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May 6, 2018, 3:30 – 5:30 pm
Samaritan Main Office
Samaritan Center Community Hall
564 NE Ravenna Blvd
Seattle, WA 98115
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Featuring a selection of beverages, snacks, music and raffle items.
In the 10 years that I have worked in the area of mental health, there have been a number of clients whose stories have stayed with me. I find myself thinking of them often. I’d like to share one of those with you.
“Mary” (not her real name) first found her love for prose, poetry and theater when she was in high school. Later, as she was raising her own children, it became part of her life’s work to introduce the children in her community to the performing arts.
At the peak of her career, she suffered a heart attack that threatened to disrupt everything. It left her with memory loss and many other health complications. Her role as an educator and theater performer appeared to be over.
Over the next few years, she took different jobs, just to support herself. Her world started to shrink around her. She found herself spending most of her time in her apartment alone, leaving only for work and medical appointments. Her suffering and pain were compounded by isolation, grief and the loss of her life’s meaning.
During one of our counseling sessions, Mary remembered an experience that helped us find a new way to confront her significant losses.
She recalled leaving her apartment one evening, venturing out for a short walk in the cold Pacific Northwest drizzle. As she had done many times before, she pulled up her rain hood and tucked her head down to avoid the cold sting of the rain. Then, to her own surprise, she did something different. She lifted her head, pulled her hood back, and let the rain fall on her face. In that moment, instead of avoiding what she thought of as unpleasant, she chose to welcome it.
This experience became a metaphor for Mary. In our counseling sessions, we would reflect upon and come back to that metaphor many times. Her illness and her pain did not disappear, but now she had a way to change how she related to the pain. Instead of avoiding and turning away, she could choose to face it like “the cold rain in her face.”
Over time, Mary returned to a number of writing projects that had been put on hold because of her illness. She went on to enroll in an MFA program and has written several short stories about her childhood. She also has found a meaningful connection within a community of writers.
Metaphors are healing gifts that come to us from many places: from scripture, faith traditions, families, culture, recovery communities, and–as in Mary’s case–from our own lived experience. When we find the courage to walk “with the rain in our face” we are able to live life fully, accepting the presence of pain, loss and grief without being overwhelmed by it.
Kevin is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) who meets with individuals, couples and families in Samaritan’s Kent office.
Kevin has more than 10 years experience in community mental health and healthcare settings, working with a wide range of issues, including depression, anxiety, acute stress and trauma, chronic illness, grief and loss. and the integration of faith and mental health.
“I believe that we are at our best when we can make choices that are consistent with our deepest values,” Kevin said. “I also believe that healing does not occur in isolation but happens in the context of our relationships, families, marriages, faith communities, and our neighborhoods.”
Kevin has an MSW from Temple University and Certificate in Vocationsl Ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Kevin currently sees clients on Monday evenings and Saturdays at in Kent at 409 Third Avenue S. Suite #A. See a map and learn more about our Locations.
Learn more about Kevin in his profile page. He can be contacted at (206) 527-2266 x372 or ksubers@samaritanps.org.
Several times a year I go away for several days for alone time and solitude in order to refresh and renew my being. I was reading and reflecting about agape love, that unconditional love that Jesus invites us to embrace, as well as the Spirit of Agape. As I returned to the mountain village where I was staying for an evening meal, I became intentional about “being love” to anything I encountered and to be in the Spirit of that love.
The voice inside me spoke and guided me away from the restaurants I was considering earlier in the day. Walking a mile from the heart of this village, in the rain, seemed so absurd. There, the last hotel and restaurant in town seemed to draw my feet and soul. When I glanced at the menu, my jaw dropped. On it were items from the Swabian Alps in Southwest Germany, where my paternal ancestors resided before coming to America. These dishes are a cultural heritage, yet not seen outside of that region.
