Have you ever pulled your car up to a stoplight and glanced over at the driver in the car beside you. Magically, somehow they know you’re looking at them. They stare right back.
Just by looking at someone, you change your relationship with them.
By looking at something, you change the nature of its existence.
Wayne Dyer reinforced this notion when he wrote: When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
When we look at things repeatedly through the same lens, our thoughts and feelings about them don’t tend to change. By looking at our experiences through the eyes of others, we are offered the gift of being able to see them differently. Our world expands.
We can’t change what happened to us. We can change the way we view it. There’s incredible power in that.
Warm regards,
Belinda Seagram, Ph.D., R. Psych. Executive Director, Landing Strong
This week, I devoted time to sort through stuff in my basement with the intention of clearing out junk that has accumulated over the years. I found a box filled with all of my report cards from elementary school to the end of high school, as well as some journals, creative writing assignments, and art books. I’ve always believed that life is about constant change, striving to be a better person, growing, adapting and taking on new challenges. Looking back at my younger self, I’m not so sure that I’ve actually changed. There’s a consistency to who I’ve always been that’s reflected through the art, writing, and report cards of my younger self.
Striving for personal growth, fighting for social justice, practicing the voice of leadership, and expressing my thoughts through writing and art are themes that have been consistent through my entire life.
Even in grade five, my stories were about trauma and redemption. I wrote about hardship, regrouping, and finding the strength to get life back on track. In all of these stories, people had to trust in themselves and others in order to move forward.
There are many days in my adult life where I question myself, and wonder if I have what it takes. Looking back, I realize I’m on the right path. Some days, I’ll do it well. Some days… not so much.
Despite how much I think I’ve changed, maybe underneath it all we’re not that much different from who we’ve always been. The gifts we’re born with that make us unique, are there from the beginning. It’s a matter of how much we honour and develop them that determines whether or not we’re on the right path.
If you’re injured or finding yourself off-track, it’s likely not because you’re a different person now, but rather, that you haven’t yet figured out how to continue being the person you’ve always been.
We’re not just a trauma recovery centre. We’re also a centre for resiliency and personal growth, for both those who have been injured as well as those who love and support them.
If you’re interested, we still have space in our next caregiver program. Honour who you’ve always been, but learn to take care of yourself in the process.
Warm wishes,
Belinda Seagram, Ph.D., R. Psych. Executive Director, Landing Strong
Do you remember dreaming of snow days as a child? I’d cross my fingers in hopes that school would be cancelled. Snow day. These two beautiful words evoke excitement and anticipation, with the thought of an unstructured and unsupervised day laying ahead. Even as we grow older, the freedom associated with snow days persists. Some of us might make a last-minute rush to the grocery store to stock up on storm chips. Others might curl up on the couch for Netflix marathons.
Although I know that heavy snowfalls will precipitate massive cancellations in my client schedule, I have to confess… a part of me gets excited. I’ll have a whole day of no structure, and little supervision. What kind of trouble can I get myself into, I wonder?
Okay, I know I’ll end up using this time to catch up on overdue work. But it’s incredibly satisfying knowing that I don’t have to.
At Landing Strong, we recognize that snow days aren’t as much fun for everyone. Driving in such conditions is stressful. For those of you in first responder roles, we acknowledge that you are putting your coats on as we are coming home and taking ours off. For this, we thank you.
Snow days are a reminder that the emotional meaning of current events is coloured by the lens of past experiences. What might be positive for one person could be alarming or stressful to another. Trauma is like that too.
Trauma isn’t about what happens to us, rather, it’s the personal meaning of the event in the context of our lives that’s important.
That’s why we can’t judge others’ reactions to things when they differ from ours. We haven’t walked in their shoes, or seen things through the lens of their experiences. By seeking to understand, we diminish the aloneness of their experience.
Warm wishes,
Belinda Seagram, Ph.D., R. Psych. Executive Director, Landing Strong
I started reading Michelle Obama’s book Becoming this weekend, and was reminded that unless I have walked in someone’s shoes, I really have no way of knowing what they’ve been through. Michelle speaks kindly of her stern and humourless Aunt Robbie who lived on floor below Michelle’s family. If young Michelle and her brother Craig got too wound up, Aunt Robbie let them know:
Aunt Robbie would flick the light switch on our shared stairwell, controlling the lightbulb in our upstairs hallway, off and on, again and again- her polite-ish was of telling us to pipe down.
Michelle’s parents took this in stride, reminding the children that even if they didn’t know the context, they were instructed to remember that context existed.
Everyone on earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance.
What incredible wisdom, to remember this simple fact. If someone does something rude or thoughtless, I can assume it’s deliberate. Alternatively, I can remind myself that I don’t know what’s been happening in their day, or what kind of life they’ve had. I can tell myself that that seemingly unkind action may simply be out of context.
So the next time someone cuts you off in traffic, or is rude to you in line, it may help to send a request to the universe that their day will get better. Wish them a bit of happiness in what may be a difficult day.
Warm regards,
Belinda Seagram, Ph.D., R. Psych. Executive Director, Landing Strong
