Like many others, I entered Trusted Mentors eager to make a
change, build relationships, and be a positive support system in someone else’s
life. The time between my initial
training and match was about the span of six months. During this time I
pondered how I would be making a difference once I connected with my mentee,
and how all would flow from there. I had anticipated some difficulty, but had
not deeply considered the roadblocks and challenges that I would soon face.
I remember it like it was yesterday; it was, in fact, the
night before Thanksgiving of 2013 when I was introduced to my mentee. We met at
a quaint coffee shop with our Mentor Match Manager present, and immediately hit
it off after a few minutes. She said I was not what she expected and I smiled,
hoping this was a good thing. We talked briefly about our similarities and
sparked up a strong connection about a common passion we shared. She was, to me,
a bright soul bursting with potential and from the very first day I was excited
about building our relationship. We exchanged phone numbers and made
arrangements to meet the following week.
At our first meeting together we sat in a quiet space and as
we began to continue the journey of getting to know each other, she revealed
more about herself to me. She also asked that I do the same, and I obliged. As
I am usually a private person, I felt happy to reveal myself to her in order to
start building a connection and hopefully earn her trust. I was in awe of her
ability to be open, inquisitive, and optimistic. I thought that, for a young
woman, she had such wisdom. We smiled and laughed as we sat sharing with each
other our thoughts, our lives, and our struggles. I encouraged her and also
gave her my full support, letting her know that I was there to help her through
this journey and would be happy to do whatever I could. She acquiesced and we had made a plan to meet
again the next week.
The next week came and I was excited about our meeting, I
could hardly wait. We had bonded almost instantly, and got off to a rocket
start. I had in mind things I would do to enrich our meetings, books I could
give her, movies I would recommend, and places we could go for a shared
learning experience. I was disappointed when I was unable to meet with her that
week, but we had confirmed that we would speak again soon.
Many phone calls later I finally reached her. Disheartened
by our misses, I asked that she make an attempt to touch base with me once a
week, and she consented. When this did not happen I began to feel more
disheartened. I could not understand why, if we had such a good connection and
had what felt like the perfect match, she was not more eager to sustain our
bond and utilize my offering of support.
This was the beginning of challenges as our conversations
became infrequent. We had a meeting one chilly evening at a coffee shop where
we outlined her goals, and both wrote down what we wanted from our
relationship. We then both signed this paper as an agreement that we would
honor. It did not take long before she could not keep up her end of the
bargain. Frustrated, I crouched in doubt and cynicism, which is a default
emotion for me when I cannot figure something out to my liking. I began to
slowly close off myself to the possibility that this would be a success story
or bloom into anything substantial. I had tried to help and was turned away; my
attempts to make a difference felt futile.
I received news the following month that my mentee had been
hospitalized. It was then I realized that there were bigger issues and
challenges that I had not completely taken into factor. I had always considered
myself to be versed in the area of trouble, having gone through some
devastating emotional tribulations, but there were other things that I could
not know, like what it felt like to be physically homeless, or to grow up
watching a parent being abused, or being abandoned by your caretakers.
This sweet girl had gone through so much of that, had seen
so much in her life that she had not even the space to process it all. She had
been abused and frightened, and had learned how to do what most of us do to
survive, and that is to shut down our insides. The people and systems of
support she had needed to trust had let her down when she needed them the most.
There were all sorts of social, emotional, mental and spiritual challenges that
I had not fathomed that she was still working through. Trust was not something that was easily
available to her in her vocabulary of being.
And it dawned on me. Who was I then to think that I could
come in parading my abilities, my save-the-world ideals, and think that I
deserved to be trusted. I had, in fact, not earned her trust and though I had
tried, it was not going to be as easy as I thought. What it took for me then was a paradigm shift
and a commitment. I had to realize that if I was to earn her trust, I had to
demonstrate that her trust was worth earning. I had to be patient, open, and
willing.
Change is not easy, and any of us who have challenged an
addiction, a habit, or sought to change something at the core of our lives know
how difficult this can be, and how between relapse and resolve we have to learn
self-compassion and patience. This is an art, which if we master in ourselves
will help us to do that for others. But in truth, many of us have not, we are
somewhere in the middle, learning how to have compassion with ourselves and with
others too. It is a great balancing act.
This, however, in true perspective can give us more grace as mentors, as
fallible human beings who are reaching out to help another fallible human being
because, though we may not comprehend all of their pain, we know what it is
like to hurt and to cry and make mistakes. We are all living yet another day in
the one-day-at-a-time program of life.
To date, my contact with my mentee is
gradually coming along and that is enough for me. I have pillared myself in the process, to be here
whenever she needs me, as long as I am able, without having to dictate when
that need may be.
I am willing to wait and to be hopeful.
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