I sat alone at a table. The waitress approached and asked me to please be gentle with her because it was her first night on the job. I told her we would get through this together. I asked her before she offered me any water, to please inform the chef that I was taken by the menu selections. In a matter of moments Chef Joe poked his head out of the kitchen, found my gaze upon him, and lifted up his thumb in gratitude. An energy and synergy was in the air. To my surprise, it was not the waitress that brought me my German dinner delight, it was Chef Joe!
The next day I was led back to the same restaurant. This time I asked the waitress to ask the chef if he would prepare a meal with two of the other Swabian Alp menu offerings onto one plate. Chef Joe came and asked me if I liked red cabbage. I replied, “yes.” Then Chef Joe replied, “I’ll take care of you.” The level of energy between the chef, the waitress and myself was so noticeable that the hotel manager came to me and asked if I she could take a photo of the meal prepared for me by Chef Joe. She wanted to get her corporate boss to get approval to add this dish to the menu.
Chef Joe personally brought me my meal of three different Swabian Alp delights. I then told him what had me so appreciative of these dishes-I had travelled three years ago to the Swabian Alps region to frequent the region of my ancestors. He then asked me if I wanted to know anything about him. I learned that he knew all about this region, that he was trained to be a chef in the Pearl of the Swiss Alps, that he and his team won the Olympic Chef Gold Medal. The connection between us, the waitress, the management was so spirit filled with love for the invisible reality that makes up our very being and nature in this time and space.
What a difference awareness of being agape and in its spirit makes. Without it I would have simply sat at the table, had a meal, watched the TV, paid the bill and departed — never connecting with anyone.
Mariah came to Samaritan, lost and out of options. She was homeless and living in her car. Her most recent relationship had imploded. She was using marijuana, trying to soothe her stress. She knew she needed help.
Mariah’s childhood and adolescence was a story of trauma. She was a helpless witness to her severely mentally ill father’s arrests, suicide attempts and hospitalizations. Her mother‘s energy had gone mainly to caring for her husband, leaving very little love and attention for her daughter. The family moved often and Mariah remembers never living in a place long enough to develop real friendships.
Despite these formidable obstacles, Mariah went to college – the first person in her family to do so. After she graduated, she moved to Seattle, taking a job at a community agency that paid less than $15,000 a year. She struggled financially, lived with five roommates, and found herself jumping from relationship to relationship. The stability she longed for eluded her. When she was unable to afford her rent, she began living in her car. She felt her motivation slipping away. She began to lose hope.
Somehow Mariah heard about Samaritan Center and she summoned the courage to call. That one phone call changed her story of loss and trauma to a story of hope and healing. For $15 a session, Mariah met with a therapist who was able to connect deeply with her pain. Together they talked about the trauma Mariah had endured as a child. The therapist helped her navigate healthier ways of being in relationships. She began to believe in herself again.
Mariah has stopped using substances and has some new job prospects. She hopes to find housing soon. Thanks to the relationship she and her therapist developed and the healing that resulted, new doors are opening for Mariah.
In the movie Up in the Air, George Clooney plays a man whose job consists of firing people. Corporations contract with him to deliver the bad news to their casualties. And he has mastered his art, describing his work to an upstart apprentice in spiritual terms: something akin to ferrying the souls of the newly unemployed to a place where they can begin to face the reality of their situation.
In one termination interview, he brings a desperate man to the discovery that the loss of his job means that he can pursue the culinary career he had long ago sacrificed in the name of safety and dependability. “Your children don’t respect you for paying the bills. What they respect is people who follow their dreams.” This man’s change of heart happens in about three minutes onscreen. Not so realistic, maybe. And yet the essential experience, given enough time, is believable enough.
Losing a job can be devastating, especially in a down economy. A few are laid off one day and find new jobs the next, but others–perhaps you–become unemployed for months and months. You might feel crushed, disconnected. More than your income has collapsed; so too, in some cases, has your identity. The employment crisis of “What am I to do?” becomes a spiritual crisis of “Who am I?” Loss of your job can expose an even greater void.
