Suggested Read Archives

You Talk Like A River

by Ellyn Zografi | Jan 19, 2021 | On Being Human, Suggested Read

I can see the moment clearly. I am at a weekly training with my coworkers. We work at a vocational agency that helps adults with developmental disabilities find employment and/or enrichment opportunities. Our executive director is holding up a drawing, seemingly created by a child – or more likely – one of our clients. We have seen this kind of drawing a million times (every day perhaps) part of our job handing out a plethora of paper and markers to our clients to express themselves, calm down their bodies if upset, or pass time while waiting for rides to their jobs or home for the day. These drawings pile up in their lockers only to be recycled or thrown away periodically. A client sometimes will gladly hand a drawing over a support staff, saying, “This is for you”.

Sadly, no one is hanging them on the wall or a refrigerator. They aren’t special.

Or, are they?

The executive director pulls out a beautiful, ornate frame with a glass pane. She picks up a scribbled upon piece of paper, destined for the garbage. She carefully places it in the frame. We get it. What before looked like just another piece of paper with broad strokes, tiny circles, and a trace of an image is magically transformed into artwork. It looks special. It suddenly illuminates the uniqueness of the individual who created it. We see something we didn’t see before. She framed it in a way in which it changed what it was.

Framing or Reframing is a common technique used in counseling. A client will present to the therapist an issue with a specific and rigid perspective. The therapist, of course, doesn’t pull out a picture frame. But something like it. They metaphorically place something around the thoughts that redefines the issue. The therapist offers an alternative perspective. They re-frame it. They help the client see it as something different than before.

One example. Reframing a feeling

A client comes in saying that she is sad because her teenager seems to behave politely to everyone but her. She is bemoaning the fact that her child “lets it all out” on her but “is nice as pie with everyone else”. The client sees this as something fundamentally wrong with not only herself but that it must mean something bad about her relationship with her child. Possibly the child doesn’t like her. Possibly there is something inherent about her that makes her child treat her badly. The therapist suggests something different. She offers a perspective that maybe she, her client, is the only person with which the teen feels completely comfortable and safe. It is one relationship in which the child can release emotions authentically, even the unpleasant ones, and know they will not be rejected or abandoned. Suddenly this isn’t about there being something wrong with the relationship, but quite the opposite–that the mother is providing a space the child can’t find elsewhere. The mother, strapped with this new framework, might possibly be able to hold space for her child’s behavior in a different way, without feeling rejected, defensive, or worried. With this framework, she might be able to hold appropriate boundaries with her teenager, without internalizing something is wrong with her.

Re-framing isn’t only a therapeutic intervention. Unwittingly, we are often re-framers for each other just by our simple words or actions, or how we live our lives. Something we read in a novel or magazine article can reframe something that makes us less critical of ourselves. We may say something off the cuff and our friend, coworker, or family member could be quietly taking this in as a magical new outlook, one that impacts their life in explicit or implicit ways.

Where the river comes in

A beautiful example of something getting re-framed without it being labeled as such is shared in this article “Finding A Voice and Coming to Terms with a Stutter”. The article reviews a picture book called I Talk Like a River written by Jordan Scott and illustrated by Sydney Smith. According to the article, the author, Jordan Smith, has a stutter. But his book does not mention this fact explicitly, nor is it the main point of the story. It is poetry with pictures depicting one simple moment. A moment when Scott’s father told him that he talks like a river. This comment by the author’s father, however, was not an intentional move to re-frame his son’s stutter more positively. But, it did.

From the article:

And when Scott’s father told him he talked like a river, it wasn’t to share a profoundly philosophical thought. As a matter of fact, Scott doesn’t think his father even knew how profound his words were. It was just a little moment, an ordinary moment in an ordinary day, that changed the way Scott thought of his stutter.

And so the re-framing continues…

When I read this article, I was in a current state of feeling stuck about what to write for my next blog. I was getting mired down in self-defeating thoughts about the futility of even writing a blog in the first place. It started me down a path of being quiet; trying to find and justify reasons not to write – just like a stutterer might find reasons not to talk.

