WORK IN PROGRESS
THE Personal Effectiveness E-zine July 2004

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As I put pen to paper - yes, I most frequently write in longhand before transferring my words to keyboard - I owe my regular readers an apology. You have not been dropped from the Work in Progress list, WIP has not gone astray - it has just not been written in the past couple of months. Mea culpa!

I began Work in Progress in September of 1997, and for the first five years wrote two a month, then switched to one issue a month. Given that I've repeated two or three issues, that brings the total to over 130 issues/topics. Suddenly this spring it began to feel as though there could be nothing new, nothing fresh, about which to write. I felt I had no new perspective to share. Call it writer's block, call it a dark night of the soul, call it too few hours in the day - I just could not write.

So I didn't.

Yet, I do have a personal commitment to you, who have at some time (and in same cases back then in 1997) asked to be added to the Work in Progress mailing list.

Let's try again. And, again, I apologize. Perhaps, with some obstacles, including health issues, dealt with, I'll be able to make Work in Progress once again a monthly newsletter that will meet your needs, and that you'll be proud to forward to your friends.

In the meantime, you can help me, please, by letting me know the issues that you face and on which you believe Work in Progress might help.

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We're all hurting, sometime

A brouhaha on an e-mail list to which I belong has reminded me of something that we all need to remember - in one way or another at one time or another we are all hurting, we all feel vulnerable, we all need to know that we are heard, we all need to feel that we are understood, and we all need to experience support from those around us. We also need to remember that there are times when others don't feel able to help us, not through indifference but because they, too, have their problems.

Unfortunately we experience our own pain on the inside, but we only see other people on the outside, where they do not usually show their pain or their vulnerabilities. Therefore it is too easy for us to assume that everyone else is strong, that it should be easy for them to offer support should we dare to express a need for it. At the same time it is too easy for those of us who are asked for support to feel that we are not strong enough, and that there is someone else out there who can do it better. And it is too easy for someone who asks for help and who does not receive it to feel rejected and to hurt even more as a result.

I think there may be topics for about a year's worth of newsletters just in the above two paragraphs. For example,

-- Why does society ask us to put on the armor of apparent invulnerability when we are all vulnerable?

-- Why, when we know that we hide our own hurts on the inside, do we assume that no one else does the same thing, and that we are alone in our pain?

--How do we cope with the two-edged sword of response to someone's pain by showing our experience - which on the one hand may show a hurting person that s/he is not alone, and so provide comfort, but yet which may also come over as an attempt at one-upmanship ("My pain is bigger than your pain" or "That's nothing unusual") even though it is offered with good intentions?

--How can we help someone to remember the good in their lives without sounding as though we are devaluing their problems and their pain?

I must plead guilty to doing this recently. When an internet acquaintance wrote of problems I, writing in too much of a hurry, acknowledged her problems but then mentioned what I saw as one bright spot in what she had written. Sometimes, I was thinking, we can all become so overwhelmed by problems that we forget where the good stuff is, and a reminder of a positive can give us a handhold to hang on to as we struggle. I was stunned and horrified to discover, many days later, that what the individual had understood, far differently from what I had intended, was that I had told her that she should not complain. I don't believe I am alone in this faux pas.

-- How can we reach out for help without feeling a double jolt of pain and rejection if it happens that none of the people to whom we reach out is, at that time and in those circumstances, able to respond?

It is scary to reach out to others and to admit to our vulnerability. So I suspect that a part of us feels that if we actually do it, as all the self-help books tell us to, we are really entitled to good results - so that we feel double-whammied when we don't get them.

There was a time when I was a graduate student, mother of teenage children, and in the midst of a divorce which, because all our social circle had been my husband's work contacts, had robbed me of social support in addition to all the emotions that accompany divorce. I was feeling extremely isolated. I reached out to my cohort of graduate students, even though they were all quite a lot younger than I. I told them my situation and how it was affecting my work at the university, and asked for support. Result... nothing. Nada. Not a sign I had ever been heard. I have to admit that I went into something of an emotional tailspin, since they had been my last resort. However, somehow I survived.

Years later I asked one of the graduate students involved if she remembered. She did. I asked why there had been no response.

"Diana," she responded, "don't you understand? We went into a panic! We thought that if you couldn't survive the program, then none of us had a chance either. When we heard what you said we were paralyzed with fear." End of story - other than the attainment of a perspective I would never have imagined. As I experienced myself as being sucked down into a maelstrom and close to failure, yet others perceived me as someone who had to be stronger than any one of them and able to survive where they could not.

Back to square one. Why do we assume strengths in others that we cannot imagine in ourselves?

I don't know the answers to all these questions, but I am going to be doing some exploring in the coming weeks and will revisit in August. If, in the meantime, you have thoughts or anecdotes to contribute, I'd welcome them. Obviously I don't know what I might or might not use, but in case I can use what you send, please be sure to let me know whether you wish my use of them to be anonymous or if you wish to be given credit.

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TELL A FRIEND

I hope that you enjoy Work in Progress, and that it is useful to you. To pass its benefits on to a friend or colleague, please forward this issue, perhaps with the suggestion that they might like to subscribe.

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PLEASE! Any re-use of this material should include the words "Copyright Diana Robinson 2004. For more information visit Diana's web site http://ChoiceCoach.com or contact her at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com."

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Copyright 2004 Diana Robinson, PhD., PCC. Work in
Progress may be reproduced in its entirety only,
including this copyright line. Disclaimer -The contents herein are solely the opinions of Work in Progress owner, and should not be considered as a form of therapy nor advice. There is no guarantee of validity or accuracy. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.