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Many Veterans report having 'strange' or 'weird' dreams, dreams they'd never had before, when they transition out of the military. It is completely normal and OK to have different dreams when you become a civilian. Dreams are your system's way of processing life experiences and we all have them. If you're sitting there thinking you're the only one, you're not alone. Some dreams I've heard from Veterans:
I first went into therapy years ago because my life was unmanageable and I wanted things to be different. Newly married, renovating our house by myself, high-stress 12-hour a day job as an executive speechwriter for a 4-star general, and working on a masters degree. I had no free time. At the first therapy session I said something like, "can you just give me some tools and fix me? I'm a hard worker so this should take a month, right?" My present self looks back at my past self and heartily laughs at my naiveté. Hahaha! If only it worked like that.
I've had more clients than I can count walk in my door with similar requests. "I am so busy that I don't have time to read about how to adapt new habits or learn new skills. Do you offer an express conversion I can do in a month where I just watch some videos?" When a leader sets to develop new skills, habits or behaviors, the quality that dictates success more than any other is....practice. If you practice, you will improve your ability. If you don't practice, you won't. Expecting immediate change without practice is as ridiculous as driving on the right side in the US for 30 years, then moving to Scotland and expecting to be an expert on the left side. In order to learn to drive on the other side of the road, you have to go back to being a beginner and practice. You don't have to become an expert at left side driving, simply good enough will do. So yes leader I believe you when you say you are too busy to make time to learn a new skill because I've been there. And if you want to develop that new skill you'll need to carve out some time. I'll leave you with evidence to prove my point. How did you learn to tie your shoes or use a pencil? Gnarled trunk full of scars radiating golden energy
Your spiral trunk and limbs wave Saying hello to all who pass by You welcome all the forest creatures with open arms True acts of service without expecting in return Shade, safety, comfort, succor You’ve faced many battles and never complain With a pine smell that tickles the olfactory senses You are the old hardware store in the forest An oasis in the city providing a home for many And as the wind gently whistles through your boughs Provides a serenade that says, welcome back, I’ve missed you Me: It's at the supermarket checkout line, bus ads, commercials, even Snapple caps. Humans in the US are inundated with messages to be more joyful and happy, and less angry, mad or sad.
Friend: What's wrong with being happy or joyful? Me: Being more joyful or happy is great and it's the way they suggest doing it that's the problem. Suppressing the 'negative' emotions so they don't come out is the recommend solution. Then all you're left with expressing is the 'positive' emotions. And that method just doesn't work. Friend: Ok, you'll need to explain more. Me: Dude, I will tell you that suppressing emotions requires a lot of energy because you actually have to tense your muscles to keep from being angry, mad or sad and that leaves you tired. Friend: OK. maybe I buy that. But what other way is there? Me: Instead of trying to suppress emotions you don't want, try inviting emotions you DO want. In fact, you don't even have to deal with the emotions. Friend: Hold up, that doesn't make sense. How can I invite in emotions without actually working with my emotions? Me: By being more playful. Remember how Playful Paulie always came as a +2 to my parties on South Oregon Ave and that entourage was always a ton of fun? It's like that. Playful always shows up with joy and happiness in tow. There's lots of definitions out there so when I say playful I mean curiosity, a sense of adventure, lightness. If you engage the world with a little more play, happiness and joy can't help but show up and you won't have to try so hard to suppress the others. Friend: I'm willing to give it a try with something small first, like brushing my teeth, or cooking and go from there. Thanks! Me: Keep me posted. :) Your intuition is absolutely, always, 100% correct at pointing out your next action. In the West intuition is bred out of us as children as something to be ignored or worse that its somehow bad and inferior to the intellect and thinking mind. It's relegated to Californians and New Age hippies. The mind is great and it's not always correct. Shutting your intuition out of your life is like fighting an angry badger with one arm tied behind your back; you might escape and you'll definitely get bruised and bloody.
The following practice is hands down the #1 most important tool I give to clients. Use it and your work and personal lives will be easier; don't use it and they will be harder. It is that simple. I have yet to meet a human who didn't experience some amount of stress or pressure in life; it's inevitable. Stress/pressure come from your thoughts about how you are handling the current situation and these thoughts fall into two categories:
Human's have only two ways to work with thoughts and here's the secret...you get to choose which to use. Curtain #1: Deny the thoughts exist by fighting them and trying not to have them. This is a very American way....it will all work out if I just try harder! Fun fact: For about 2 years I tried to get rid of and fight my stressful thoughts. Let me save you two years of your life by saying...it doesn't work. :) You'll expend a lot of energy and invite a lot of tension. Here's another secret...the only person you're fighting when you try to push your thoughts away is yourself. Curtain #2: Accept that you have these thoughts and let them sail right by. There's no tension because you're not fighting. You have more ease and flow. I recommend this 30 second centering practice to let the thoughts to go by. I adapted and first learned it from Wendy Palmer at Leadership Embodiment. Centering acts like a clutch in a car. It disengages the mind for just a second to allow you to shift out of "I have to fight to keep this thought out" and into "let the thought go by." The more you practice, the easier it gets. The key is to practice when you are calmer so it becomes embodied (i.e. you don't have to think about doing it...you simply do it) and you are ready to use it when you're really stressed. If you do this practice twice a day (after you wake up and before you go to bed) for about 45 days you will begin to notice a difference. Your nervous system begins to calm down and work through your transition in the background even when you're not thinking about it. Your system will begin to accept that the old way of life is no more and make space for something new to emerge. If twice a day seems impossible, start with once a day and build up. Here's the centering exercise:
A client transitioning from the military to civilian life recently asked, "Mike, I just want someone to tell me what to do for this transition. Why don’t you do that?" Here's my answer for you dear reader or prospective client; a more detailed view of my coaching philosophy.
