This past month we’ve been inundated with images of hurricane damage that’s left so many people with demolished homes and the loss of all their belongings.  We can feel the overwhelm, even while sitting safely in our homes miles and miles from the devastation.  Our hearts are so moved as we watch, because even if we’ve never even experienced a hurricane before, we all know what it’s like to face a loss or a crisis that knocks us off our feet and leaves us feeling like we’ll never be able to get up again.  Sometimes the situation hits quickly, like the forceful winds, and sometimes it’s like the flooding, a slow build up over time, layering its impact little by little.  But what is common is the feeling of paralysis, that our life as we knew it has been so lost, we have no idea how to find a way back.

This situation is what brings a lot of people into the clinic where I work.  But even then, in telling their stories, people have little hope that anything can be of help.  It’s usually a friend or a loved one who sends them to us, because they’re worried about the person’s depression or have been worn down by helplessly watching a person they care about suffer.  I must admit, in the face of some tragedies, I, too, feel an initial panic of how to help someone in what seems like an impossible situation.  I can so empathize with the lack of control they experience, that it seems hard to imagine any way out.  

But then I remind myself we don’t have to deal with everything at once.  And just because we FEEL a complete loss of control, there are still things we can indeed control.  (I remind myself of the wise writer and neurologist Victor Frankl, and how he kept his sense of personal freedom while a prisoner in a concentration camp).  Starting with the simplest of things, as tiny or as insignificant as it may seem, we can always find one thing we can do.  “But that is so very little,” people say, and I encourage them not worry about it, and just do the little thing they can.  For the point I know from my training and experience is, it’s not the thing you do that matters.  It’s the fact that you did something.  And this small thing will give you the confidence to do one more small thing and then maybe another, until the momentum picks up and you feel a little more in control again.

With some people it helps to actually make lists.  I have two columns, one with “Things I CAN”T Control” and one with “Things I CAN Control.”  I ask them to start thinking of what goes in each category.  At first the “Can’t” list fills up quickly, with items big and daunting.  But then they think of a few very little things that go on the “CAN” control list, such as what they eat or who they talk to.  As this list develops, the next step is to make it concrete.  What exactly will you you eat, or who in particular will you call to talk with.  I ask them to just pick one thing and go ahead and do it.  Even with the simplest of activities, such as taking a shower, borrowing someone’s car, or going to the library, a path is created that moves someone forward and life begins to be lived again.

It really rings true that every journey begins with a small step.  And after a while of doing a very small thing after a very small thing, you can start to see a difference between where you have been and where you are now.  Of course there are setbacks and bad days, and life will never be the same as it was before the loss, but the sense of agency can return and with it a vision for a new way of being in the world.  As one person I worked with told me, when she felt her life was crashing around her, “my “I CAN” list is my escape route.”

Victor Frankl quotes:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

My older daughter went back for her Sophomore year of college and somehow I thought her leaving would be easier the second time around.  We’ve definitely learned some lessons (like scheduling more frequent visits, using Amazon prime to send her things quickly, and coordinating conversations in the different time zones) and we’ve gained the confidence of knowing that we can still be close, even if we’re far away. Having gone through it before, though, I’m frustrated that it’s still is as hard as it is. We always hope to learn from experience, so why is it that even when we’ve been through things before, we struggle?  So, I thought this would be a good week to reflect on “second time arounds” to help me better manage this second year.

When you do something for the first time, you go in with expectations, but when you do something the second time around, you go in with a set of real consequences from your first effort.  In some cases your experience was really good, and yet, it can make the second time harder.  Most novelists will tell you, the hardest novel to write is the one after their first successful one.  They agonize with self doubt and the pressure of having to create another success or be an “imposter.”  And if the first effort ended in “failure,” the second time around is filled with the burden of the baggage of disappointment, perhaps with a touch of resentment.  Second marriages actually have a 17% higher divorce rate than first marriages, and third marriages are 23% more likely than firsts to end in divorce.

In reviewing the literature on creating sustained success, or rebounding from hardship, a critical component is self honesty and awareness.  You can only learn from things if you are honest about what brought you to where you are.  It is crucial to take ownership for what you did that worked well (you are talented, you are forgiving) and what you need to improve (having more discipline or not being as reactive).  People often fear “failure” or making mistakes because they equate the failed experience with BEING a failure.  Our culture does not give much room for learning from mistakes.  In order to take advantage of our experience, we must take responsibility for ourselves.  Some people feel that if they agree to change, this means there is something wrong with them.  In order to protect our egos, we then look to external circumstances or what others did in a blaming way.  It’s often more comfortable to list everything wrong with an ex-spouse than admit we could have listened earlier on to what she or he was unhappy about.

Another critical step to sustained success or overcoming a setback is feedback.  We are often blind to our own selves, even if we are trying to be honest.  Even though it may be extremely painful, being open to the opinions, even criticisms of others, especially if it is a repeated theme, is a key to getting out of a trap of repeated patterns.  Getting other people’s perspectives can be really helpful and give us fresh eyes to a situation.  Identifying what went wrong as well as  what went right are both critical things to know.  What can you bring to your second effort that brought you success in your first?  Where might things have gone awry?  What would you do differently and what would you do again?  Sometimes we need other people to give us advice, new skills or just help us be accountable.

Most often I notice that when people look back to get perspective on a situation they’ve experienced, they get a much broader perspective.  Our minds tend to want to view experiences in all or nothing terms, such as “it was a complete disaster” or “it was the best thing that ever happened to me,” which rarely is ever true.  Life breaks down into smaller moments and thousands and thousands of little decisions, opportunities, and choices.  It was really never one action, one person, or one event that sums it all up.  Life is complex and always in a state of change.  Keeping open to what we can learn and letting go of how things went in the past is liberating as well as empowering.

So in thinking about second times around, I feel a bit lighter.  Because in fact, we never really do anything twice.   If we are learning from the past and staying open to the present, we can create a very different future.  This year, I may miss my daughter even more than I did last year, but I can also stay open to creating a new relationship with my bittersweet feelings regarding her growing up.  She is wiser, I am stronger, and we are definitely going to have a great time when I visit her in November since now she now knows all the fun things to do!  Experience tells her that Insomnia Cookies delivers warm snickerdoodles until 3 am!