Critical Intervening and Creative Writing: Parallel Processes for Soothing the Heart, Sustaining the Soul, and Searching Anew for Purpose and Passion – Part l

The Stress Doc illustrates parallel “hybrid” – focused and flexible – processes in preparing for an emotionally challenging Critical Incident Intervention and attempting to relive and capture the “grief debrief” experience on the page or screen.  The paradoxical goal:  to soothe the heart and sustain the soul...and to make order from chaos and even generate some chaos from order!

Critical Intervening and Creative Writing:  Parallel Processes for Soothing the Heart, Sustaining the Soul, and Searching Anew for Purpose and Passion – Part l

At first, the intention of this essay was to provide a “content-process recipe” for a time-limited Critical Incident Debriefing involving the number of folks who crowd into the information-control central area of a typical hospital ward.  (Let’s say about twenty or so.)  And the recipe will be outlined in due course; actually in Part II.  However, as I let my fingers, mind, and words unfold on the keyboard and screen, parallels began percolating between preparing to write this piece and getting ready to lead and facilitate a critical intervention.  Certain events, like public speaking or facilitating a Critical Incident Intervention in the aftermath of some individual tragedy and organizational trauma, helps generate a hybrid mind space and set:  initially hyper-alert yet receptive and, hopefully, responsive as well as goal-driven, there often rises a need and desire for my own personal debriefing. Emotional catharsis and integration is facilitated by a post-intervention transitional space for reflection and written expression.

Linking the Cognitive and the Meditative
 

More specifically, each speaking and writing experience involves some mental rehearsal of key psycho-situational elements and strategies.  Almost simultaneously there’s a meditative-like contemplation of new relations among the ingredients – in real time the unfolding interactive and internal data and theories, tools, and techniques – along with the methods for cooking this informational gumbo.  An “R and R” – Rehearsal and Reflection – process allows swirling elements to slow and settle enough so that a point of entry emerges from the steamy mist.  Naturally, both arenas engage various ideas and memories derived from this and other intervention experiences.  From trial and error (sometimes terror; see below) experiences as a presenter and scribe I’ve gleaned hard earned wisdom:
a) a clear and concise initial focus along with,
b) a subsequent blend of rough logical outline and intuitive-trust your gut (while still seeking feedback) flexibility,
c) tends to be essential for a rational-reflective-responsive performance tool kit.
 

Performance Angst and Analysis, Adaptations and Art
 

In addition, the two settings stir performance anxiety, especially when alone, face-to-face with that computer scream, I mean screen.  To move beyond this “on the edge” self means silencing the “I’m not ready to do this” angst, and then leaping into the abyss.  Okay, I’m being a tad dramatic; it means throwing this cognitive-affective mix onto an electronic canvas – and then exploring next steps.  Sometimes the process is feverish; alas, sometimes I’m seemingly paralyzed, fortunate to be moving at a snail’s pace.

Nonetheless, I’m convinced, in Yin/Yang fashion, the courage to remain vulnerable during this crisis window of “danger and opportunity” heightens the grief learning curve both for presenter and participants.  Being at a loss, angry with or despairing of the status quo, thirsting for authentic connection and new possibility lays the groundwork for emotionally insightful, expressive, and creative vitality and connection.  For me, both speaking and writing are performance arts.  (It’s also possible that periodically watching the Winter Olympics – from preparation to performance, from elation to profound dejection – has helped prime my current thought process.)
 

The challenge is making sense over a period of time of a large and complex data configuration – whether doing a group grief session or, after the fact, trying to analyze the same.  With public presentation or group facilitation, once playing the opening move, a myriad of verbal and nonverbal emotional and communicational data points begin firing back at you.  And the trick is to make adjustments on your feet while still trusting your basic “walk the talk” path.  Also, to mix metaphors, as a writer, knowing when to deviate from the path and make your own finger prints; or expecting keyboard throwing to set the stage for predictable and surprising cutting and pasting, rewriting and editing maneuvers, including seeking input from outside sources.  Of course, as a conference speaker or a hospital grief consultant, I’m making my opening moves and editorial adaptations both in my mind and in front of an audience, an audience that may range from the receptive to the hostile.  And everything is happening Right Now!
 

