Please take a moment to ask yourself this: “How heavy is a glass of water”? It’s kind of a trick question, because it actually doesn’t matter. What does matter is how long you hold the glass of water. The longer you hold it the heavier it becomes! We are not just talking about the “physical mass” of the object, but the “psychological burden” as well.
On Wednesday, January 27th, our IRTS facility Austin Manor located in Austin, MN received their first round of the COVID-19 vaccine. Shaylyn Freeman, Austin Manor’s Mental Health Practitioner / Intake Specialist was on-site that day to receive the first round of vaccine and provided the following recap of the day.
As we are all trying to navigate this new world with COVID-19 we have so many unknowns. Scary right? Well, I know one thing for sure 100% without a doubt, I am ready to be back to a “normal” pre-COVID world. I want to be able to spend time with my family and friends, I am really hoping that Holidays for 2021 can be filled with family parties with everyone there in person (not facetime, skype, etc.), and finally, I am really hoping that we can ditch these masks. However, I hope that we can all look back at 2020 and reflect on what a giant learning curve we were thrown and know we survived it.
I was introduced to a quote from Theodore Roosevelt in one of Brené Brown’s books. If you are unfamiliar with Brené Brown, she has books, TED Talks, and a Netflix Special all worth checking out. We regularly watch her TED Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability” during groups at Willow Haven. I had a chance to see her in Minneapolis during her book launch of “Braving the Wilderness” where she quoted this entirely by memory. This has now become one of my favorite quotes and the more I hear or read it, the more it applies to the work that I do in the mental health field.
In 1999, a medical doctor by the name of William Sawyer was worried about putting his children into daycare. He worried about all the germs that they would come in contact with and wanted them to remember the importance of handwashing and hand awareness. So, he came up with the idea of a sock puppet that evolved into Henry the Hand, and ending with Henry the Hand Champion Handwasher as a cartoon character. Henry continues to encourage people of all ages to wash their hands every 1-2 hours, protect their eyes, nose and mouth, and break their unconscious habit of touching their T-zone (eyes, nose and mouth area). Henry the Hand Foundation reminds us how important hand washing is especially during the cold and flu seasons, now during the COVID-19 outbreak, and all 52 weeks of the year.
A week before starting my internship at New Visions Center (NVC) in Alexandria I had this overwhelming thought of “I’m not ready…” and I was right. None of the knowledge I learned from my college professors and courses could have fully prepared me for the massive amounts of knowledge that I learned from my hands-on experience as an intern. I had this preconceived notion that an intern does the things that nobody else wants to do. What I did not know and had come to learn is that, as an intern, doing the things “nobody else wants to do” gave me the opportunity to know myself on a deeper level. I learned many things as an intern but there are three things that I learned that I will never forget.
Train your mind and body to pause and see positives in different situations, there are many things to be grateful for.
In today’s world, there are so many deadlines, responsibilities, appointments, taking care of others, kids, families, friends, bills, school work, dinner, cleaning, etc. it is easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of busyness and multitasking. How often is it where you take a step back and savor your surroundings and enjoy the beauty in sitting in the backyard in silence; listening, smelling, and seeing everything around you? How often do you come into work and thank the previous shift for being there, doing the best they could during their shift? As individuals, we become consumed with our own challenges in life and often forget to check-in with others around us.
