We have no idea what someone else is enduring. I recently saw a meme that held true for me as a teacher. The meme displayed a number of empty desks with labels on them telling what adversities the students are enduring. “Going to bed hungry,” “Parent in jail,” “Being abused,” “suffering from anxiety,” and so on.
One desk was not listed and that’s the teacher’s desk. Sure, a minor oversight, but a big one considering that person is managing all the other traumas being experienced in the room.
I remember, at one point in my education, I was having a hard time with a teacher in high school. I was a class officer and established a relationship with my vice principal, Steele Nowlin. Mr. Nowlin talked me through it. In high school your brain formation is such that you are more self-conscious of others and that makes you more self-centered. Nowlin was implicitly aware of this and as we talked through the challenge of the class he kindly asked, “Did you ever think that your teacher is having a rough time at home?”
It was the splash of cold water I needed. It stays with me to this day. Yes. Of course, maybe I need to give this person a little more leeway. It was a game changer for me and I was able to navigate the relationship in better ways. Thank you, Mr. Nowlin. As I counsel students today, having been in the classroom, it’s a question at the forefront of my counseling.
Students view teachers as the wisdom holders, the adults in the room who need to keep it together, the present and mindful individuals who can rise above challenges, the easy-going steady advisor/counselor who can read your mind and know what you need before you do.
I thought I was that student who had it all together and had a good read on teachers. Looking back, in some cases I did, on the other hand, there were judgements that were amiss.
Students could tell the teachers who were phoning it in or needed a break, but, looking back, there were cues that maybe there was more there than meets the eye.
During a recent retreat, I was in awe of my colleagues who shared their challenges of home life. Attending to parents, facing family difficulties, attending to the illness of spouses, attempting to overcome the grief of a loved one. In the meantime, they’ve kept it all together for their students and shown up because that is the expectation of the students.
Knowing there are challenges in every single person’s life and realizing the complexity of perspectives is the key to journeying with others. I can’t solve the problems of others, but I can journey with you as you face it on your own. I can hold a space for the pain.
There is DNA in every individual we meet. Little do we know, within that DNA, people are carrying little traumas that add to the adversity of work/life balance. I recently read that a baby carries the stress that a mother is under while in the womb. Consider how that works. A single mother has to feed the child, be present to her other children, attend to the illness of a mother while maintaining her composure at two or three different part time jobs that do not offer maternity leave.
That woman suffers from neglect and the trauma of that neglect is present every day of her life, or she was raped in her childhood and never attended to that wound and lives in fear of going outside. How does she bring that to her day and the child she is carrying?
How she faces situations, how she confronts and rises above them, the coping mechanisms for survival are all in place, but the crush of heartbreaks passed from others generations before her may also be carried.
My mother told me one of my ancestors arrived to this country at the age of 13 alone on a boat. She told me the young lass suffered some horrible traumas but couldn’t tell me what they were, as I was too young and wouldn’t understand. Life is a great teacher and I could only imagine. How did that young girl from Ireland unconsciously pass those traumas down to her progeny?
Before he was a senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a social scientist. He looked at the impacts of poverty on generations of people and discovered it was very hard for the next generation to beat the system and rise above that adversity of poverty. His studies demonstrated that there was “intergenerational poverty” handed down from one generation to the next thus creating a “cycle of poverty.” How could this happen? Can’t someone just pull himself up by his bootstraps?
Here’s something we don’t always consider. Neurological disorders, anxiety, depression and other disorders are inherited genetically. Neurosis that runs in families is carried on through generations. Couldn’t the same be said for trauma? Eastern thinkers call this the “karmic bundle.” In the west we call it “original sin.”
Notwithstanding, the coping mechanisms that address disorders or do not address disorders are also carried. We only know what we know. There are decent people who are brilliant and able to meet the challenges society throws at them, but there is that one dominant imposter complex that is their undoing. No matter how much you tell them to recognize the blessings of their gifts, it will never be enough because of the programming that has been inculcated for generations or the doubt that underlies the anxiety.
It’s cliché and overused, but true. “Be kind. We never know what someone is enduring.”
spirit beat 