Peace and Mental Health.

I am studying A Course in Miracles.  I don't find it easy to admit how important it is to me,  and how I feel my mind changing now. But the Urtext is something else! A kind of practical commentary on the teaching of the course. The word "miracles" is a bit misleading. The Miracles are to do with shifts in perception rather than feeding the five thousand. It makes it sound like a flaky thing, want to learn to turn water into wine?
Especially to a down to earth social worker, who needs to be very pragmatic...
But reading in the Urtext about peace and mental health, it is very clear how the Course "scribes" were psychologists! Peace actually IS mental health and what the Course says seems very relevant to my personal journey and also in thinking about social work and clients.
"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles, of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others."
Time, almost, to think about this in my life and in a client's life. For example the young mother who needs to detox, and has an 11 year old daughter who does not have anyone to support her or offer her a place to stay for a few weeks. 
I don't know the answer. My first response is to feel stressed and inadequate.  Then to do more assessment. What if there is another way to look at all of this? 
Young mother is convinced that without moving to a particular area, her life is doomed. She is convinced she needs to detox from 15g of diazepam.   She blames her daughter for getting in the way of her recovery and says so loud and clear. Mother and daughter love each other but resent one another too. 
What if young mother were not so fixated on the solutions she has in her mind? What if she let go of detox, and began to make staying calm and and at peace within, her main goal? What if she surrendered the need to make things happen the way she thinks they should, and she could be happy anyway?

Perhaps the problems would just vanish and a new solution would emerge. 

Well, she and her daughter would not need a social worker. And if it's true what I wrote about yesterday, that in Reality all is perfect, than the so called problems are not Real.

It feels amazing and liberating to write this. That this is the first step of spiritual social work. 

Problems are not Real. 

Everything that is confusing, upsetting, painful for my clients and myself is not Real. It is an absence of Love, and in young mother's case, her inner experience is of fear and lack of peace. So the first great gift I can offer, is to be Peace and to see Peace as her true state of being. 

Of course all the problems seem very real and difficult. But at a soul level, they are just clouds of nothingness. 

And maybe I've taken a very important step with this seeing...the first step of what I came into the world to do...spiritual social work.  It's just spiritual problem solving. I can't make young mother change her mind but I can see the truth of her being and everything flows from that. I hold to Peace and don't get sidetracked into making her problem into a very big deal. 

For the first time, I see the invitation to do this with all the situations at work. Seeing her mental pain, remembering the Soul and seeing it's beauty. 

A  new vision of social work....which IS at one with my spiritual path. Where I and my clients are on the same side, whether we know it or not. 

At 3.53 a m again.

I hoped for 7 hours sleep tonight, so far I had 4. Then I'm awake and a to do list forms constantly in my mind. I am mildly anxious. Not a good state of mind, it's not well being, or Heaven! Oh and it's guilt as well as I have not done some, in fact many, things I should have done. Some are not that important, and if they never get done it will make no difference. Others could change a child's life.
Richard Wilson made a programme about our modern world, its use of technology and how that affects us. He did a section where he was dealing with a Call Centre. Waiting for a person to answer, getting the usual runaround. His heart rate was tested and it rose measurably, indicating stress. I wondered what would happen if this was done to me or other social workers during our working day!
One of the reasons for my anxiety/guilt feelings is that I have supervision today. How much do I say? Do I mention that "case" from November that I simply have not got round to? It is a case with a "shouty" mother, possibly neglect and certainly non cooperation. At least I met the girl on her own doorstep.It's one of those chronic situations with a lot of inertia all round.
I find getting a basic assessment done is one thing. Following through with actions is another. And we now have a new requirement that we have to do chronologies and genograms on any case we want to transfer. In fact we need to know so much about those cases that it amounts to practically a core assessment. Which is what we are transferring it for. It makes me think twice about transferring. This is probably what is intended, as we do only initial assessments allegedly. But if a case (that is a child, of course) needs more help, we have to do more work to be able to access the team that gives the help. Or try to do it ourselves, which means more things to do. Either way it is more work, without more hours in the day, and all the while being told this is normal for intake,you are inadequate if you cannot do it.
Aha, a deep breath, relaxation. Remembering who I AM.  Not this restless mind listing its tasks, condemning itself, fearing judgement. This is a feeling, a state of mind, ego mind. It's wonderful work for someone on a spiritual path, as there is so much that ego can feed on! Many excuses to feel bad, punish myself, and at times have the outer world punish me too!
But through the a different lens, what do I see?  Well, sometimes I glimpse the reality in my clients. Yesterday, there was the woman who wants a  better life for her four sons, and she could easily be judged because of the wider family and the family history. She has created a loving home, and it's a long time since I saw children sitting round a table having a home cooked meal together. Of course this might well be for my benefit but there was a gentleness about these boys which tugged at my heartstrings. I liked, no, loved them all and their brave mother.
 This week I have been so busy seeing people that there has not been time to do the writing up. And I have been trying out a new approach to doing the assessments, which will clarify things but it takes time to get used to it. The fearful thought it "I will never catch up." That is my social work reality, I will never catch up, never have time to do all the things I would love to do, and hardly have time to do the things I must do.
Remember the Reality beyond all this striving and busy-ness, the Reality beyond the parents who let their children down, and the system that creates impossible demands. Rest for a while, in the embrace of Reality where everything is already perfect. Done completely. Imagine that! Nothing to do. Perfect.

