April Showers....bring May Flowers? Surviving Stormy Weather Without an Umbrella
Category: Special Education Leadership
Apr
15
By Chance Copeland
The weather in the midwest has been…unpredictable…lately. One day it’s 85 degrees and sunny, the next it’s 40 and blustery, and the day after that it’s 60 and storming with a gusto that leads me to question the structural integrity of my house. I’ve found it difficult to prepare for – probably even more difficult than it has to be since I rarely check the forecast. Given my lack of preparation, I’ve been caught several times in the middle of a downpour, parked what must be a thousand miles away from the building I work in, either missing an umbrella, a rain coat, or on one particularly unfortunate day when I was already running late, both. I made it – albeit uncomfortable and resembling a wet dog who was forgotten outside – but I was reminded of being a kid again, when I made up a rule that I would only go outside if the sky was perfectly blue. Then, I figured, I could guarantee I wouldn’t be caught in a storm. This proved strangely effective, but looking back may have been a sign that something else was going on in my head.
At any rate, if you watched last month’s podcast, you’ve probably guessed by now that I’m painting a picture of a different kind of storm (although I do love a good analogy and it has been raining a lot) – one we’ve all been living, are currently living, or will experience at some point in the future. I’m talking about the kind of chaos we can’t plan for with an umbrella or a rain coat: a world that seems perpetually in a state of crisis, friends who are ill, stress in our homes, commitments to our students/clients/jobs that seem impossible with resources already stretched thin. The list goes on and on, only this time we can’t stay inside until the clouds go away and the sky is blue again.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this in my last few weeks of my counseling internship, especially as I’ve worked with clients weighed down by the same things I am. They come to me looking for solutions to fix problems, and they’re often surprised when they say “I don’t know what to do,” and I say, “me either” (don’t worry, usually I explain afterwards that I can’t know what’s best for them, but I can sit with them while they figure it out for themselves). They do figure it out, just like we all do, but surviving the pain along the way – staying grounded – that’s a skill everyone needs and surprisingly few are taught, instead getting drenched even though we knew rain was eventually coming because we didn’t have an umbrella.
So, let grounding be your umbrella. It isn’t one size fits all, so you might need something different to keep you calm in a moment of chaos, but here are a few ideas (in no particular order) to get you started:
- Coloring. I know, this may sound ridiculous to some of you, but it can be surprisingly helpful in taking us out of the moment, and research actually proves it.
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation. You can do this anywhere, with even just a few minutes, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: relaxing your muscles a little bit at a time. If you can clench and unclench your muscles, you are capable, and research suggests that we can teach ourselves to relax on command by practicing it (and it actually works!). There are several YouTube videos that can guide you through it (I used this one today).
- Engage your five senses. This is another way to get back into the moment and out of your head. Name five things you can see, four things you can touch, three that you can hear, two that you can smell, and one that you can taste (called the 5-4-3-2-1 method).
- Try new things until something sticks. Some of us like exercise or a ten minute walk after a stressful moment, while others might need a quiet room with low lighting or gentle music. Some people carry a rock in their pocket and they find that perfectly adequate when they feel stressed (it didn’t work for me, but I like the idea). If you don’t find something that works for you right away, go looking for it. You can start here!
Perhaps most importantly (and most difficult), try to keep hope. If this sounds daunting, I get it. It’s daunting for me too; I’ve always been more of a cynic than an optimist and I joke that some of my experiences make a bad case for good fortune (ha-ha). But the fact remains that we’re all in this moment because we survived the ones that came before it, which I think speaks to our capacity for overcoming things we didn’t know we could. Hope is good for our health and good for our lives, and I think it is probably more important than ever when we’re tired, the world is scary, and the future is uncertain.
Who knows when the world will feel easier, when the rain will stop, or if the flowers will bloom when the storms finally end? Not me – and half the time, not the weatherman. But we still plant the seeds, because if they do bloom they’ll be beautiful, and we need as much beauty in our lives as we can get. We still go outside, because we have places to be and people who need us.
So, bring an umbrella. Maybe two, so you can give one to someone like me who inevitably forgets theirs. If flowers grow after the rain, that’s great. If they don’t, at least we stayed dry.
We hope you enjoy this podcast episode and it helps you take a breath and you are able to focus on your own self care as we make our way through the 2nd half of the school year. 
