We Need To Be Willing To Listen

Depression is an illness like any other, only it's symptoms are silent, lonely, and more complicated. We often don't see the pain because those who suffer become good at masking it, living in a dual world where they "perform" for their loved ones and peers and meet their demons in the dark of night. Many of us who struggle with mental illness find solace at the bottom of bottles, in little pills or powder, or in ever-evolving means of self-harm and body dysmorphia. 

Our world has evolved into a place where isolation is the norm - we spend our "quality time" together staring at screens. We pacify our children with iPad games, teaching them to ignore their discomfort, rather than meeting their emotional need. More and more teens these days are reporting that they struggle with feeling depressed, isolated, and that they are ashamed of who they are, that they hurt themselves because of it.

In this time, it is more essential than ever for all our youth -regardless of background or aptitude -to have tools to deal with daily stress, positive coping mechanisms for challenging times , and healthy ways to express their emotions and needs. In The "I Am" Project classes, we open that dialogue with students in the classroom. Subsequently, with their parents and teachers too.

We teach that emotions are natural and even difficult ones can be tended to with patience and compassion. We teach that struggle is okay, and there is a lot of strength in talking about it. We give our students tools they can use, a language that allows them to express their "I am" - and to quiet their inner turmoil enough to be able to hear, and thus say "I am struggling, I need help".

Over the last three years, we have had students come forward and express their need to be heard, their struggles with their emotions, and among other things, ask for help with bullying, dealing with grief, and managing shifting home situations. Our students learn that emotions are okay - that finding their voice means they can step out of darkness, lighten the weight on their shoulders, and be who they are in their soul.

On the wake of Robin Williams' passing, perhaps we can take a moment to think about how the dialogue around mental health needs to change. It does not have to take a shocking and horrific loss such as this to wake us up to the dangerous reality of what many of our loved ones battle every single day.

The statistic is 1 in 4 people will struggle with mental illness in their life time. Imagine yourself and three of your friends. Or siblings. Or parents. Even some of us who have intimate experience with mental illness forget to be kind, compassionate, and patient with our peers whose demons are, perhaps, a bit more challenging to handle.

We are, as human beings, in this together. With the state of our world today, it is hard to imagine that a little compassion could make a big difference. But imagine - if 9 billion people tend to their corner of the world with a little compassion - well...that becomes a whole lot of compassion.

It begins and ends with each one of us. We need to be willing to talk, we need to be willing to work together to help those who still struggle and teach our kids ways to cope. Most importantly, however, we need to be willing to listen.

Emotion is a Universal Language: The "I Am" Project in Haiti

Thoughts swirl in my mind as the clouds below. I watch as the landscape unfolds through the plane's window. My eyes take in Haiti as a grand, yet somehow delicate work of art. Its majestic mountains ripen to vibrant shades of green and red, and rise from turquoise waters that lap silently at sandy shores. I am nervous, and yet I feel oddly serene. I have come here to teach an "I Am" workshop to two 7th grade classes at Ecole Nouvelle Zoranje. The school exists thanks to PRODEV Haiti, an organization whose mission is to provide accessible education to undeserved communities, and to nurture generations that can build a stronger and more just society. When I land, I feel oddly at home - as though I have been here before, and am returning after a long time away.

This moment is significant for me. Firstly, it is an opportunity to share self-care tools that I have learned, taught, and developed with students in The United States through The "I Am" Project. Secondly, it is an opportunity to expand the conversation on how caring for ourselves is, indeed, caring for our communities and to be able to bring with me something that may open a new avenue of healing. I am not sure how the kids will take to the "I Am" tools, and whether they will connect, but I feel a truth deep within me: every person can benefit from accessing the important, and often elusive, dialogue with their bodies. I have brought with me what my life has taught me, and what I have tried to show others  - strength and success lie within us all, and we can access it by nurturing a conversation with ourselves. Learning to talk to our own bodies to understand our emotions and needs, helps us access healing, guidance, and innate strength.