I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles round your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision as upon a tree?

If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.

From 'Ahead of All Parting:
The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke'
Edited and Translated by Stephen Mitchell

From a lovely website http://allspirit.co.uk/rilkeiam.html

Down to Earth with a Bump...?

It was all going so well! Since Christmas, I had a shift to a new perspective and way of being at work. So different. I was quite at peace and happy that everything was going to work out and it did not matter what happened...so long as I was doing the best I could and trusting in grace to supply the difference.
But yesterday I met my colleague/ friend Y and she was so upset. She has been told by management that she is basically not up to the mark. And I feel disturbed, that she has been given no support, just this cold, dismissive reaction. I know she is working hard. I know also that it's so much easier to criticize and pick out the failings than to be on the front line doing the work.
I feel angry that she is treated this way. And angry that I also got pulled up about having blank sections in my assessment. There is too much work, it is that simple. But then, as Y says she was told, some people manage it. Yes, some people do. So everyone should.
I feel guilty that I haven't been treated like this, and guilty that by "managing it" or seeming to, I can be pointed to by management who say, she can cope. What management say is realistic, is realistic. There is a power struggle, with management saying the workload is doable, and staff saying "It is not" but somehow seeming to cope. Those who do not seem to cope will suffer the consequences. The power struggle of whose definition of reality is valid.
This sparks off a kind of rage and helplessness.
It seems thoroughly unethical to me. To be able to give someone a bad reference after 3 months in a job which they have been dumped on and given an impossible workload...Making it difficult for them to move on.  Not to mention the fear that this management style induces in the whole team.
On the same day comes the news that Essex council have to pay millions in compensation to the victims of child abuse. Their social workers did not intervene to protect some children whose father was known to have abused other children and they were subject to years of abuse.
Of course that is very sad. But to penalize a council in that way, with the ripple effect on how its social workers are perceived and how social work is generally perceived...seems a strange response. Where does the buck stop? This culture of entitlement costs society very dear. That money could have gone into training, investment (possibly in more social workers) with a "good will payment" and public apology to the individuals, and support to help them rebuild their lives. Now I as a social worker know that any individual can sue my employer for my mistakes....And the motivation for the work becomes fear, not love. If I am not very careful!
I woke again at 4 am to write this. Not the best preparation for a day which includes two potentially difficult visits to clients one of whom has already shouted at me down the phone.
Do I feel centered?  Do I feel at peace?  It feels like, back to the real world with a bump. And yet....I talk about the other reality here.

Supposing

Not so much a post, more a poem. Still grappling with a whole different foundation for work. I know there are rational, pyschological challenges but something in me has shifted in relation to the job....and these lines express the sense of possibility. I don't know how it will work out in practical terms and I do know that it is a challenge to live, love and work like this but I am now willing, open to grace, and listening to the Voice for Life within me.

Supposing.

Supposing I really did my job as an expression of love.
Supposing when I set out to visit a client, I intend to be a channel of love.
Supposing I intend to bless them, without ever using the word.
Just suppose.
Supposing I regard every parent, every colleague, every manager, every child, and myself
as being an essential piece in the Cosmic Jigsaw.
Would I start the week with a different attitude?
Would I be grateful for the opportunities I have to serve?
Would I be confident that I will be able to make a difference?

Supposing that every problem is a call for more love,
and that every problem has a solution, because love cannot fail.

What if my real task is to allow a miracle of love to unfold,
quietly, powerfully, peacefully.

