Each year, as Winter closes in, I (Dianne) struggle with finding the words to convey what's happening.  We meet people who don't want to go inside anywhere, but will shiver outside determined.  We worry for them and share as much warm gear as we can.  We warn about the dangers of hypothermia and encourage them to get to warm spaces.  "It's cold enough out here now that you could die out here, you've gotta get somewhere warmer, even if it's just a library, fast food place, or an ER."  One year, one of our team mates, in a moment of desperation said, "What's your plan for the cold?  It's freezing now and people can die out here, so staying outside in the cold isn't really a plan!"  We also share resource info, and when we can, bus passes. It's sad to live in a time when people may be unaware of the cold because of the strong substances available on the street.

       Since Trump's been elected, we've seen many things that we've never seen before.  Where people used to be accommodating and look out for each other, the level of fear has risen to such an extent as they worry about supports being taken away.  So sometimes it can feel like it's "every man for himself" and people may grab, refuse to step aside after receiving items, or almost get into fights.  When I see this, I think of 2 stories.

       Some people are familiar with the realm of the Hungry Ghosts, a Buddhist concept about the 6 realms of existence, thanks to Dr. Gabor Mate's book about addiction.  The hungry ghosts have tiny mouths and throats and huge stomachs, and so it's incredibly hard to get their needs met.  They live in the realm of insatiable desires and unquenchable thirsts.  Many people think of this with addictions and can spot it in some of the folks on the streets, since addiction and mental illness are the most common challenges we see.

       The other story I think of is less well-known.  Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells the story of The Stone Child, the unmothered child.  She articulates the challenges and the wisdom that can emerge from having lived with this experience.  The abandoned child, the unmothered one, this is what often lies beneath the addictions and mental illness in those we see.  It's a kind of trauma that needs tending.

       I'll share a website where you can read the story.  It'll give you a sense of both the challenge and the opportunity people face, and it's why I do this work.  Though I grew up in a suburban home with 2 parents and a sibling and by all outward appearances I was attended to, from an early age I felt neglected and left to my own devices emotionally, though my parents didn't intend this.  I was a different personality type than the other members of my family and they just didn't really know how to attend to me.  By the time I was an adolescent, I was drinking and staying out in the woods with my boyfriend on the weekends.  I would disappear on Friday after school and would come home in time to go back to school.  I knew what Estes describes. 

        There is a way in which you can appear to have all the things that you're supposed to have in this culture: a home, a family, friends, and still feel isolated, without adequate support and alone.  One of my friends died tragically and unexpectedly when I was 15, and most of my friends from then struggled with addictions and other challenges for many years if not their whole lifetimes.  But something opened up for me in this circumstance. 

        Since I couldn't go to others about my distress (I realize now they were struggling with their own and didn't know how to attend to it) I moved in another direction.  I found books at the library about people who had survived what I was living through and I found books of poems that spoke to me.  I also enjoyed keeping a journal and writing poems.  And like Maya Angelou, I felt like music was my refuge.  I instinctively began using the arts therapeutically, though I didn't know all of the philosophies behind it yet.  I could put on loud and angry songs and feel relief as they matched my mood, or I could put on sad songs and the empathy would help me release tears, or I could put on uplifting songs to motivate me when it came time to go back to school.  This experience not only gave me a way to cope and a healthy and safe outlet, it also changed my life and opened a pathway for me. 

       After I got support and stopped drinking, I headed to college and began studying formally all the things that had helped me survive such an ordeal, the healing and expressive arts.  I wanted to deepen my understanding.  After many years of trainings, I synthesized the best of what I learned from multiple fields of study, and taught the most helpful pieces to the homeless over several years.  Most people who know me today would never guess that I had almost been homeless as an adolescent, as I appear well-dressed and articulate, and am well-educated.  But most people who knew me then would never have thought I would have made it this far.  I was lucky.  And after my friend died, I was determined to find help so the same fate didn't befall me.

        Today, I'm happy to tell you that I just completed writing my level 1 educational program "RESET for WellnessTM" which teaches a 5-step process to help people reset themselves when they're distressed and develop essential life skills we all need for living.  We're setting up our plans for teaching it at a local center now and from there it will be offered to professionals nationally.  If I hadn't gone through these early experiences, I doubt I'd be doing this work.  It gave me a heart for those we serve and helped me to know what lies beneath in each of us ~ gifts inside waiting to be acknowledged and given an outlet.  Our hope is to be able to reach into people and help support the drawing out of those gifts, helping people to discover how they are uniquely aimed, so they can live a life that's meaningful and more fulfilling.

        Here's some of the wisdom Estes shares, "The original abandonment...has some reason and meaning in it. It is not senseless... like being run down like a dog on the highway. Its meaning most often is the development of tremendous strength, tremendous power, tremendous intuition. And I will tell you frankly that most of the people who are the greatest healers living on the face of this earth are unmothered children. One of the great gifts of the unmothered child - and also the healer, and the writer and the musician and all those in the arts who live so close with their ear against the heartbeat of the archetypal unconscious - one of their strongest aspects is intuition."  "Be proud of your scars. They have everything to do with your strength, and what you've endured. They're a treasure map to the deep self."

If you'd like to read the story of the stone child, here's a link:

uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=392.0

And here's a short video which shows the ways in which we can miss each other in life, as well as how some addictions get started: facebook.com/iMindCoach/videos/1332785770166763

Our hope right now is to be able to bring some light, hope, and warmth to those we meet on the streets this Winter.  Thank you for helping us to do that and for sharing your gifts of kindness and generosity with us,

Our Board and Team at Friends of the Homeless National Resource Center

P.S. ~ If you have any hats, gloves, scarves, or blankets you can donate, we could really use them to share!  We're also collecting donations now so that we can provide the art-making supplies to the center we're piloting the educational program with ~ any donations would help and are fully tax-deductible!