What Size Is This?
I think this week’s essay is going to be on the shorter side. But it’s currently too soon to tell.
This morning’s confession:
Thus far, I have avoided sitting down at this keyboard (it is now 10:04amCST) by doing the following:
- I wrote letters – in email format - to both of my 10-year-old nieces who are currently at sleep away camp. I have to click send by 9 am each morning – that’s the deadline to ensure the messages get printed out and delivered during lunchtime. Of course, this was the highest priority this morning and I even had it on my calendar before essay writing, but God knows I could have just done it LAST NIGHT. I didn’t; I waited until this morning.
- Next, I did my hair – although I am not leaving the house or being on camera today.
- I made tea, made and ate breakfast, listened to/watched half of a podcast, and triaged my email, including scrolling through LinkedIn for a bit after clicking on email notifications that had LinkedIn recommendations embedded in them.
- Still not ready to write, I went through the stack of paper mail that had accumulated while on my retreat, including flipping through my Alumni magazine, which was obviously time-sensitive and important given the fact that I graduated from the University of Puget Sound TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO, so if I didn’t get to it this morning, I’d be falling behind in some important way, obviously ;)
- Filtering them out, I put a bunch of receipts in a stack, and folded two medical bills neatly under my laptop (until I deal with them when, exactly?!) but I guess it’s better they are now in a stack. Unclear.
- On my phone I’ve checked my bank accounts, the weather, People magazine online, and cnn.com. I’ve also clicked through my this and next week calendar items more than once already.
Enough is enough! Here we go (jeez!).
Last week, because I was in a retreat setting, by day 5 many of us were engaging in facets of our morning routine in front of each other during breakfast. On the second to last morning, I was doing my Morning Pages (3 pages of long-hand stream of consciousness writing a la Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way at a breakfast table off the cafeteria because I wanted to have a cup of tea while I wrote.
At this point, it’s important for you to know that a few years ago, I made a life-changing $42 purchase at Target—my own personal lamination machine. A long-time collage enthusiast, I bootlegged together my own lamination system up until that point by laying clear packing tape in rows on top of stuff I made that I wanted to preserve. Visualize a Washington DC map I folded into a wallet, the front cover of a special notebook, and a go-with-me-everywhere daily planner. I packing-taped the shit out of all those things so they would last longer. It was a solid system.
For my trip last week, along with a fresh notebook and satchel of multiple colors of Pilot G-2 10 pens, I packed one home-laminated resource I like to keep nearby. On one side is a black and white printout of the “Feelings Wheel” I snagged off the internet. On the other side is a “pain scale” I typed up in a Word document shortly after my dad’s hip replacement surgery and hospital stay.
Rather than trusting my newly woken-up brain each morning to be able to grasp for apt emotions words to describe what I’m feeling, I find it incredibly helpful to reference this list to get closer to – and at times behind – what might be going on for me.
Just the other day, I was working with a client, and I had my Feelings Wheel handy. He kept saying versions of “I’m bothered” and “I’m annoyed.” But with the way he was expressing and sharing, I inquired, “It actually sounds to me like you feel disgust. Does that sound right?” He agreed. From there, we were able to get somewhere in terms of the next possible actions for moving through that tough and very real emotion.
In addition to the Feelings Wheel, The Pain Scale is another tool I find immensely helpful. A handful of years ago, at the end of my dad’s hospital bed, with him hopped up on post-surgery meds, I got to witness the nurses working with him to learn about what the precise pain was feeling like from one hour to the next. This ensured shared understanding, specificity, and a sense from the inside out of how this pain ranked in someone’s own experience. Consequently, with this shared way of communicating, helpful professionals could then engage in the right course of pain management rather than guessing and hoping for the best. I found this way of communicating more evocative, more precise, and ultimately, more helpful.
The pain scale I typed up (from the picture I took on my iPhone in my dad’s hospital room) goes like this:
10: unbearable, devastating, crushing, excruciating
9: dreadful, horrible
8: overwhelming, agonizing
7: miserable, fierce
6: gnawing, piercing
5: aggravating, upsetting, grueling, frustrating
4: you should be able to watch TV comfortably
3: mild pain
2: bothersome, irritating
1: annoying, nagging
0 no pain
I find these words and this scale super helpful as an ongoing reference. What size is this, on a scale of 0-10? What words would you use to describe how this feels?
Rather than guessing or thinking I could possibly read someone’s facial expressions, body language, and vocal tone, I can check-in. What size is this???
If you’ve worked with me, you have probably heard me share that one of the tenets we came up with at Team Dynamics was “RECEIVE and BELIEVE.” One way we can be better listeners and understanders of other people’s experiences with racism and sexism is to receive and believe what this incident is feeling like from the inside out.
I have worked with many healthcare professionals over the years, and the way pros treat pain management is to trust that the pain is real. Start from there, and we can figure the rest out.
Just yesterday, I was working with a client group on how folks could be ready for race and gender-based incidents. We didn’t want to armor up; we wanted to be more prepared to act in our integrity.
One of the key ways we can check in with ourselves and people on our team is to refer to our Pain Scale – recognizing that the effects of discrimination, prejudice, and harassment are often cumulative. The pain stacks up over days, weeks, and years.
Singular “incidents” may be exacerbated because that was the third time that shit happened this week, or this was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Rather than guess, decide to make it a habit to ask. And also, to communicate what size something is for you. For example,
o I noticed that person kept mispronouncing your name during that meeting, on the Pain Scale, what did that feel like for you?
o I noticed Tad touches you a lot when he talks to you. How does that feel?
o I couldn’t tell how Sheila talking over you felt. What did that feel like for you? You get where I’m going.
For me, the Pain Scale is an ongoing tool in my justice and equity-seeking toolbox. Based on the severity of the pain I can better plot next wise actions.
Additionally, tracking my own pain can aid in my ability to process and ask for help rather than try to deny what I’m feeling, diminish it, and then run the risk of the pain slipping out sideways in ways I’m not proud of.
The goal, like much of the self-awareness work I’m engaged in, is to move from unconscious to conscious and from inconsistent to consistent practice.
Let me know what the Pain Scale stirs up in you and how you imagine you could utilize it in your life and work over the next month or so - trina@trinaolson.com.
Til Next Week,