

I’m annoyed, easily agitated, a bit overwhelmed, and I don’t see any upcoming breaks in the schedule where I’ll be able to catch my breath.

I’m not good at being miserable.

But here I am, trying not to splatter my misery upon those around me.

For me, one of the best parts about being miserable is being able to step back and notice that I Continue reading “The Perfect Place To Be Annoyed” →

Everything That Needs To Be Said

Maybe we don’t have to fix the problem.

Resolve the issue.

Map out the next three steps.

In their moment of hurt perhaps all they want from us is our presence, to silently sit in their mud with them, to give them a safe space just to be, to remind them in the loneliest of moments that they aren’t really alone at all.

At a time where there are often no words, we need not bother looking for them.

Sometimes our presence says everything that needs to be said.

Photo by Transly Translation Agency on Unsplash

The Ever Present Presence Of Pain

The constant annoying chirp coming from the ceiling was doing me a huge favor. The batteries in the smoke detector were kind enough to tell me they needed to be changed.

My annoyance eventually shifted to gratitude as I climbed the ladder and replaced the two AA batteries. Grateful to be made aware of a situation and to proactively take care of it.

But not everything that is broken tells us that it is.

Especially when it comes to people.

We humans are quite good at masking pain, aren’t we? Of hiding the hurt behind radiant smiles and jovial laughter, creating an outer perception of “all togetherness” while being anything but on the inside.

The expression of pain and hurt is viewed as a weakness, an emotional liability in a world which seemingly only values strength. So facades are built, walls are constructed, and the painful Continue reading “The Ever Present Presence Of Pain” →

Staring Into The Eyes Of Impact

It was an unexpected opportunity to learn.

Earlier in the week I was asked to present some grant awards on behalf of a local educational foundation I do some work with. The foundation awards these grants to meet specific teacher requests which typically fall outside the funding parameters of limited school budgets.

My presentation was to a group of extremely important people. I found myself standing in front of the teachers of the school my daughters attended many years ago. Many of these teachers played such a vital role in the transformation of my young elementary school daughters into the strong, confident, and empowered young women they are today. And I know my daughters weren’t the only kiddos to be impacted so profoundly by those who were sitting in front of me.

It was an honor to stand before them.

As I scanned the room I remembered defining moments of impact many of these teachers had Continue reading “Staring Into The Eyes Of Impact” →

Trauma, Healing, Compassion, & Empathy

Perhaps this would have changed everything?

Just a few right words spoken at the right time could have significantly shifted the direction of that life. Or those reassuring conversations which were vulnerably started yet were met with a defiant wall of silence, the desperately extended hand not grasped by one who could have pulled us to a space of emotional safety.

The seeds of our greatest possibility never watered, the weeds of our insecurities and fears never pulled.

As I sit here this early morning, I find I am reflecting upon some of the stories I’ve both witnessed and experienced, some deeply painful life trauma stories others have bravely entrusted me with and the painful ones I’ve lived through on my own.

Our deepest pains are personal and seldom understood by others. Or even our self. The screams are often silent, and we carry this heaviness alone, simply moving forward the best we can, sometimes in rather unhealthy ways as we try to numb a pain only we can feel. Trauma is alive and invisibly thriving within all of us at one level or another.

As I’ve worked with my own traumatic experiences I’ve come to respect their presence in my life. No longer do I attempt to minimize their impact upon me. No longer do I chastise myself for letting events and outcomes I did not control actually control me. The pain and its impact have yet to be fully worked through, and perhaps they may never be fully processed. But there is no longer anyone to blame, neither the ones who unknowingly inflicted a pain that would shape a lifetime, nor the recipient of the pain for letting it do so.

This is where my healing truly begins.

I often wondered what life would have been like had those few right words at the right time been Continue reading “Trauma, Healing, Compassion, & Empathy” →

Making Space For The Hurt

I bet Mother’s Day has always sucked for Shawn and Zig.

Shawn and Zig were two friends I grew up with in the neighborhood. Both lost their Moms when they were quite young. They were old enough to understand what had happened, yet not quite old enough to understand why it happened.

I don’t think they’ve ever understood why, even all these decades later.

Their pain was never something they brought up. They just carried it with them, silently, as they bravely tried to move on with their forever-changed young lives. Time simply doesn’t heal wounds of this magnitude. You just learn to deal with it, in your own way, in your own time.

To look at them both you’d never know of the heaviness that was weighing them down, their pain undetectable to the uninitiated. But that’s kind of how we deal with our pains, isn’t it? Silently. Isolated. Our burden, ours alone to carry.

While pain may be visibly undetectable, life has taught me that the vast majority of us silently carry our own degree of pain and hurt just below the surface. Life certainly is a contact sport and we all have our scars and bruises inherent with simply being alive.

Everybody hurts.

Yet, do we make space for the hurt?

You’d think with the commonality of pain we all share we’d all be a bit more understanding. Since we do Continue reading “Making Space For The Hurt” →

Is It Safe For Me To Talk About Mental Health?

Life certainly has it’s share of pain, doesn’t it?

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month. One of the goals of NMHA Month is to hopefully provide a safe space for uncomfortable conversations around mental and emotional health. The unfortunate stigmas surrounding mental health often prevent any conversations from even getting started. That silence keeps us suffering…alone. Alone with the pain and the hurt and the anxiety and isolation we may be experiencing.

That silence, at times, can even end lives.

That’s how I lost my brother Steve.

As a man, I was taught to keep my emotions to myself. I think most men have been told or shown the same. Expressing emotions is a sign of weakness, they’d say. “Real” men simply “suck it up” or “deal with it” or are told to “man up”. Manhood and emotions don’t mix, I was told. Generational stigma often keeps us from even admitting that we are struggling, let alone actually seeking some help and guidance. And while I’ve only experienced this from my male perspective, mental health stigma is not gender specific.

Mental and emotional health challenges quietly impact every section of our society.

The silence perpetuates the stigma.

This stigma needs to end.

There are many of us dealing with the heaviness life sometimes forces us to carry…the loss, the anxiety, the uncertainty, the unhealed traumas, the emotional scars, the pressure, the unmet needs and Continue reading “Is It Safe For Me To Talk About Mental Health?” →

Compassionate Moments Of Self-Discovery

“What’s wrong with me?” Gretchen sang, quite painfully.

The high school drama club’s spring production this year was “Mean Girls”, a condensed musical version of the motion picture written by Tina Fey originally released in 2004. It retells the age old story of fitting in and acceptance in the high school environment. Gretchen was in the inner circle of the school’s most important clique led by Regina. In exchange for being somewhat accepted, Gretchen paid the very steep price of essentially sacrificing her authentic self in the process. A painful process which led her to painfully question her own worth and value.

Insecurity is a powerful force. It preys upon our perceptions of unworthiness. It preys up our need to be safely accepted as we are, even if we compromise who we are in the process.

It’s a rather cruel process.

We are exposed to messages of insecurity daily. Our economy needs us to feel insecure about who we are, what we look like, how much we weigh, what we drive, and where we live. Social media is littered Continue reading “Compassionate Moments Of Self-Discovery” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: compassion