Introduce the elephant...

Talking about things that matter

By Bonnie Artman

"I didn't know you felt that way..."
"It feels good to get it out..."
"The burden has been lifted..."

I have heard some of these comments in my office; as well as in my personal life. It begins to happen when we go beyond surface talk and we address the things that really matter. It happens when we talk about how we are affected by the setbacks & disappointments that we face in life. It happens when we move beyond facts to feelings.

In these depressed economic times there is so much that is unknown: when will things turn around; we even wonder if they will turn around. It is easy during times like this, to focus on the tasks and practicalities and to overlook how family members, including children, are feeling about what the family is going through. Are you, as a family, prepared to cope with the changing times?

When I think about this, I am reminded of my days as a Registered Nurse. My first job out of Nursing School was on an oncology unit. Everyday I met people whose life had suddenly changed. They found themselves in a hospital bed, with a tube in their arm receiving chemotherapy and were often sick from the effects of their treatment. Their lives, once full and robust, now revolved around managing side effects, medical treatments, and Doctor's appointments.

Randy Pausch, the author of the book, The Last Lecture said his father taught him that if there is an elephant in the room, "Introduce him!" 

Have you ever walked into a room and felt heaviness? Because I worked the 3-11 p.m. shift, the pace was a little slower and I could spend more time talking with my patients. I could feel the pain as we talked and I entered into their fears. So I introduced the "elephant" by asking "How are you doing with all that's going on?" Sometimes they would just say "fine", and I knew that was code for "I don't want to talk about it." I respected that and would drop the subject. But at other times there was a look of relief that someone was actually acknowledging how emotionally hard it was to cope with their condition. They would tell me about the concerns they had for their families and their fears of the unknown, including dying.

My next nursing job was in Obstetrics at a large hospital in Chicago. I worked on a unit that specialized in complications during pregnancy, some of which included women who were using illicit drugs during pregnancy that precipitated pre-term labor. They were hospitalized to stop labor so the baby would not be born prematurely.

Again, I worked the 3-11 p.m. shift and found myself drawn to the bedside of these women. I would ask them, "How are you doing with all that's going on?" And the response was the same one I had received while working in oncology; sometimes they wouldn't want to talk, and other times, they were relieved to be asked. They shared their fears and guilt: fear their child would not survive and guilt about using drugs while they were pregnant. The power of their addiction had taken precedence over the knowledge that the drugs were harming their unborn child, as well as themselves.

In both of these settings I wasn't trained as a Therapist & didn't know what to do - other than listen. But, when I walked out of those rooms, the elephant was smaller and some of the heaviness had left the room.

I made a life changing discovery while working in medical or obstetrical nursing. I discovered that my patients & their families needed emotional support just as much as they needed medical care. These patients were telling me things they were unable to tell others. I began to realize they needed to talk about all these things with the people in their lives that really mattered; their spouses and other family members. And I knew they needed help in order to do this

It was through these experiences as a Nurse that I realized I was called to another profession. I went back to school to become a Therapist with the sole purpose of helping people talk to one another about the things that really matter, especially when they are going through tough times

During these difficult economic times, make the effort to talk about the things that need to be talked about with the important people in your life and notice the "elephants" leaving your house...

If you would like to introduce any elephants living in your house, download the document "Things that matter".