I usually think of myself as a pretty empathetic person. I’ve worked as a nurse for years in geriatrics. I always felt it was a passion of mine. Helping those who couldn’t help themselves or many times even speak up for themselves due to an illness is why I love geriatrics. Many times when I come home from work, though as they say in Oklahoma, “my give a damn’s busted”. I just want to crawl into a couch or a bed anywhere that I am not taking care of someone or something. It’s not very fair to my family though. Whatever title I give it,tired, cranky, burnout, or needing alone time, it still doesn’t help the connection that is most important to me and that is my family’s.
"…In those bad moments, it's not our job to make things better. It's just not. Our job is to connect. It's to take the perspective of someone else. Empathy is not connecting to an experience, it's connecting to the emotions that underpin an experience." @BreneBrown #daretolead
— Vigilant Poster Girl ✊🏻 ❤️ (@girl_vigilant) November 1, 2018
Wait, not our job to make things better? That’s what you do when you love someone right? You find the problem and then solve it. At least that’s what years of nursing has taught me ~ Never chart a problem without discussing what you are doing to address it, solve it, and wrap it up in “all better”. Okay, so maybe I have found one of my blindspots.
Maybe there are times when the problem (as we problem solvers are quick to identify) is not really the problem at all. Maybe the problem is in the lack of connection, to let people know they are heard and that in that very moment you connect with the emotion they are experiencing. Maybe if we did that with family members we would feel more connected. Maybe I’m speaking about myself, but I find it easier to use us, we, and they’s to talk about this vulnerable subject for me.
I think it’s because empathy is being vulnerable. Empathy is being reminded of our own hurts and it is hard to be in that space with someone else especially someone we love. Getting in the dirt doesn’t always mean we take a shovel with us. Getting in the dirt sometimes, just means sharing a space with someone who needs you in that space at that exact time. It might be a little dirty, and you might have to brush your OCD aside for a bit. However, the trust gained in those moments or betrayal felt for not being met there could last a life time.
Getting in the dirt doesn't always mean we take a shovel with us. Getting in the dirt sometimes, just means sharing a space with someone who needs you in that space at that exact time. @vigilantpostergirl #keepyourheartvigilant
— Vigilant Poster Girl ✊🏻 ❤️ (@girl_vigilant) November 1, 2018
Sarah Jackson
Vigilant Poster Girl
Read along with us Dare to Lead
Influenced by songwriters like Lucinda Williams, Roseanne Cash, Bruce Springsteen, and Dar Williams, Sarah Popejoy’s songs blend storytelling with an Americana leaning groove. After living in Nashville for 10 years, Sarah moved back home to Tulsa, what Rolling Stone calls the next Austin, where she is producing her 3rd studio album called “The Oklahoma Storyteller”. Most of the album has been recorded at the newly renovated, world-class studio, The Church Studio, in Tulsa, Oklahoma which was previously owned by Leon Russell. All songs on the new album are written by Mrs. Popejoy, a previous award winner of the American Songwriter Magazine Lyric Contest and The Billboard Song Contest.
The intersections of I-40, The King of Trails (Highway 75), and the largest stretch of Route 66, Oklahoma figuratively and literally is the crossroads of the American Story. It was the end of the trail for many indigenous people during America's dark history of forced removal, birthplace of one of the biggest heroes of America's pastime, home to the struggles of those who lived and breathed the Dust Bowl, home of some of the biggest trendsetting influencers in modern American music, and the site of the worst domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history. This is why the first album in The Oklahoma Storyteller series, is called, "The Oklahoma Storyteller: Crossroads of the American Story", set to be released Summer of 2024.
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