Young Minds

So I'll suck you into what I've been learning recently.  There's a wonderful educator by the name of Dr. Gordon Neufeld, perhaps I've referenced him before.  He's the one that coined the phrase that I use on a regular basis, "Everyone gets older but not everyone grows up."  Neufeld focuses on emotional maturity as a key ingredient into mental and emotional health (that's simplifying it a great deal).  He suggests that emotional maturity is a potential for every human but is not a given or guarantee nor can it be taught or instructed (that's contrary to much of what most of us have learned in the plethora of parenting literature over the past 40 years).  Neufeld suggests that our chief role as parents is too provide an environment that is suitable for maturity to occur and nature will take care of the rest (that's a really rough Coles Notes version).

Much could be said on that but here's the focus for today; the ability to hold two thoughts/ feelings of opposing force at one time is only capable by a mature/ maturing mind.  Neufeld gives the illustration that you will never hear a toddler say, "on the other hand..."  Those of you who have met a three year old laugh at the suggestion!  Whatever they are feeling/ thinking at the time is too big to share their little minds and bodies with anything else.

I'm not going to bore you with the science behind this besides saying that people typically get their "mixed feelings" between the ages of 5-7 if the conditions of safety and security are met at home.  This allows people to be able to say, "a part of me wants to buy a new TV but a part of me thinks we should pay down some debt."  Equal in strength but opposing in direction, these two things can occupy a mature mind.

So many of our tenants in Uturn don't have this ability yet.  Yes, they are between the ages of 19-29 in body but not in mind.  They can become soooooo consumed with an idea that there isn't the ability to hold anything else within themselves.  This becomes really problematic in relationships.  I recall a few weeks ago having to try to intervene in a feud between Steve and Laurel (a former Uturn resident who rents one of the revenue apartments in the Uturn building).  Laurel and Steve had an agreement that he would help pay her internet bill if he could tap into her Wi-Fi.  All went well until Steve blocked Laurel's friend on Facebook (Oh the stories I could tell about the horrors of Facebook drama).  Laurel became incensed and quickly changed the password on the Wi-Fi.  Steve flew into a low level rage and began yelling at screaming at Laurel's door, consumed with his foul frustration.  This was the same day Steve was supposed to start a new job.  I went to Steve's door and knocked, listening to heavy music pounding out of his apartment as I waited.  Steve cracked the door and wondered what I wanted.  He looked like someone had set off a grenade in his heart.  I asked if he wanted to talk and he briskly turned me down.  Almost pleading with him I said, "Steve, don't let this ruin your whole day."  His answer highlights my point; "Too late.  It already has.  My whole day is wrecked."

There was no room in Steve for any understanding of Laurel (a portrait of a struggle with mixed feelings in her own right), of her perspective, no room that while this was frustrating that it was something that perhaps could be resolved in a few hours.  "I'm never talking to her again.  I'm done with her.  Finished" was Steve's declaration.  Consumed with frustration and anger, Steve couldn't even imagine anything more.

And on and on it goes.  So many instances that, once you begin to see it, show evidence where there isn't room for opposing thoughts, feelings and opinions.  So many instances that, once you begin to see it, reveal a lack of environment of caring, love, attention and security.  There wasn't space for many of our tenants in the early years to emotionally mature.  That takes safety and too often safety was a luxury unavailable.

Some times I look at myself and I see a man who, while I've aged, there have been parts of me that have not kept up with the rolling years.  I can become very consumed with single thoughts and emotions, feeling like there is no end to them, no room for anything else.  In reality it has really been only the last year or so that I've seen this as something that perhaps could be adjusted and different.  Perhaps I have the ability to captain my own ship in my emotional storms instead of just riding out the waves while hoping the mast will hold and the sails won't tear. At times I think I get it right and at times I come out of it stinking of saltwater and seaweed.  And I have a relatively solid foundation to work from.

So how much more for our tenants whose houses have been built on foundations that are suspect, unfit for the "big build" and not of their own choosing?  The good news is that they are not destined to be young minds forever.  It will take work, intention and focus but their minds can catch up with the rest of themselves.
And the same is true for me.  I just had a picture of my mind running after me, "Hey, hey! Wait up!  Slow down!"  The good news (for me) is that I'm starting to wait for my self with compassion and patience.  Not always mind you, but this "big build" of living seems to take a lifetime.

Stuck

This will be brief.  I've got 30 mins before I get the boot from the coffee shop that I call a second office while I'm in Portage.  But come hell or high water, I'm going to get this done. And this may be a bit of an exercise in narcissism... you've been warned.  

I've been feeling creatively stuck over the last few weeks.  I haven't been able to write anything on this blog "worthy" of hitting that orange PUBLISH button.  I haven't been able to write any lyrics for the couple of songs that I have melodies and progressions for.  This week I have really struggled with trying to write my newsletter that I send to people regarding my work with Youth For Christ.  

I sit down to do some of this creative "work" and it's like I open the door to what I assume will be a finely 

appointed room and it's a vacant warehouse.  Wide open, no defining decor, no furniture, not even a broken down crate to sit on.  Just a wide open space that doesn't say "look at all the opportunities", rather it cries out "there is nothing here to offer."  

Nothing to offer.  That's fitting I think of how I have been feeling lately with my work, ie. the day job that pays the bills.  There are times when I meet with people and feel like I have offered something of benefit, something of worth, something where I feel like I've earned my paycheque.  And then there are seasons where I wonder if the person across the floor is thinking, "you must be joking.  That's the best you have?"  

That doesn't mean that I've been in a low spot emotionally, I really have been feeling pretty well.  So the good part is I feel just fine about being inferior and useless.  That sounds more awkward than intended.  

I've learned a lot recently about a friend of mine who is highly creative and a musical whiz.  He's the kind of guy that I love hearing what he's working on and excited for him while at the same time trying to figure out if there is some way I can magically suck all his creative genius out and steal it for myself.  I'm not proud of that but there it is. What he has taught me is something of what he has recently been putting into practice.  That is you sit down and you do the creative work even when you don't feel like it.  Even when it feels like your ass has 50 pounds of lead in it you pick up your blunt instrument and go up the hill.  

What's the point of this rant? Great question.  I don't think there is one, I think every word on this one is the goal.  For myself, writing this has shown me that how I have been feeling as I sit with hurting people and as I stare at a blank page have striking similarities.  "I'm not enough, I don't know enough, I wish I knew more."  In the past this sentiment has sent me to searching for new musical gear ("if only I could get THAT I would play more") or scrambling for professional development seminars ("If only I knew THAT I would be better").  There's nothing wrong with new gear or development.  I love them both.  

And there's nothing wrong with me. 

And there's certainly nothing wrong with you.  

That doesn't mean that there's not more to learn, there always is.  But not knowing everything doesn't mean that we are not enough. 

I tell that to people all the time because so many people I work with have this wired in, burned in sense that they are not enough and that there must be something wrong with them.  

Sometimes we need to hear the message we tell others.  Sometimes we need the words we freely give to be heard in our own ears.  

So my apologies for the rant and the navel gazing.  But it's been helpful to this guy.  Perhaps somewhat helpful to you.