Trusting Spirit

An excerpt from Rainbow Remedies for Life's Stormy Times
by Joanne K. Hill

We must trust the ability of the other person, ourselves and God’s Spirit within each of us to solve problems. Every individual has an inner creativity that pushes to find solutions. So why do people get so down? Why are they homeless? Drug addicts? Alcoholics? They’ve forgotten how to use their creativity in a positive way, or they weren’t taught how to use it or were discouraged from trying. How else would a homeless person manage to survive for years on the street? A druggie support his or her habit?

What about those who don’t survive? They give up. They push themselves to the point of no return and let go of that creative power within. The power doesn’t fail them, they fail to use it wisely, constructively.

Effective helping is trusting the other person, ourselves and God’s Spirit within each of us to come together for healing and empowering resolution. There is a danger, however. As we trust enough to open ourselves to the other person’s emotions, we sometimes fall into their pit of despair and therefore become ineffective.

“A helper does not do for the other person what he can or should do for himself,” Melba Laird, MSW, advised each new group of Hotline volunteers. “You can’t help someone out of a ditch if you crawl in with him.” True. If we crawl in and push him out, we’re stuck. But we can put down a ladder and encourage him to climb out.

The Ladder of Encouragement: We’ve all seen miracles happen when the underdog is cheered to victory by an impassioned crowd. People accomplish amazing feats through brief encounters with enthusiastic encouragement.

At a seminar for professional women, the speaker asks for a volunteer to break a board in half. She wants someone who has never done this before and has no experience in a martial art. The speaker chooses a middle-aged kindergarten teacher, a cuddly grandmother type, sweet and shy.

The speaker asks for two volunteers to serve as cheerleaders. She stations one in front on the audience’s right side, the other on the left. Then she helps them get the two sides competing in cheering: “Yes. Yes! YES!”

Once she feels the cheerleaders and their groups are strongly competing, she combines the two sides for even more energetic confidence building: “YES! YES! YES!” Next, the speaker shows the teacher how she wants her to stand, hold her arm and thrust it forward when the audience shouts, “GO!” The two go through a few practice runs. The speaker tells the cheerleaders to get the audience fired up. “YES! YES! YES!” At the peak, the seminar leader nods her head. The audience shouts, “GO!”

No one is more amazed than the teacher when the board splits in half with one swift movement forward. Her face goes from amazement to joy. Her body stands taller and straighter at the realization of her own empowerment. Such success demonstrates that our ladders are tools that teach, guide, encourage and empower others to help themselves.

The Ladder of Guidance: Ladders come in all sizes and shapes, especially when used as a tool for guiding. Art therapist Lemuel Joyner uses music and art to help people climb out of their ditches of despair.

Back in the 1970s, when our government mandated the closing of mental institutions, our local Mental Health Center opened a Day Care Center. Many patients, institutionalized for years and now released, had low self-esteem, a history of helplessness and few skills for living in the world. They were terrified. Lem was in charge of the local program.

The Hotline office was in the same building, so there were many occasions when I had the privilege of watching Lem at work. One day vividly stands out. The program was new and untried: the building was an old house with many small rooms. Lem was showing the clients how to work with clay. Since clay modeling is a messy project, the group squeezed together in the tiny kitchen.

On the floor, Lem placed a large square of wood. On it, he piled several lumps of wet, gray clay. To show his clients how to work air bubbles out of the clay, Lem demonstrated each process. Slowly, he kneaded the clay, gently explaining each step. At times he punched and pounded on it, pointing out the subtle changes in the clay as he worked to make it pliable, ready for sculpting. Most of the clients watched in fascination. One sat cross-legged in a corner, a blank stare on his face.

Picking up the mound of clay, Lem raised it high overhead and slammed it down. Whop! Some startled, laughing nervously. Splat! The clay splattered into pieces. The man in the corner began to sob.

“What’s wrong?” Lem asked empathically. “That’s me,” he sobbed. “That’s me.”

Lem smiled his gentle smile, knelt down and calmly pulled the pieces into a smooth ball. “Ah, but look,” he said. “We can put ourselves back together.” The man blinked, smiled and moved in closer. Later Lem showed me a shapely bread loaf sculpted from the clay. The man in the corner formed the piece as a symbol of his rising from the clay into a nourishing substance.

_______
Copyright © 2002 Joanne K. Hill