Short Answer: Clients, including this one, generally come to me when the old way yields diminishing results, or believe it will diminish in the near future. If as your coach I tell you what to do, I guarantee you there’s only two ways it ends. The plan either goes sideways, in which case you'll resent me. Or it goes well, in which case it's my win and not yours. It’s important for you as the client to own your actions so that you learn to have agency and get some wins under your belt as a civilian. Otherwise it’s like paying a ringer to take your PT test for you and they score 100. Examples of what I've said to a client instead of telling them what to do:
Longer Answer: Military members are trained to follow orders and learn to expect their branch of service will provide a plan for them with the who, what, when, where. It seems they often forget to mention that pesky why. Military life is a pretty straightforward equation. If the regulations, orders, and plan are followed, then resources (pay, housing, liberty, etc.) continue to flow. If they are not followed, then resources are restricted. In civilian life, the rules are less cut and dry and you get to decide most everything; who you are, where you live, what type of work, when you wake up, how you will structure or organize your day. You decide resource flow and restriction, and no one orders you to do a task at work. It’s a brand-new world on the day of retirement/separation, yet your military training, habits, and expectation of being told what to do don’t suddenly go away. You will use them to navigate the civilian world until you consciously chose to learn new ones. It’s not uncommon for Veterans to feel overwhelmed by this sudden increase in freedom and lack of a rigid hierarchy because they’re not used to it. Learning to provide your own structure, plan and resources is a practice that civilian life demands and you do not have to do it alone. I support you to break the practices into bite-sized, manageable pieces and discover what YOUR goals, objectives, values, mission statement are. So telling you what to do only serves to reinforce the old behavior. The very same behavior you came to me about altering in the first place. I see myself as piloting a harbor tug. I’m an expert at navigating these transition waters and have spent almost 15 years exploring them. You are the captain of your own ship coming into this bay for the first time. I always stay on my tug and pilot it along-side to point out shoals, advise, communicate. You are always in command of your ship which means you can choose to head in any direction you want, regardless of what I say. I will support conducting an after action review If you crash or get grounded on shoals. And celebrate with you when you successfully navigate a new stretch of water for the first time. My goal is to help you get proficient enough at navigating the civilian waters that you no longer need the harbor tug; I want to work myself out of a job. Believe it or not, this is not a political post. Let's be clear that the only reason some don't want kids to read a sign that says "it's not gonna lick itself" is not because seeing that will make the kids uncomfortable. The kids have no idea what the words mean until an adult tells them. There is no discomfort if they're learning about it for the first time. This has zero to do with the kids. It's all about adults not wanting to experience discomfort when having a conversation with kids. And why is that? Because the adults around them when they were kids never taught them how to have difficult conversations. It's not anybody's fault AND we can begin the repairs now. This is a generations deep issue in the West. The result of making mental intelligence more important than emotional/body intelligence. We need both.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/desantis-weighs-ordering-child-protective-services-parents-take-kids-d-rcna32757?fbclid=IwAR16YIUOE-4yNwIly8nwq7yWZk9dpg6bb8iLcICvgBOzMsxNzgHracWcyiQ Sometimes perfection is required and good enough is often, good enough. The vast majority of car drivers are reasonably good at driving forward and just good enough at backing up so they can parallel park. Why aren't people better at driving in reverse? Because the amount of time spent doing it is so small compared to driving forward that it's not worth the investment. A driver really only needs reverse to set themselves up to drive forward. How many people chase perfection when all they needed was to parallel park?
Whether it happened as a child, an adult, as a civilian or during military service, whether you call it trauma or adverse experiences, it's all the same stuff. I call it GUNK. It keeps us from being the person and the leader we want to be. The best way I've found to begin to work with the gunk is this basic 30 second centering practice that I first learned from Wendy Palmer at Leadership Embodiment. Centering acts like a clutch in a car. It disengages the mind for just a second to allow a person to shift to a new action that is not the default. Try to shift to a new pattern without depressing the clutch and you'll grind the gears and end up with a mess.
If you do this twice a day (after you wake up and before you go to bed) for about 45 days you will begin to notice a difference. Your nervous system begins to calm down and work through your gunk in the unconscious, without your conscious mind needing to do anything. If twice a day seems impossible, start with once a day and build up. Here's the centering exercise:
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AuthorMike Coe. Transition, Creativity, and Leadership Coach Archives
April 2022
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