Knee Deep in the Hooah!

I borrowed the Disney movie “Pollyanna” from our Church’s library. As a young girl it was my favorite movie. I just loved the precocious and whimsical nature of the main character, as well as her infectiously cheerful disposition. I wanted Emma to see it, and at first she was not too interested… there are no princesses, no animation and no slap stick comedy. After the second time of putting it on the movie caught her eye, and now she seems to love it too.

The term “Pollyanna” has become the label of choice for a person who is a “do-gooder” or for one who tends to see the world through rose colored glasses. I have been accused, a time or two, of being a “Pollyanna” about things. I certainly have my cynical side and I am much more a stoic than the character ever was, but I do like to pick out the strengths in a situation or pick out what I can be grateful for.

If you have never seen the movie or read the book, Pollyanna teaches some pretty miserable people how to look at things through a different lens. One game she uses, and it is a game she learned from her father before he died, is a game called the “glad game.” When playing the glad game you have to look at something that makes you sad and then find one good thing about it that makes you glad. She shares a story about how badly she wanted a doll and her father (they were missionaries) had put in a request that the next missionary donation basket would have a small doll for his daughter. There was a mix up and Pollyanna did not get her doll, but for whatever reason there were crutches inside the shipment instead. When Pollyanna was asked “So, what’s there to be glad about? That’s terrible!” She cheerfully replied, “I am glad that I don’t have to use the crutches!”

There are always things in our path that are hard to navigate. Deployment, sickness, disease, strife, contention, and stresses are certainly some of the things that we have all faced — some of us have faced all of them, and some of us just one or two. Ultimately we are all on this path together. When I worked with “severely emotionally disturbed” kids I would do a strengths based assessment on the child and the support system around him or her. It was amazing to me what resources I could find if I could stop and focus on what was working well. It’s not a negation of the hard or difficult things, but rather it is like taking an inventory of what is working and how to use it to find your way through the calamity.

I used the movie Apollo 13 to illustrate this point when I would teach other social workers how to do a good strengths based assessment. I would forward to the part where the ship begins to have its serious troubles. Do you remember the movie? When the Astronauts radio down to Houston the guys on the ground begin to scramble for ways to fix the ship enough to bring it back home. At first they start talking about how to fix what was broken, but the main leader on the ground essentially tells them to stop thinking and dwelling on the dead parts of the ship. He then tells them to take an inventory of what is working and what we can use from it. Beautiful! You can’t build a working ship from the parts that are useless and not working — you build it from what you have that is useful and working. There are many days that I forget the very advice I used to teach to so many other social workers. Another childhood character comes to mind here. Remember who said “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”

So, if you want to play the glad game with me, please feel free. I for one am going to try and play it more often. So, I will list the sad thing, and then I will list what I am glad about:

Sad: My father is in the hospital with pneumonia.
Glad: I am glad that he is getting to rest and is being cared for.

Sad: I won’t hear from Mike again for a while.
Glad: I know that I can pray for his safety and his care.

Sad: Bryan’s leg still has a long way to go.
Glad: He is home and his Spirit is still strong.

Sad: I have a headache.
Glad: I am alive and well enough to feel it and to do something about it (grabbing the Advil as I type).

See, it’s not hard at all. What are sad about today? Is there anything in the sad thing to feel glad or grateful about?

Tags: faith, family life, mental health, well wishes //