Delivering Love

It’s no secret that I spend my days trying to make even the littlest difference to people who are hurting . That’s what my day to day working life boils down to for me . Years of education , practice , further study and learning, to somehow , maybe , be able to make a difference.

It is not easy . It is not simple . It is a test of patience , understanding , putting theoretical knowledge and experience into real life practise. It has failures and frustrations , it commands humility and perseverance . More than anything it must be laced with compassion and love . Empathy must be the holy grail of all and every attempt to make a difference . There can be no place for presumption, judgement or blame .

Knowing better can only ever be a caveat to caring more .

The latest buzz going around is ‘ACES’ – adverse childhood experiences . This happens to be something that I feel is more than worth a passing glance . Why ? Because it is based on what I consider worthwhile . It’s been researched and evidenced in more than one place , more than one country and over more than one time period . In other words it’s not just an idea with a little fluff and anecdotal evidence to pad it out .. it has real substance . To be quite honest anyone worth their professional salt who has the slightest responsibility for considering the emotional concerns of people will have understood this for years . However the data is slowly but surely allowing cohesive and robust assurances that what many have ‘known’ for a very long time is actually a reality .

Here is a potted lesson on ACES. The theory is that the more of the following you are exposed to as a child the higher your risk of physical and mental health issues and behavioural problems in your adulthood including criminal behaviour . The evidence shows that areas of poverty and deprivation increase the likelihood of ACES and therefore so too is the occurrence of all these issues increased with the adults within that area .

So what are these ACES?

• Domestic Violence
• Parental abandonment
• Parent with mental health issues
• Being abused (physically/sexually/emotionally)
• Being neglected (physically/emotionally)
• Someone in your household being in prison
• Being in a household where there is substance misuse

So either this is all old hat to you or you’ve something new to ponder. The short version is this ..

When terrible things happen to and around children it impacts the whole rest of their lives !!

Read that again . Let it really sink in ! Don’t dismiss it with statements like

My dad used to give us a belting now and again and it didn’t do me any harm

Or

Excuses for everything these days people just need to be accountable for themselves

Maybe sometimes these statements have truth , but it is NOT the general rule . We live in a world full of hurting , damaged people . A society full of brokenness that has been dismissed and ignored for so long that we have brand new tiny human beings almost destroyed simply by the nature of their habitat .

Arrogance and presumption have no place . It is quite frankly a minefield of possibilities and opportunities for failure . It’s hard . It’s frightening , and most of all it is a fine knife edge to be walked between help and hindrance.

This is the equivalent of the destruction of the rainforest to indigenous species . We have spent so many years cutting down and destroying with abandon that we have reached crisis point . We are allowing our own species to be killed off one soul destroying little person at a time because the reality will cost society something .

What will it cost ? Acknowledgement that what we do , what we are willing to tolerate and attempt to understand will be either the hope or the destruction of a generation . Accepting that every single one of us has their part to play . No more judging the wounded . Understanding . Willingness . Grace .

Are you wondering what this has to do with you ? EVERYTHING! Maybe you feel that you have done everything in your power to make sure your child is protected from exposure to these ACES . I absolutely salute you . Maybe you volunteer your time to organisations , church groups and the like and are doing ‘your bit’ . Perhaps you face this in your daily life as a teacher , medical professional , health worker , social career, criminal justice worker … and truly I applaud every effort .

What has it to do with you ? EVERYTHING! This is your society . This is the ‘community’ your children and grandchildren must seek futures in . This is a right here ,right now ,people are hurting so badly it’s unfathomable situation . It’s critical !

I actually believe that many people reading this WILL ‘get it’ . You will see the words and feel the sympathy and sadness . You may even feel emboldened , impassioned and determined to know more , do more . My ask of everyone today is this .

Take a second and ask yourself what this really looks like . What does it really mean to want to fight the good fight.

The reality of ACES away from the theory and academic studies , far removed from the empowering and motivational words of passionate speakers and teachers of the cause is this .

Broken and wounded lives.

Here is another reality

Nobody can possibly understand the impact of the wounds felt by another .

We may compare personal experiences, we may try to comprehend , that is the essence of empathy after all , but we can NEVER understand another person’s wounds because they are not ours . It is irrelevant how many similarities we feel exist between ourselves and others . When so many variables are in play it’s not conceivable that any human being could presume to completely understand the hurts of another .

The sooner we grasp this the faster we will cease to put boundaries and conditions on others and their reactions to trauma. I’m not saying that everyone has carte Blanche to act how they want without responsibility, far from it . I’m saying that we cannot presume to understand how mountainous that very ownership may be for people when we have no real idea of what their struggle looks like to them .

Compassion and empathy are much harder to find when we put conditions and expectations on others based on our own experiences while forgetting that their lived reality is a far cry from that benchmark of expectation.

