Eight Days in the Desert with My Greatest Teacher - The Spiritual Practice of Difficult People

Me sitting under a tarp during a 2-hour thunderstorm. This week in the field saw lightning and thunderstorms everyday, with one in particular lasting 3 hours and with heavy rainfall into the night. Whenever there's lightning within 30 miles, we go into lightning drills where everyone spreads apart at least 30 feet and shelters in place until the storm passes.

Working with adolescents in an outdoor therapy program has been the greatest challenge of my life. It takes a lot of care and compassion to live with teen boys in treatment, in the desert, for 8 days at a time, every other week. Emotional burnout is significant. Even greater still are the rewards, growth, and strength that I've cultivated from doing this work. There are many things I can say, many stories to share, about this wild and crazy life I've been living, and hopefully there will be time for that in that future.

For today, I'd like to talk about a co-worker that has challenged me greatly. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call this person Rowan. Rowan has a huge heart and great insights into the emotional journey these boys undertake. They have worked with adolescents before and have a lot of experience and a level of patience that I can only hope to cultivate. I have learned a lot from Rowan by watching them work. And yet, Rowan has triggered the shit out of me. Rowan is young, early 20s, and struggles with shame and insecurities that manifest as control issues and speaking down to their co-workers in a rude tone, many of whom are much older than them. It is a strange reality to live with 3 to 4 other staff members, 24/7 for 8 days at a time, every other week. It is an intimate space. We spend a ton of time together and often navigate very challenging situations and even crises with these adolescents, many of whom have real mental health struggles and didn't ask to be there and will do anything, including trying to hurt themselves or others, in order to leave. This job is stressful, its high pressure, and it often triggers our own personal baggage.

Working with Rowan has often felt like trying to blend oil and water. I have enormous appreciation for the work they do and the strength and insights they possess, especially given their young age. Rowan will no doubt do great things in this world, if this is what they've already accomplished before hitting their mid-20s. That being said, it has been difficult for my ego to be talked down to and snapped at by an individual nearly half my age. I have been in the workforce for as long as Rowan has been alive. I've worked hard, gained a lot of insight and responsibility of my own, and it sucks to have someone younger than me not see or appreciate any of that. I, of course, believe that people of every age hold value, wisdom, and insight. Just because someone is younger doesn't mean they aren't wise and capable. Just because someone is much older doesn't mean they hold a monopoly on skills and intelligence. Still, this knowledge doesn't stop me from ruffling my feathers over someone who doesn't appreciate my age. As a result of my challenging feelings (and likely some of Rowan's too), we've had conflict. To the point where I asked my superiors to work with this individual minimally, if at all.

This situation has reminded me of when I was manager for 5 years at a massage studio in St Pete, Florida. I managed a front desk assistant, let's call her Mary, who was twice my age, with her own life and work experience, and she made it clear that she did not much appreciate when I tried to micromanage how she worked, given that I was so much younger than she was. This experience with Rowan helped me to look at that past job from Mary's perspective and how she may have viewed me, and how I perhaps made her feel in terms of her value as a person that has been on this earth longer than I have. It always fascinates me how Life will serve us up experiences that mirror our past, only with the tables turned, as an invitation to alter our perspective. 

Back to Rowan. At my current stage of development, I am working towards becoming Group Lead at my wilderness therapy program. Group Lead represents the pinnacle of growth, surpassed only by Advanced Group Lead, which is a position few people have attained, and often only by those who are truly "lifers" in the wilderness industry. With the position of Group Lead comes a ton of responsibility in managing a group of adolescents in extremely challenging situations, keeping them safe, helping them to grow, working closely with therapists, parents, and the field department, in addition to actively supporting and developing my staff team with their growth. All of this happens in an environment that can be sweltering, freezing cold, dry, wet, with thunderstorms, intense hikes, 15-17 hour days, and physical exhaustion.

Given that I am a spiritual person that believes challenging people are placed in our lives for a reason, I am considering swallowing my pride and asking Rowan to be a part of the team that helps me to achieve this next phase of growth. It will mean facing my ego, my triggers, my resentments everyday that I work with Rowan, and choosing to lean into curiosity and compassion instead.

I share this because I don't think it's fair for me to preach spiritual values in these newsletters without revealing my own struggles and moral failings. I have come to believe that each person who triggers us is a mirror for our own flaws, fears, and ugliness, and these people also represent the call to face and share love for these parts of ourselves that we deem unworthy of care and attention. 

Rowan mirrors for me my own insecurities that sometimes manifest as me trying to control the people around me when I'm feeling inferior, incompetent, and unworthy. Choosing to work with Rowan in an intense, intimate environment means choosing to face those parts of myself that I don't like, and healing them through showing compassion for Rowan.

This is the spiritual task I am choosing for myself. I have often said that our spiritual journey doesn't happen in some far away temple or retreat, so much as it happens right here, in this moment, with whatever challenge we are being presented with---in our relationships, in traffic on the highway, in the grocery store parking lot, or in therapy. So now I'm going to go walk my talk.

Now I know what some of you are going to say: "Caroline, some people are much more difficult, even toxic or abusive, than Rowan. Some people are cruel," and I totally hear that. And still, I invite you to see a piece of yourself in them, and to work towards compassion. Even if it takes years. Even if you choose not to interact with them or have them in your life. It's possible. Don't do it for them, do it for your own inner peace.