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Photo by oedipusphinx — — — — theJWDban

I have been surrounded by women all my life. My father taught me from early on to respect and honor women. I grew up as the only son with four sisters.  I work with struggling teenage young women and their families in a company where about 75% of the people I work with are women.  And as if that weren’t enough I have a daughter as my first-born!

I am concerned that occasionally some women in our world lose sight of their worth and divinity.  I am concerned that in the face of continual bombardment by negative media and degrading media-driven philosophies about femininity some of our sisters falter in their assessment of themselves.

Shame is toxic.  Women become poisoned with self-pity, inordinate guilt, and feelings of inadequacy. We can and should help the women and girls in our lives to thwart the debilitating effects of shame by encouraging them to engage in three rejuvenating, shame-alleviating activities:

1) developing healthy relationships with other women with like values;

2) cultivating spirituality through activities that re-connect them with their higher power; and

3) teaching them effective ways to self-nurture, then allowing them time to do it.

Women and girls don’t “need a man” to feel better.  They don’t need a chocolate sundae.  They need relationships of trust which inspire a sense of love and hope in their souls again.  That’s why the three suggestions above deal with the three most important relationships a woman can have:  female friends, higher power, and self.

I planned to have a border of lavender
but planted the bank too of lavender
and now my whole crazy garden
is grown in lavender.

It smells so sharp heady and musky
of lavender, and the hue of only
lavender is all my garden up
into the gray rocks.

So begins Paul Goodman’s poem “I Planned to Have a Border of Lavender”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Goodman_(writer)
Sometimes in my work with teens (and my own children) I make the mistake of overcompensating for what I perceive to be my weaknesses.

For example, I spend as much time with my kids as I can when I get home. I want them to know I am around, because I feel like I work a lot.  Guess what my 7-year-old uses to manipulate me? Yep. “Daddy, you don’t spend enough time with me!” He knows my hot-button.

Sometimes I am so focused on overcompensating for my guilt of not having spent enough time with my kids, that I let other important things slip: one-on-one time with my wife, chores around the house, time for myself, etc. I am well-intentioned, but “my whole crazy garden” becomes overrun with my focus on how I’m going to compensate for what I perceive to be their need to have me around.

This has application at work, too.  I feel like I don’t have enough time to spend with the teens we treat at New Haven. So, what do some of my clients say to me?  You guessed it:  ”Dustin, why are you never around?”  It cuts me to my core!  I have to be careful not to give in to my own narcissism and self-importance.  Will they be okay without me?  Sure.  We have loads of experienced, caring staff – some of whom are even more skilled than I.  If I’m not careful, I can forget that my job is to make it possible for my co-workers to be unencumbered by the things that might stand in the way of their serving the needs of our girls. If I let my guilt at “not having enough time” for our teens rule me, then soon my focus on time with the girls can, like the lavender in Goodman’s poem, get all the way “up into the gray rocks”. I’ll find myself more frustrated because I end up without time to accomplish the important things that allow others to do their jobs more effectively.

I’m not saying I shouldn’t spend time with our clients.  Rather, there must be a balance and I must use wisdom. Even when I was working residential shifts years ago I experienced these feelings.  How would I have time, for example, to spend quality time with each of the 14 students within the confines of my 8 hour shift?  It seemed daunting.  Many times I punched the clock at the end of a day thinking, “I failed.  I didn’t get to talk with Suzie or Sally or ….”

In times like this I need to practice moderation and “guilt-management”! I say guilt-management because I have to watch myself carefully. Sometimes I experience good guilt, but other times the guilt is more like shame – poison to my soul.

Two things that help me manage my guilt (shame): 1) If I’m with my kids (or my teens) out of love and not shame, I’m on the right track; 2) If I can voice my shame to a trusted friend (or colleague), I’m more able to manage it.

In what areas of parenting or work with teens do you overcompensate?

What influence do men hold over you, and why?

I ran a group therapy session yesterday.  One young woman began the conversation by speaking eloquently about her obsession with five college-age men who had sexually assaulted her.  ”Why can’t I let it go?” she asked.  ”What is it about me that clings to them, even when I know they are bad for me?”

Another girl chimed in:  ”I feel ashamed that I sexualize all males.  Even the staff here.  I objectify everyone, and I can’t stop.”

I had the girls and the staff (18 in all) place themselves in the room based upon how much influence they allow males to have over them.  We established a range; one wall and its couch became “100% influence” and the opposite wall was “0% influence”.  I was not surprised to see most people place themselves between 50% and 100%.  One girl said, “I’m sitting at 105%!”

We talked at length about the power that males have over us:  fathers, brothers, boyfriends, men we don’t even know.  The girls and adult staff identified their reasons for granting this kind of powerful influence to the men in their lives.  ”I like to feel protected,” one said.  ”I wanted to be accepted – that’s all I cared about,” another said.  ”Love is the bottom line for me,” one of our staff members added.

None of these desires/needs is bad in and of itself.  We discussed taking the shame out of wanting to be protected, accepted, or loved, and decided to more productively focus on what we do with the overpowering need for acceptance, protection, and love – especially from males.

The Lead Supervisor of our staff spoke up quietly and said that after she lost her sister in a car accident, her teenage brothers and her father all became very protective.  She described a healthy relationship with them as a leading influence for good in her life.  A young woman who just arrived at New Haven piped up and said that her father is someone she wants to please, and she knows he loves her very much.

We all decided that even though we are influenced to varying degrees by men, we should acknowledge how much we are influenced, discover what need it fills for us, and then seek a more healthy and productive way of obtaining that need.  Being influenced by males does not need to be a bad thing.  Shaming ourselves doesn’t work – we need to recognize that they underlying need for male connection or approval is not always bad.

By the end of the group, the young woman who said she “objectifies” the men in her life committed to practicing healthier relationships with the male staff we employ.  The one who started the conversation decided to end a flirtatious relationship she began on a recent trip home, since she was “using” the young man and not really interested in him.

I imagine we’ll continue this discussion in group next week.