When I arrive at Ecole Nouvelle Zoranje, I am first led through the primary school, where groups of young children wearing bright yellow uniform shirts and smiling faces file out towards their lunch hour in  la cantine, the lunch room. I am swept up by their openness, their positive energy, their eagerness to reach out and touch my hand. Their voices ring out in a chorus of Bonjou! Bonjou! Hello! Miss! Hello! Deputy director Blaise-François Aridou and Project Director Tatiana Liautaud lead me through the campus starting with the primary school - I am introduced to bright classrooms, where student artwork and daily lessons are posted on the walls.

Although simple, the message emerging from every classroom is clear - here we nurture education. As Blaise leads me through the rest of the school, I get a chance to meet some of the teachers and support staff, and I feel connected to their mission - we speak of stronger students, a more unified community, and new ways that the kids and help and support each other - and themselves. The campus sprawls over land where students are taught to grow their own food, participate in teamwork activities, and support each other through their education. Each classroom has about 25 students, and each one of them is taught to listen, learn, and respect.

Prior to starting the class, I have a chance to speak with the Principal, the Nurse, The Athletic teachers and to get a sense of how the students view the stress in their lives, and how it shows up during school. Blaise gives me a detailed and informative history of Haiti - through the eyes of the people who work tirelessly to unite it. Blaise tells me that hardship in Haiti predates the earthquake, and that families struggle to survive, and often kids are left to fend for themselves - both physically and emotionally. I hear of the fears that young girls have, the violence that these students know as part of their lives, and the stresses unique to living in a culture that has known so much oppression and poverty.

As we speak, I feel connected to the kids - though I don't know them, and they have grown up in ways vastly different than I have - I connect to how fear, violence, and struggle work to shape their view of themselves, and how they must exist in the world. Though the paths that have brought us to this moment of meeting cross different landscapes, we share an undeniable truth - we are human: we feel, we need, and we grow through connections that nurture us.

I am going to teach my lessons in French, a language that connects to my childhood, but that I have not yet used to express these tools. When I step into my first classroom, everything I know about teaching that I have seen in New York and Philadelphia stays outside the door. I face a class of faces both eager to learn and poised to challenge what I have brought. I notice a palpable difference between the younger kids I met in the morning, and these students sitting in front of me now. Although they are 11 and 12 years old, these children have grown much faster than their years. I sense their apprehension as I start to speak of emotion, connecting to the body, and meeting our needs. At this stage, it is simply not what their days are filled with. At this stage, they are learning the skills they need to survive.

As I do in every class, I take a moment to meet every person in the room - learning his or her name, age, and one thing that makes them unique. I learn that many of the boys enjoy playing sports, that some of the girls like to dance and sing, and that a few of them even enjoy writing, drawing - one shy young woman who sat in the back of the second class shared with me that she writes her own poetry. We are curious about each other. I find myself being more open with them about my struggles and my past than I typically am with students their age.

They ask,  How did I learn to teach all this stuff? 

The "I Am" Project tools evolved from the practices I learned in my own healing journey. I have spent the past 8 years rebuilding my body by getting to know myself again on several levels. Physical and emotional trauma made me fearful of the world around me and mistrustful of my own mind and body. I began to heal by getting to know my thoughts, emotions, and accepting my body's basic needs as okay. When I connected physical movement, fitness, and strength training, I noticed how connecting with my body and working to get stronger allowed me to open space for meditation and reflection. I saw how the combination of practices helped me feel calmer and in that calm, I was able to make the necessary choices that helped me maintain my recovery and continue to heal. They respond by wanting to learn more, try more, practice more.

It is the meditation that changes the energy in the room - as it does in every classroom I have visited. With our eyes closed and our attention turned inward, the students feel safe noticing their breath and exploring their internal worlds. Their palms are open - they are willing to receive what messages their own spirits have for them through their bodies. I guide them through to listen, to ask their body how it feels, to take themselves to a place where they feel most strong, calm, and secure. I ask them to become witnesses to their own ways of thinking, feeling, being. We imagine a cloudy sky, and with every exhale, we clear out a worry. 

I ask,

How many of you take time to check in with yourselves?Not one hand goes up.

I ask,

What did that feel like for you?

and they answer,

Soulageant (calming), Relaxant (relaxing), Bien (good).

The sentiment echoes in both classes, as students emerge from meditation noticeably calmer, more open, and more eager to participate. They are less taken aback by the fact that I let them call out, that they can say how they feel.

