It’s tempting to think things will get easier when… we know more, the funding models are improved, more resources are made available, we’ve done that workshop, we get more staff, the roadworks are finished, the IT system is upgraded or we go to a four day week. And possibly it will. We can always try to improve what we have.
We can also waste a lot of energy resisting reality. Complaining about the limitations. Reserving our best for when the conditions are the best. But those things haven’t happened yet, and we’re here, right now, with things just the way they are.
The messiness isn’t just the reality of the work. It is reality. Life is messy. Relationships are messy. Change is wildly, unpredictably messy. When we fight reality we risk sending a subtle message that the people we support need unrealistically ideal circumstances in order to thrive.
We may worry about saying the wrong thing but their lives are full of people who say unhelpful or out of sync things. It’s more important to be on alert for when we inevitably miss the mark and repair any friction than to think we will can avoid such moments.
We may not have all the resources we would like, but we can model being adaptable, tolerating discomfort, and making do, and be alert for the ways that they also demonstrate their own resiliency.
If we offer the perfect therapeutic relationship, we haven’t helped the person to prepare for dealing with anyone else. If we offer perfect solutions, we’ve done nothing to help them discover their own wisdom. And if we offer seamless, generously funded services we might just have helped everything else to seem a little bit more disappointing.
So yes, absolutely, let’s keep improving ourselves, our skills, our systems. There is a gift in offering another human a thoughtful and carefully delivered service. But let’s also, equally, embrace the messiness of the reality we are in now.
Helen Mentha 