Heavy duty stuff eh ?

Now imagine you’re 9 . Your mum has addiction issues . Your dad is long gone . Your home is chaotic , there’s aggression and instability. You constantly move between houses and carers . You’re not clean . Your clothes don’t fit and rarely match the weather . You struggle to keep up in school . You don’t understand positive, loving and caring discipline because in your house you’re more likely to be violently admonished for simply existing than for actually doing something that is worthy of a severe chastisement . Your most regular and dependable meal is your free state provided school lunch , and your home is dirty and filled with strangers you don’t know and who frighten you . You’re frequently asked to accept some man as a father figure and you’re not included in any reasoning or discussion when this person departs as promptly as they arrived . You care for your siblings and try to provide for them . You are the person they tell their hunger pangs and bad dreams to . You are lost and frightened all the time and you’ve no control over anything in your life . You dread birthdays and Christmas because your 9 year old heart can’t take the disappointment that you know is likely , but the same 9 year old heart won’t stop hoping and you hate yourself for it . You’re jealous of the other kids who have mums who care and dads who protect . You are simply devoured by circumstances. You have barely begun your life and already your spirit is crushed .

Then imagine you go to school , you’ve to conform to a environment that’s so alien to you it’s terrifying . The difference between this and your life is so stark, so incomprehensible that you quite simply cannot cope . You are angry , aggressive , you have outbursts and meltdowns . You’re the kid the other parents hate . You’re the kid the teacher is exhausted by. You cannot let your guard down for a second . Why ? Because you cannot risk the glimmer of hope that may creep in because even at 9 you understand the pain that you will feel when that hope is snatched away is unbearable.

You have learned that being defensive may never score a winner but it will give a chance at mitigating a loss .

Then you try kids clubs and youth groups and that seems a little more promising . It offers something that’s less scary than school in an environment that’s easier to handle . However people here have that extra time to spend with you , they may even want to try to understand you . You let your guard down occasionally and they are excited by what they see as change in you, what in reality is a small chink of light in your armour of darkness. Hope perhaps ? Then things go bad at home . There’s an increase in the drinking , the shouting has become more frequent , the food is non existent and there’s a crisis . So you pull that cover of darkness back over yourself because you need to feel safe . You cannot say why because you’re 9 and you know that telling truths means social workers and upheaval and separation. So you say nothing and in your self preservation state your safe fun club becomes another place of tribulation. You don’t understand “making better choices” because in your life you simply try to survive . You are crushed by the disappointment on that leaders face because of your violent outburst but you cannot be sorry . Sorry means vulnerability and vulnerability means fear . So you’re 9 and you’re trapped and you cannot escape the turmoil that is your existence .

You may be shocked by this . You may think I exaggerate or am being dramatic. I promise you this is not the life of one specific child this is the life of many , many children . Right here right now in this beautiful land there are little human beings so blighted by life that they may never fully recover .

It is not enough to understand the truth in research . The real value comes from understanding it’s lived impact . Then we must ask ourselves how are we best placed with our gifts and talents to impact against this scourge on our society .

If you’re a driving force for future change then be that . Don’t settle for the school newsletter when the New York Times is calling . If you have fight in you then fight .. but fight appropriately , tackling those who are capable of influencing change . Better still be the influencer .

If you feel called to the frontline then position yourself to be able to cope with the task ahead . Understand it’s enormity . Adjust your expectations and find ways to rejoice in small victories that by heart measures are enormous . Steady your own heart , care for your own self. Take time to rest and restore with the full understanding that to not is to risk error and failure . Know your capacity and stop before overload . Understand that no matter how desperate you feel the need for it , change cannot happen quickly , deftly or without hurdles .

Love without boundaries . Love when it hurts and you’re feeling aggrieved . Understand that a straight ruler can never be an accurate measure for a curved life.

More than anything , above all and every other thing , be aware that we too can be perpetrators in the never ending cycle of misery . When the bar has been set low we must realign and readjust so that we do not ever become people who wound the wounded .

Remind yourself daily that every cause is based on real life suffering . It is not an abstract, theoretical principle , it is actual suffering . Actual lives that in the words of many before me fit perfectly into the mantra of

There but by the grace of God go I .

You are who you are because of your circumstances in life. If you have been blessed to have little in the way of ACES in your history then acknowledge that for what it is . If you have faced many of these issues head on and are relatively unscathed then see yourself as fortunate , do not hold this as a yard stick for those less able to overcome .

You don’t need to be changing the world to make a difference , Perhaps you could simply offer up a thought or a prayer for those many little lives drowning in suffering and struggle . Smile at the kid that is a angry ball of 10year old terror . Offer hope in the form of kindness and compassion. Decide today that no matter what you will at the very least try to understand more and judge less.