What if all I need to do is say, yes, I am willing...
and I forgive
the system
the frantic busyness,
the open plan office,
the ridiculous bureacracy,
the faults and failings of others....
Because I know that they are just human beings too,
on a journey as I am.

What if I remembered
that everyone can be stressed, frightened, tired, and disheartened.

How would I speak then?
What would I say?
What would I do?

Supposing I am blessed to know who I really am...
How would my work change?
How would my life change?

I wonder if there is no need to suppose any longer....?

 Supposing it is no longer possible to dream or hope,
What then?     (Update 18.08.18)

Launching out...2012

It's been a while since my last post. I reached a point where I did not want to write the same old stuff. Also, there was a challenge in my life, a spiritual challenge.  Most of my life I've been on a spiritual quest. It was something I shelved for a while. God wasn't doing what I wanted, I was overwhelmed and angry at work. Then glimmers of light appeared and I realized I would have to start being explicit about all of this in this blog or it was not going to be authentic.
This was scary. I've had a spiritual life, which had truckled along on its own track, and a social work/ reality life,which was on its own track. They were on seemingly parallel lines, so that you won't find much mention of spirituality until a couple of posts ago. But in late November I knew.... nope, can't carry on writing at any depth about my job, without including the spiritual aspect.
That means the blog might not be just about my social work reality any more, but my whole life reality. So should I start another blog? Or just allow this one to be spiritual? What does it matter?
OK, that is just picking up the threads, I explore it a bit more here.
So yesterday I was walking to a client's home. I had a choice of ways, since I did not know if her house was at one end of the street or the other. I chose what I thought was the right way. I realized it was probably not the shortest way. But I passed a shopfront for a bereavement charity, went in and got some leaflets. I was thinking this was a bit silly....I could get the information online. Still, the leaflets were tucked into my bag...
I did the interview with the client and she mentioned that her father had died some years ago and she still found it hard....I was surprised and felt so reassured. I hadn't known this would be an issue for this client, but my Higher Self/ Holy Spirit did and I felt I'd been prepared. So I left her with a leaflet....
The whole day, I was at times asking to be guided. I have so many cases, I have to trust that I will have nudges about things. In fact one of the big shifts in my consciousness is to accept the system is crazy. There is no point in resenting that. It is what it is. And I can choose to align myself with peace, joy and the will of God,  no matter how the craziness is playing out around me. That is the challenge I have somehow accepted now. It is so strange how a burden has lifted, and I feel like I am on a path now, not just going round in circles. Not before time....and probably just at the right time.
So from now on, this will be a focus of this blog....spirituality and social work in my life.

Not 4 a m again!

Yes it is. Once again I am awake at 4 am, with thoughts of the myriad undone tasks buzzing about like bees. Which one will end up stinging me? Is any client at risk through what I am doing, or not doing?  I quickly gave up on my work organization system, it's too cumbersome, and too time consuming. I have just concentrated on getting things done, but with a mushrooming caseload it's a nightmare.

How to keep track of old cases I have mentally finished with but they are still open to me for one or more bureaucratic tasks... When I have new cases to go and visit and new checks to get done. It is a nightmare. I feel as if I am doing two jobs, one is vaguely like social work, the other is the relentless paperwork which could be done by almost anyone who can print out a letter or fathom how to send a fax via the telephone, when the system saves documents in a format which it won't deal with as a fax. This makes getting information from GPs, for instance, quite a palaver.

Yesterday I went for a coffee with a colleague who is under serious pressure from her manager, she described a lot of nit picking which seems designed to cause her to lose confidence and possible move on from the job. Picking her up on things...

How rare that conversation was! One hour of real discussion. We joined at the same time, have been quite close, and this is the first time we really spoke. I cried,  what has become of this profession? So many managers really seem to enjoy the power they have and it is not combined with compassion.

When I think of the time wasted on our induction, when surely we should have been set up with the tools and information we need to do the job, but weren't! But there is a corporate requirement for that 2 week induction so something had to be done. It included days of reading time and going to find places like the Job Centre. Not how to use ICS, or adjust to working in a paperless environment....for example.

So we are still scrabbling around trying to find out stuff like how to send an email to the police.Learning all these systems, when I am busy and stressed. So emotionally unintelligent. It was another worker who send me a step by step guide to sending this email, which is a fundamental part of the child protection process, not business support or managers.

I am looking for another job, and I want out of statutory social work. It is not a good place to be.

