Children's Matters: The Barriers to Change

By Josh Chittum, Children's Program Coordinator

         Ending homelessness and transforming lives are the phrases that inform our mission.  As we carry this mission out, I intimately observe the process of change in the families we work with. From the outside looking in, this process can become frustrating, especially when time is of the essence to secure permanent housing. This frustration subsides when the reality of the difficulties of change in my personal life come into focus. Recently, something came into focus in a very vivid way and helped me gain a new layer of empathy for our program participants.

         It started with my anxiety. Since my earliest memory, I've experienced anxiety in some shape or form. Panic Attack Disorder started as a teenager. And for the majority of the last ten years, every time I've left my house I've carried a little orange bottle that serves as my safety blanket in case anxiety attacks me while I’m having dinner with friends. 

         Roughly one year ago I sought to take another step forward, having previously taken many steps, in my quest to escape anxiety’s grip. I purchased a book that came highly recommended and its intention was to teach the reader how to combat the worried mind with mindful acceptance of that worry. In the opening pages the author stated that my dependency upon that little orange pill bottle actually made things worse. Cutting myself off from it, he argued, would in the long run improve my coping skills and lessen my symptoms. This concept would not sink into my brain deep enough for full comprehension. Instead, I viscerally rejected the idea and placed the book off to the side where it has since remained unopened.

        Then, a few months ago my wife and I went camping and I placed the bottle in my camping pack. Returning back to the city and back to the routine of work I realized after three or four days that the medication was not on my person. I had forgotten to unpack it from the camping trip and I gasped at the fact that nothing terrible had occurred. In fact, in the following weeks I weaned myself off the pill bottle almost completely and indeed my symptoms have improved. 

        These are the messy stages of change. Incomprehension. Fear. Resistance. Painfully slow steps forward and backward. And forward again. It is unbelievably hard to implement change, even when I do not have the same set of obstacles before me as the wonderful people I interact with every single day at Community LINC.

        While some of our residents are fully aware of the changes they need to make and are working towards those changes, they cannot flip an immediate switch. Others are more like me and viscerally react to a proposed new way of doing things. They put the idea on a shelf for another, unidentified time in the future. 

        But as an agency, even when those individuals are not yet ready to wrestle with the scariness that change presents, we continue to walk with them. We listen to them. We provide resources to them. We encourage them. We may even gently push them at certain times. And we plant seeds in them. These seeds may not sprout until months or years after they've left. But that’s the true anatomy of change. That's the work I’m proud of us for doing. That's the work of transforming lives.