Speaking and Writing in Rich Air and Ambiance
 

As a writer, I am most focused and impassioned shortly after actively experiencing and authentically engaging with an emotionally, physically, and/or interpersonally challenging situation or crisis state…even, at times, by reliving a provocative or disturbing dream.  Doing Critical Incident Work, interacting with people on the edge of tears and trauma, when words and nonverbal communication truly have the capacity to compassionately touch or turn off minds, hearts, and souls…this unpredictably sensitive yet vital surround enables me to breathe enriched oxygen.  Let me set the stage…
 

Before commencing the critical grief engagement, waiting in the wings to be introduced, the senses are finely tuned; my brain is on high alert.  I’m psycho-physiologically aroused yet, surprisingly, there’s an idling quiet, maybe a tad edgy calm.  The memory banks are open but on standby as I have few preconceived expectations.  My mind-body is in a focused-fluid space, both absorbing the scene with “soft” eyes and ears while scanning the environment for anomalies and possible noteworthy cues.  And this relaxed yet hyper-alert condition records and encodes emotional images and ideas will be accessible for review and reflection, if not imaginative reverie and wordplay, for some extended time period.  (Of course, recall is aided by jotting down brief yet salient points and images shortly after the charged or critical event.  However, if another experience, even more compelling or disruptive, captures or jams my mental radar, then the challenge becomes restoring some dynamic equilibrium.  I have to psychologically work my way back to that relaxed and attuned, “word artist” state; once again attempting to induce a hopefully pregnant, flexibly focused mind ready to plunge into that blank screen, that compelling, Siren-like writer’s web.)  As mentioned above, fortunately, this enriched atmosphere has a fairly long shelf life, enabling me to transport and harness this pulsating O₂ for the keyboard arena.

Finding Order in Chaos and Even Stirring Some Chaos in Order

As a grief consultant, a primary goal is helping employees make some sense of the incomprehensible tragedy of a life suddenly (and sometimes brutally) swept out of their personal lives and communal work space.  I also want to them to better understand the array of emotions and memories often triggered in the face of shocking news; to facilitate some heartfelt sharing while mutually designing a resilient border around the silently smoldering, streaming, or fuming chaos.
 

Clearly, as a grief consultant and writer, I too strive for deepened self-awareness.  Such understanding is enhanced by reflectively sketching, shaping, and sharing ideas and images, intuitions and insights gleaned in the lion’s den.  At the same time, both as writer and speaker, when the timing is right I occasionally induce some chaos (or creative confusion, e.g., through novel conception, unexpected expression, thought-provoking challenge, etc.) from order or convention.  I’ll even inject some “healing humor” when the moment seems apt.  As the pioneering film genius, Charlie Chaplin observed:  A paradoxical thing about making comedy is that it is precisely the tragic which arouses the funny.  We have to laugh due to our helplessness in the face of natural forces…and in order not to go crazy.
 

For example, I recently performed a “Shrink Rap” ™ during a group grief debrief.  Not only did participants begin to relax for the first time in days, staff also began laughing and swaying to my questionable rhythm.  People now realized it was okay to share a light-hearted moment within a dark background and laugh collectively.  Generating order from chaos and stimulating some chaos from order is a high priority objective, whether as a speaker, grief consultant, work-life coach, or writer.
 

Content-Process Guidelines for a Critical Incident Intervention
 

We are finally ready for my strategic intervention recipe, where the meal has to be prepared, served, and digested in twenty minutes.  (I’m beginning to feel like a contestant on some performance-based reality show.)  Actually, the serving a meal metaphor may not be so farfetched.  Shortly after completing the two 20-mintue interventions, the Hospital Chaplin approached me.  She thanked me for coming and then said:  “You had them in the palm of your hands.”  Taken aback, I was truly touched by her words.  Apparently, I was not only offering “food for thought,” but a balm for the heart, sustenance for the soul, and hope for the future.

In closing, the event to be examined is a blend – both Critical Incident Intervention and public presentation.  And, hopefully, my speaking-writing parallel gumbo has sufficiently whetted your appetite so you’ll stay for the rest of the dinner, which will be served in Part II.  Until then, just remember…Practice Safe Stress!

 

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is a national keynote and webinar speaker and "Motivational Humorist & Team Communication Catalyst" known for his interactive, inspiring and FUN programs for both government agencies and major corporations.  A training and Critical Incident/Grief Intervention Consultant for the National EAP/Wellness Company, Business Health Services in Baltimore, MD, the Doc also leads “Stress, Team Building and Humor” programs for various branches of the Armed Services.  Mark, a former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, is the author of Resiliency Rap, Practice Safe Stress, and of The Four Faces of Anger.  See his award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info on the Doc's "Practice Safe Stress" programs or to receive his free e-newsletter, email stressdoc@aol.com or call 301-875-2567.