Boiling Frogs

There's a phrase that has come up a few times in the last while here that is so readily applicable to what myself and others close to me have been feeling that I feel compelled to share it.  Please forgive the inhumane nature of the metaphor.  

If you want to cook a frog, you can't just put the frog into a pot of boiling water.  They'll immediately start attempting their frantic escape, eventually hopping out of the pot to freedom and probably splashing their would-be predator with some boiling water in the process.  Instead, you put the frog in a pot of cold water and gradually turn on the heat.  The frog doesn't realize how hot the water is getting because it has adjusted to the temperature in increments.  

It is HARD to really get the sense of how hot the water is when you're in the middle of the situation, whether it's a stressful job, a toxic relationship, a health-related situation (such as chronic pain), or any number of other things.  When you've been in pain so long that you don't remember what it was like to not be in pain, that's like looking down and noticing that your skin is bright red from the heat of the water.  When you rationalize that this pain isn't so bad because it's not as bad as yesterday, that should be a clue to look over at the thermometer.  Just because you've gotten used to something doesn't mean its a good thing or a healthy thing.  

Let's take work right now for example.  I expect summers at my job to be stressful; it happens every year.  Schools moving to our software are concerned about everything starting off on the right foot, clearing up any weird things that came over from their old software that they had never gotten around to fixing, and making any last-minute changes that their superintendent happened to sneak into the last staff meeting as an innocuous bullet point on the agenda.  Even schools that have been with us for years might have new changes, new programs, new staff, or maybe the school is moving from semesters to trimesters.  Then, there are all of the different first-day-of-school-panic moments, where concerns that might normally be only a minor annoyance take on a new level of urgency.  Everyone knows that their emergency is the only emergency that matters.  It makes sense.  I don't begrudge anyone their panic and their anxiety--they need to feel what they need to feel in those moments.  This means that I am very, very busy from April through August, not only in training up folks for the upcoming year but also addressing those different overarching concerns and whatever else that pop up.  It does mean that part of my job occasionally entails talking someone off of a cliff, reassuring them that we will make that solution together and help them check pieces off of their massive to-do list.  My job is to be calm; my job is to empower people to help themselves; my job is to help find creative solutions to match creative situations.  

I never realize how hot the water is until things start to quiet back down.  I never realized how thin I felt stretched until the bulk of our schools have moved past those first day jitters into their smooth routine.  There simply hasn't been time to check inane things like how hot the water is.  I have three other people that I want to help before I can allow myself to take a bathroom break.  I and others on my team are invested in helping people, and sometimes that means you lose yourself in the details; this isn't necessarily healthy, but it happens.

What are the symptoms of "boiling water" has been a question I have been asking myself recently.  If I can't physically see a thermometer in the pot with me, what other markers do I have?  For me, mental exhaustion has been up there, which means that we tend to eat out more, since I don't have the mental space or energy to make anything at home; I also lose my gym habit.  I start the day off with some tired from the previous day.  Little things that wouldn't bother me suddenly are a little bit harder to move past.

What would be better than waiting for the "check engine" light of my body to turn on (or worse, steam to pour from under the hood) is to be more cognizant of checking in with myself.  My body will tell me where it's needing additional care or compassion.  I tell myself I'm too busy to stop, that I live on kinetic energy and can stay moving as long as I stay moving.  Coming to a standstill frightens me, in some ways, but I can't realize how warm the water is if I don't take time to feel it.  In short, I have a level of fear that I need to fight through in order to give myself enough space to honestly assess what my needs are, particularly when I've been so caught up in helping others work through theirs.  

In therapy, we have discussed how everyone's needs should be considered in a decision, and then my therapist very pointedly reminds me that means my needs should be in there, too.  I struggle with that in quite a few places.  

The water is cooling down a bit--it's still terribly hot, but it is giving me at least some idea of how hot it is, just by comparison.  Again, summer at work always has this element to it--it's to be expected--but I will not be sad to get past September.  It is a cyclical process at my job, but I have also decided that I need to check the water temperature in different places, to check in with myself from time to time overall but also in specific parts of myself.  I'm still learning how to pause and check the water, how to give myself space to do that.  I'll keep you posted.