This week I interviewed about a dozen Carson employees about their work. These are some of the things their nearly two hundred years of combined experience has taught them:
- I used to look for big leaps, giant steps, big turnarounds. But really change happens in small shifts, adding up. A different way of looking, a pause before acting, a five minute walk outside. A world of work is in play behind the scenes to bring about that one small shift, and I never used to see it, never mind celebrate it! Now I have a silent party inside when there’s a small shift.
- I used to get into debates with myself over ‘Can people really change?” I don’t even think about it as “change” anymore. I think about it as uncovering. Some people uncover who they are underneath all the things they struggled with and all the ways they learned to cope. They realize maybe that they’re funny or kind or have a happy nature, but they couldn’t be that before, until the uncovering was done. Sometimes its recovery—stopping addictive behaviors to recover a lost self, but it’s always DIScovery—we discover together how to get to a better place. Uncover. Recover. Discover. That’s how I think about my work now.
- Sometimes I have to be the one to say the hard things that nobody else is able to say to a person. I have struggled my whole career with that. I’m not a jerk and I know how and when to bring the hard stuff up. It’s just that I never want to. I hate that part of the job. But it usually opens a door.
- The hardest thing for me has been helping kids see that sometimes their environment is not going to change to give them what they need and what they should have, even when we try our best. It helps us plan—it helps us grieve and move forward, but it is so unfair and so hard.
- You know what changed me? The woman who came in blaming everyone and angry all time. I disliked her so much until I started to consider how much she must be suffering. My compassion for her made me a better person and a smarter therapist because then I could honestly say, “This must be so painful. Let’s see how we can help you like yourself and live in the world more easily.” Not only did it feel good, it worked.
- Who do I think I am, anyway? That’s been my biggest lesson. I thought that I was so special. But the truth is that I am white and a man and heterosexual and I was born to middle class parents and I had food and clothing and a safe environment. All the television shows, movies and magazines all showed me that I was the ‘norm’ and that everything that was of interest to me must important to the whole world. I didn’t earn that King’s Seat—I was just born into it and that’s not fair. And still I struggled. I struggled with all the messages about how to be a real man; I struggled with finding my true voice, with how to be a deep listener. With how to be really and truly kind. And you know when I realized I didn’t know how to do those things? When I started to ‘help’ people! We are in this together. I may have some good ideas to offer up, to try—but really, it’s my job to support other people in doing the best they can while I keep doing my own work knocking the unearned crown off of my head. If I really need a crown, I can go down to Burger King and get myself one.
By JAC Patrissi