Sunday Extra

"My only advice......is to merely accept where you are. Granted, its not ideal, but accept it and surrender to it. Realize this is where you are. It may not be what you want long term, but by focusing on the future and what you want changed, you actually make your present moment worse. So stop, look at where you are, know it won't last forever, and accept it. Find the beauty in it. Find how much it means to help your family for instance. Find how much it means to be healthy and happy and not one of those dependent and unable to help themselves.

The more you appreciate where you are, the more quickly you can change your circumstances.

Remember...that which you resist, persists."

This is a quote from a site I belong to online....inspired by a spiritual teacher called Mike Dooley.  I have belonged to it for a long time, but hardly ever look into. I "dropped in" in a casual way, on my way to writing here again. It's 4.39 am and I woke up with thoughts of work, and life....so time to write again.  

Yesterday I emailed a good friend about my decision to do some work at home. She responded that it was a good decision and commented..."what we resist, persists." I felt that kind of "ouch" of recognition. I certainly have resisted the idea of working at home and also much of the job, I resist!  

So  when I came across the same quote on this web forum I knew, yes, it's important to explore this. No coincidence here! This is my personal journey, and social work is the "work" bit of my reality. It's true I've had a lot of grumbles and complaints but the thing is, it's not just work, it's life. And I was conscious this week of how being angry may feel empowering in the short term, but how does it affect others? And how does it square with my values and aspirations?


So as it's a Sunday, I want to write about spirituality and life and social work. Yes, I think there are issues about how the job is organized now. I think that it is quite a crazy system. But it is also true that it is what it is and it is likely to be the same for some time. I am in no different a situation than many people who find themselves today doing work they'd rather not, for less than adequate pay. The details may be different but that's the nub of it. 


No different to the person stuck in a loveless marriage, or in a burdensome caring role, or with a physical disability......or with debts.....the stuck, burdensome situation looks different for each person but it has that characteristic of seeming unchangeable and relentless. 


I have a situation where, to keep up with my not very inspiring work, it makes sense to do more of it, in my "free" time, in order to stay on top of recording and producing assessments. Either I do that, or I spend time and energy feeling anxious, worried and trying to remember details from days ago.  Until now, I have resisted this aspect of my job. 


Yesterday, I did some of that dreaded extra work. It was not so bad, from 4.30pm to 8 and then another 20 mins during ad breaks to finish off whilst my favourite TV show was on.  And now, the bones of a weeks work are more or less written up. 


I was grateful to my friend for what she wrote. I have been an intense spiritual seeker all my life, and finding myself in the one situation which I did not want (back in statutory social work) is a huge challenge to my faith. I have had the idea that my life would change radically, outwardly, and I would escape the drudgery of the job...again.  And start my real life, where I could show what a truly wonderful spiritual being I am. 


But the truth is, I need to live now in a way that expresses who I really am. I've been aware that the anger and resentment that I feel have an impact at work. They affect my colleagues and clients too.  They don't see the inside, the "why" of what I feel, they see, and sense, an energy of anger and negativity. 


I still feel it a dilemma though. If I let go of the resentment and be in harmony with what is.....does that not let "the system" off the hook?  And if I can be joyful in the job, doesn't that mean that it's OK for everyone? 


There is a spiritual law here, "what you resist, persists." After all, Viktor Frankl was in a concentration camp but chose to "say yes to life."  It is easy to say yes when life hands us the bowl of cherries. But perhaps life will hand only the lemons....lemons of long working hours, open plan offices,  pressing deadlines.....all the things I've struggled with. Can I accept this lemons and in some way transform them?  Allow them to be what they are and yet transform them into something beautiful? 


Some time ago, I gave a talk on moving from Trauma to Triumph in life. I said to my manager this week, it's been traumatic. And it has. Trauma is fundamentally about separation. I think I have fully experienced that stage. Now it's time to move on. I have said it how it is.....I know that the acceptance is vital and means I can begin to be kind to myself and remember, there is a journey from Trauma to Triumph, no matter what the circumstances.


So yesterday I went shopping and bought a project book, in which I can organize each case, with its own to do list. A small step of acceptance. This is what I need to do for myself to be on top of the job. I wrote case notes at home, in a relaxed way....a step of acceptance. And I accept the need to do the job without complaining to colleagues in the office. It does none of us good, when I complain.

It feels good to have reconnected with the spiritual side of life in a way that includes the job! Remembering that my life, my particular life, is about being joyful, no matter what.  Joy that is based on the fundamental goodness of reality, no matter how it appears.  I have the opportunity to do that in the challenging world of social work. Maybe it is even a blessing. And what I resist, will persist!