Now, when I talk about emotions, they feel safer - they can share about feeling afraid (la peur), feeling sad (la tristèsse), and feeling angry (la fâche, la colère).

We talk about where these emotions live in our bodies, and what kind of stresses trigger them in us. We talk about violence, about the earthquake, and about living with so much uncertainty. Slowly but surely hand continue to go up and they start to share about their own experiences with these emotions and that no, they aren't aware of how their bodies respond.

We talk about rhythms - the rhythm of breathing, the heart beat, and how each one varies when we live in different emotions. With egg shakers to create the rhythm, they tap out their heart beat in fear, in sadness, in stress - and eventually in calm, in rest, and in moments of joy.

I notice the moments that I see in every class - when the tool starts to connect, when they feel safe enough to share, when they realize that they can do this every day.

 Some still stare at me with blank faces, and some are already hardened by what they have seen in their lives - violence, fear, death. They sit silently and absorb the lesson, participating less than the other students but still connected, wanting to know more.

We go through scenarios where they could use these tools, and I ask them if they think they'd be okay with it. They're not sure, but they want to try.That's all it takes - the willingness to try. Change of any kind takes practice and dedication, and these tools slip so easily into every day situations that they are easy to remember, accessible to practice.

At the end of each class, I ask them

How do you feel now?

They answer,

plus fort (stronger), plus calme (calmer), contente (happy).

Teaching at Ecoule Nouvelle Zoranje has deepened, for me, the mission behind my work and my own personal journey of healing. Never have I felt both further from and closer to my own humanity than I did while working with these students. Can a simple breathing exercise, a simple meditation and moment of reflection truly make a difference in these children's every day experience? I can still hear the voices of the students as they shared about their home life, their daily worries, and their own personal battles. From my own battles, I know that taking small moments to connect my self and access my emotions has created momentous change. From getting to know our basic needs - thirst, hunger, sleep, comfort - to diving deeper into the nuances in our emotions, having the ability to connect is what makes us human.

I believe emotion is a universal language - anyone can look at a picture of mourning and see anguish on the person's face. Regardless of background, origin, education - we can all connect on our basic humanity. In Haiti, I was with people - teachers, students, staff - who opened themselves to the possibility of deeper connection. In a mission towards creating unity, justice, and a stronger nation, we must ask ourselves - how can we create all of those first within ourselves.

I believe it starts with our youth - with the students who spend every day learning material that molds them into citizens of the world. With The "I Am" Project teaming up with PRODEV Haiti, we can nurture a growing generation that along with history, mathematics, and civics also learns - compassion, empathy, communication, strength, and self-care. 

They ask me, Will you come back?

I tell them - Je reviendrai.   I will. 

Yali Szulanski for The "I Am" Project

Ending The Nightmare: Helping Kids When They Are Stressed Out

In the meditation portion of my last class, I asked my class of 6th graders to take a dive with me under the ocean – to imagine that they have the magical ability to breathe fully under water. They ocean they are diving into is the way they feel right now, it is what their body answers when, with their breath, they ask it “How are you feeling today?” I asked them to see their inner ocean as their canvas, their movie screen – their place to really see the emotional reality in which they’re in right now.

When we emerged, the majority of my students had surfaced from some of the scariest places I’ve ever heard of:

“I saw myself diving into a dark hole, and I couldn’t find my way out – there was no way up, and no way down. When I got the bottom of it, there were sharp rocks and so many dead bodies there, but they held on to my legs and pulled me down every time I tried to swim away.” C, age 11

“I saw myself being eaten limb by limb by a shark, and I kept asking it to let go and it wouldn’t.” R, age 12

“I couldn’t breathe – even when you told us that we could breathe, I couldn’t breathe. My body didn’t have enough space for me to breathe in – so I just drowned” D, age 11

Now have no fear – I did not leave my students in these gloomy underwater universes. The second portion of the meditation had them diving back in, walking through their worlds, and with guided music consciously altering what they saw by breathing affirmations into their body, by practicing “I Am” tools as they walked, and by creating a reality where they could help themselves. On the other end, I thankfully witnessed a class of resilient students who found ways to protect themselves in their previously dreary environments.