The loss of your job has meaning for you. That meaning can be influenced by your stage of life, whether it falls in your early, confidence-building years; or it occurs in your productive and often driven middle phase, or it coincides with your mid-life self-assessment; or it lands late in your career, when you are questioning your ability or desire to keep pace with changing circumstances. And in the end, the meaning you discover is, of course, highly individual.
Understanding the meaning of this transition is part necessity and part opportunity. In ordinary circumstances, people tend to count on the requirements of the day to guide them–through the day, the week, from week to week, and so on. But this is different. Without a job, a person might need a compass, a way of understanding what is ultimately important, because the field is so desolate, the usual landmarks gone.
Many a man who has been living to work vows that, next time, he will work to live. Many a woman who has allowed the job to define success realigns her work with her own most deeply held values. “What am I to do?” is both an employment question and a spiritual one. And the compass you consult to guide your response is critical.
Under the pressure of finding work, you might consider it a luxury to spend time clarifying the compass by which you establish your direction in life. Fair enough. It is not a requirement for everyone faced with unemployment. But should you find the loss debilitating or should the workless phase prove protracted through no choice of your own, a deep consideration of your compass, your guiding values and objectives, can be the most healing and productive step you can take.
When I lived and worked in one of Arizona’s retirement cities and was doing group therapy with older adults, one question that came up in group discussions again and again was: “How can I have a better relationship with my grown children and grandchildren?”
Some people just wanted to know how to get their grandchildren to say “thank you” for birthday gifts. Others were struggling with how to say “no” to their adult children who “were still on the payroll,” expecting money that their parents were not in a position to give. Others were in conflict with adult children who objected to their entering into a second marriage. Others were estranged from their adult children. All of them were trapped in old, painful family patterns.
Now, back in Seattle where I work with adults of all ages, the question remains a compelling one. Some of what I learned in my Arizona experience and in my own family relationships is shared in these “10 Tips for Parenting Your Grown Children.”
Couples who are coming into counseling to deal with anger in their relationship often wonder: Is this really going to help? Will the therapist be able to help my partner see things differently? Will this be worth the time and effort?
To me, it seems to be a question of hope. Is there hope? Yes, there is. Hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:5) but the answers to our questions might be disappointing. We can’t change our loved ones and they can’t change us. The hope lies in learning that we can help each other change by changing ourselves.
For example, asking ourselves questions like this: What was I doing right before the temper flare? Was I pushing buttons? Was I criticizing or yelling? Was I stonewalling? Realizing that tempers are not lost in a “vacuum,” we look for the extenuating circumstances.
When we start to look at the big picture and at our part in the big picture, we begin to understand what we can do to help our loved one solve what we’ve been thinking of as “their” problem. It begins to become an “our” problem.
Taking this position of helping each other change is one sure way to make therapy worth the time and effort. If we can recognize the triggers that lead to our partner’s losing their temper, we can learn ways of coping that will be more effective. An equally important piece of the puzzle is learning their buttons, choosing not to push them, and letting the other person walk away when they need to. When we learn more effective ways of communicating, we’ll be more successful when we sit down and try to solve a problem.
If we think that we’re just an innocent bystander and the conflict is all about our partner, we might want to spend some time asking God to show us our blind spots. Or we could even ask our partner what they think we contribute to their temper flare ups. When we are able to control our anxiety and consider another person’s point of view, we can learn something important about our relationship journey. Controlling our anxiety and agreeing to hear constructive criticism isn’t easy but it can be done, especially when our partner is willing to offer their thoughts in a kind and gentle way.
John Gottman, in his work at the University of Washington, says that if you can allow your partner to influence you and if your partner can gently share their opinions, you’re well on your way to a healthy relationship. And a healthy relationship can tackle many mountains, including the anger mountain–when you’re doing it together.
(For a similar and specifically Christian book, see Safe Haven Marriage by Sharon Hart-Morris and Archibald Hart.) More information about Susan Johnson’s book is available at:
http://holdmetight.net/video.php; http://holdmetight.net/audio_interviews.php.
Johnson, S. (2008) Hold Me Tight. Lebanon, IN: Hachette Book Group/Little, Brown and Company.