And then I looked up I Talk Like a River online. I listened to a short audio clip of the author reading his book. I heard him repeat what his father said:

See how that water moves, that’s how you speak…

Although referring to the author’s speech moving like a bubbling, churning, whirling, crashing river, upon hearing this, it somehow reframed my own negative thoughts around my ability and credibility to write. Just like a river doesn’t flow smoothly, a river also doesn’t worry whether it’s allowed. The author heard from his father’s comparison that his stutter was okay. He was allowed to talk, despite his stutter. I heard in this comparison I am allowed to write. I too, can churn, whirl, crash and bubble in my process. I write like a river.

Sometimes it takes a change of perspective to get the words flowing.

These words led to me finding my voice for this blog, and remembering one moment of my own- a moment when I was at work and my boss was framing a simple piece of paper with scribbles, and magically turning the paper, and the moment, into something I had never forgotten.

Enjoy this video right from the words of author and illustrator as well: PreviewPreview3:46I Talk Like a River book videoYouTube · Holiday HouseMay 11, 2020

Writing Exercises

Write about a moment in time when your perspective changed when someone or something put a ‘different frame around it”
Think of someone you know who is struggling with a specific perspective about themselves or life in general. Re-frame it.
Write a poem or essay starting with Sometimes it Takes a Change of Perspective…
What is something you churn, bubble, crash and whirl with? What do you do like a river?

Feel free to share with me what you wrote via email at ellyn@sixwillows.com. If you’d like feedback or have a discussion about what came up for you, let me know and we can schedule a time to talk.

Thanks again for showing up for yourself today, taking the time to reflect, receive and recognize who and where you are.

On Grief: The Words of a Queen & a Fort Worth Psychotherapist

by Ellyn Zografi | Jan 22, 2015 | Suggested Read

Queen Elizabeth II was once quoted saying “Grief is the price we pay for love”. Although very few would dispute a correspondence between intensity of grief and the depth of attachment, the act of grieving is often treated more like an illness to overcome in an efficient manner, rather than a much needed expression of sadness. An expression that has no expected linear time line. No deadline of termination. No set order of symptoms.

In his article entitled Getting Grief Right, Patrick O’ Malley, offers a breathtaking and compassionate understanding of grief, challenging the well known (if not judgmental) stages of grief we are told to expect (if not instructed) to endure (Denial, Anger, Depression, Bargaining, Acceptance, Return to meaningful life).

O’ Malley offers an alternative way of understanding what we are going through when we experience loss. He removes the potential for the griever to feel behind or unsuccessful in the healing process. What struck me the most is that the process of grief, according to both O’Malley and Queen Elizabeth II, begins way, way before our loss. In fact it begins when we are first beginning to love.

I highly recommend reading this article. It may save you from unnecessary self-judgment and endless attempts to bring closure to your grief; when really what you need is permission to “sink into your sadness”. And above all, to tell and re-tell your love story ~ in order to reach a place of acceptance and healing.

Image Source

Brene Brown: Un-shaming Shame

by Ellyn Zografi | Jan 8, 2015 | Suggested Read

The goal is to learn to recognize when we are experiencing shame quickly enough to prevent ourselves from lashing out at those around us.” -Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

This is more of a Suggested Person, rather than a Suggested Read. If you haven’t already heard of Brené Brown, I strongly recommend exploring one of her many portals (books, articles, ted talks, etc).

Even reading a few of her quotes has the potential to open a small window of helpful awareness. Brené Brown introduces a whole new way of understanding the meaning and role of Shame in our lives, and how the ability to talk about it openly has healing potential. She invites us:

To explore, understand and have compassion for our deepest un-desired selves (rather than try to ignore or hide these parts of ourselves)
Get curious about (rather than judge) our reactions; the ones we wish we could take back time after time
To discover what is triggering unwanted behavior; the behavior in ourselves we beat up mercilessly (rather than assume we must be inherently “bad” or “wrong”)
To re-story unwanted personality traits: the ones we think are hopelessly just who we ARE.

If I could wish a top 40 radio station to play over and over in the heads of humanity, it would be the wise and courageous messages of Brené Brown.

Here is a worksheet by Brené Brown that helps you start an exploration of your own shame triggers. It is, of course, natural to want to ignore and hide from these triggers as they make us feel badly. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make them go away. Ironically, it is the very process of becoming compassionate of, and open to, our shame triggers, which in turn, may lead to a resilience to them.