This particular class of 6th graders was on the last day of what was a full week’s worth of state mandated testing. In addition, in the weeks leading up to this, teachers were asked to shelve their curriculums in order to properly prep their students for these tests. Classrooms that may have, just a month ago, been abuzz with discussions about science experiments, ancient Greece, or how current events reflect history were shushed into practice exams and proper procedures for filling in those endless multiple choice questions. Knowing that I would be working with 47 stressed out and tired 11 and 12 year olds, I decided to give them imagination and play as a tool to relieve their stress.

The lesson is called “Creating My Reality” and it typically comes later on in the year, but what I witnessed and heard from my students in the check-in, compelled me to push it up a few weeks. I simply asked my students:

“What is reality to you?”

Some of their answers had me floored:

“The bad stuff of life”

“What I have to deal with”

“The stuff that you don’t want to happen”

“When you get a reality check”

“When you wake up from being a child”“

The harsh truth”

Eager to discuss with each other what reality is, a raucous debate emerged with one clear theme – Reality is something that holds a lot of stress. What they saw as a game of imagination and pretend, I saw as a very real reflection of how stress is affecting my students.

One visit to The American Institute of Stress website (appropriately, www.stress.org) is enough to make anyone want to crawl under a blanket and melt into a puddle of tears. The homepage alone lists “50 common signs and symptoms of stress” which range from the physical: neck ache, back pain, muscle spasms; to the emotional: increased anger, frustration hostility; to the psychological: sudden attacks of life threatening panic. Of course, nowhere does it mention what prolonged periods of stress can do the spiritual self –but we’ll get there. These symptoms focus on the adult reaction to stress – emotions and physical reactions in the body translated into actions and behaviors that we recognize as “stress-induced”. As educated and socialized adults, we understand that stress has these effects on us.

What about our kids then? How do they interpret and understand stress? If all 50 things on the sings and symptoms are happening simultaneously – and often, many of them are, how can someone still developing their basic understanding of self and foundation properly identify an overwhelming physical, emotional, and psychological reaction as “Stress”. Even more pressing, how can they actually cope with it?

In the “I Am Here” Workshop – the first one that any class interested in The “I Am” Project workshops or curriculum gets, I ask the students to tell me about a situation that stresses them out. Many of them have a basic understanding of where stress can come from – homework, fights with their siblings, over-scheduled lives. In some of the schools I go to, the stressors are a little bit different - knowing that I’m alone when I get home, having to take care of my younger sibling, walking home and getting there safely. They know that stress comes from parts in their lives that make them feel uncomfortable, anxious, and that prompt them to be more alert than usual.

When I ask them, “What actually IS stress?” – I get a lot of blank stares. They know where it comes from, but they’re not quite sure what it is. When I press them, I get a lot of answers that basically end up meaning - “It’s really bad.”

So before we continue, what actually is stress?

According to the same American Institute of Stress, stress is defined as “ a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way.” Truthfully, when your body’s stress response is working properly, it is your body’s way of telling you that something needs to be addressed – it shows you that something is off balance. Our modern response to stress is the same as our ancestral one – it triggers the “fight or flight or freeze” response. When you’re stressed out you can either do something about it, avoid it, or get overwhelmed by it. Even as adults we struggle with how to actually deal with stress.

In the three years I have been working with kids 11-19 in their natural habitats – classrooms – I have witnessed stress levels rising in their lives without any accompanying relief. I find that every year, I need to adapt and deepen the practices that I teach them in order to access their stressors at their deepest roots. Kids are facing demands in school, at home, and in their communities that reach a dramatic pitch in a world of increased competition, constantly advancing technology, and an unrestricted access to information. When I was 11, I was still learning fractions and probabilities. Now, these 11 year olds are behind if they’re not learning how to code.

The “I Am” practices that my students learn are tiny – but effective - tools that enable students to become agents in restoring their own balance. It’s too easy for younger generations now to access unhealthy means of “coping”- and who would blame them if these nightmarish scenarios reflect what they feel within them every day. The key is communication – talking about stress with others, but most importantly understanding how it affects them day-to-day. In becoming aware of their own bodies and how they interpret and express emotions, they are able to stat the root cause of what stresses them out – and how they may need help to address it. Plain and simple – if our students are going to be subjected to endless testing, heightened competition, and increased pressure – they need to learn tools that can help them cope, and they need to practice them every single day.

There is hope yet – in the same school, another 6th grade class that I’ve been working with reportedly asked their teacher to allow them to meditate before starting every test. The teacher reported calmer students, a quieter classroom, and – at the end of the week – more smiles than she’d expected.

Be Kind To Your Inner Critic

 Try to picture the last time your work, your passion, or perhaps even you, were put before judgment.

Take a second to close your eyes and ask your body to remember what it felt like as you were gathering your material. 

What were your hands experiencing as they typed furiously, shuffled through papers and put together a presentation that could perhaps determine your future?

What did your legs feel like as you walked toward the office of the person whose opinion of you, in that moment, really mattered?

How loudly was your heart thundering in your chest as you watched the time on the clock approach your hour of judgment?

Many of us, in this situation, forget everything we’ve been taught about being kind to ourselves. We pick up our tweezers and scalpels and begin to dissect ourselves.

I should have worked harder…

I should have stayed later….

I should have made better lessons…

I should have practiced more…

I shouldn’t have said that…

I should have been smarter….

I should have proof read…

I should have used my damn brain!

Even before we walk into the room, we have already set ourselves up for failure. There is nothing we can do right, and if praise does appear in our review, we scarcely register it as we are digging for the morsels that will help us excavate ourselves even more.

For most of us, our inner critic is far harsher than any review, any complaint and any confrontation we may have.

We are experts in judging ourselves, for who is there to defend us when the opposing voices live inside of us?

There is always some reason to feel not good enough. This is especially enhanced when someone is criticizing us. The truth is, we all make mistakes. We live our lives to the best of our ability, based on our own experiences. Sometimes our best falls short of what is needed—and that’s okay.

Yet, very few of us hold ourselves with compassion—in fact, we loathe ourselves for who we are in that moment.

We label ourselves in ways that stick to us and cross all the boundaries in our lives. When the outer critic and the self-critic start to work together, we face a monster from the leagues of the most vicious horror stories. We are not only eviscerated, but decapitated, violated and cannibalized.

How are we supposed to cope?

We cope by cultivating a dialogue of compassion and forgiveness within ourselves.What keeps us out of that connection to ourselves is the fear that we are not worthy of being in it. It is the fear to honestly face ourselves and the wounds we carry that keep us in those wounds. The struggle to love ourselves is perhaps the most difficult one we will encounter in our lives.

In moments of panic, shame and disappointment with ourselves, we tend to exist in the very confined world of what exists in our own heads. Our thoughts are loud, hence they are right.

No, they are not right.

Let’s repeat that: just because our thoughts are loud, does not mean they are right.

We actually can cultivate an atmosphere of compassion within ourselves. Yes, it takes a lot of hard work and a sometimes super-human amount of patience. Those who have that a sense of love and belonging in their minds are able to convince their bodies, their hearts and their souls that they are worth it—that they are good enough. 

It takes a daily practice of telling ourselves that we are good, that we are smart, that we are good enough to actually have it permeate into our lives.

Of course, we must all live within the lines of reality. Not all of us are superstars, but all of us do have unique talents and abilities that set us apart from others and that we can be proud of. There is a reason that each one of us is in the position that we are in, creating the mark that we leave in the world.

It is an every day task, looking in the mirror and saying:

Today, I am strong.

Today, I am beautiful.

Today , I am worth it.

Perhaps it is with sticky notes or inspirational statements or constant reminders to breathe, release and move through our pain.

Stopping the negative flow in our minds sometimes feels like attempting to fix a leaky faucet with Q-tips. Yet, if we keep trying, eventually, those Q-tips come together and absorb the water.

Similarly, our daily attempts to reverse that self-talk start to yield results—we see ourselves smiling more, we believe in ourselves and we can even face moments of outside criticism with courage.

Hearing, ‘you are wrong’ does not define you, rather it can be a beautiful opportunity for you to discover new ways in which you can grow, in which you can learn, in which you can take the next step with confident and determined power in your feet.