Paying It Forward
Printed from http://www.bodytalksystem.com//learn/news/article.cfm?id=1045 on Apr 24, 2024.
Feb 12, 2018
By Britt Toksvig Jorgensen
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."
– Rabindranath Tagore
I
have volunteered alongside my clinic hours pretty much since I
qualified as a CBP. First, it was an organization in London called Kids
Company that supports unprivileged kids. The branch I was at educated
kids that had been kicked out of all other schools. The clinic room had a
panic button for my safety and often the police were called out. I was
there one day every other week. I worked with kids, highly pressurised
staff, and sometimes parents.
I have also made two trips to Rwanda. The first one was to teach Access
to the staff in a women's organization and run sessions with orphans and
women. During the second trip, I had the privilege to teach the same
staff to teach outreach Access to the beneficiary women.
At present, I work in a medical clinic for refugees once a week in my
current hometown of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, together with my colleague
San San. (At left, Britt is seen treating one of the children at the clinic.)
This work has given me so much, and I would like to share some tips
about volunteering and some of my experiences and reflections in the
hope that it may inspire more of you to volunteer.
Tips on Volunteering
1. Reflect on why you want to volunteer
I
strongly suggest reflecting on what you are looking to get out of
volunteering. At first glance, the answer may be "I just want to help"
but it is helpful to look beneath that. It will give you a better
understanding of what makes you tick, but perhaps, more importantly, it
will help the energy exchange that we know is so important in BodyTalk. I
would even claim that being clear about what you get out of
volunteering makes the sessions more powerful.
It may be that you would like experience with specific symptoms or a
certain segment of the population. Maybe you are looking at specializing
in cancer patients, adolescent mental health issues, prenatal care,
animals, etc. Or, perhaps volunteering would offer you an opportunity to
do some research or track results in a particular way. Or it might give
you the freedom to try out certain techniques or simply give you the
experience of having a fully packed-day of sessions.
Maybe you feel it would be good for your business to demonstrate social
commitment. In certain parts of the world, corporations have Corporate
Social Responsibility programs; working with the corporations can pay
off from a purely financial point of view, thanks to the Public
Relations value. Nothing wrong with that.
What I personally get out of it?
I used to work in the NGO sector before I ventured into BodyTalk
full-time. (NGO, or non-governmental organization, is any non-profit,
voluntary citizens' group which is organized on a local, national or
international level.) Maybe that's why it always has been natural for me
to volunteer. I generally feel passionate about bringing BodyTalk to
people and communities that wouldn't otherwise find their way into my
clinic. BodyTalk is not limited by language barriers in the same way as
most other healthcare practices; we don't need any particular equipment,
and BodyTalk works so well with traumas even pre-language, which makes
it so perfect for volunteer settings. The usual private paying clinic
set-up comes with its own set of expectations, and I like to sometimes
be free of that.
I am learning a huge amount about the human psyche in extreme situations
and have gained experience in working with deep traumas. I remember
working with an Iranian woman in London who had been imprisoned and
tortured under Ayatollah Khomeini's regime. Working with active memories
from her torture episodes led to a deep fear of giving up secrets,
places or names that by far exceeded her fear of dying or pain. That was
the fear that still haunted her all these years later, not the fear of
death. After that particular session, I felt that if all my BodyTalk
training till then were just for that one session, it still would have
been worth it.
I enjoy the creativity and the freshness of not knowing what to expect
when I show up. My volunteer work is more unpredictable and varied, and
it forces me to "get out of the way." I like that challenge. I feel it
keeps my mind open and present and allows for precious moments of
connection or healing to bubble up. The unpredictability means that
sometimes our interpreter gets pulled away for an emergency and we are
left depending on gestures, or it swings from hectic packed days to very
quiet days. Often, it means working in a loud, noisy crowded
environment with an entire family packed into a small room. Free clinics
can be noisy places with the risk of violence and heightened emotions
and very ill adults and children. This could not be more different to my
calm, oil-diffused, fairly predictable home clinic environment. I have
yet to have anyone peeing or vomiting in the corner of my home clinic.
I enjoy meeting people that I wouldn't otherwise be in touch with,
especially now that I live with my family in Kuala Lumpur, where it is
easy to stay in an expat bubble different from the majority of the
population.
By far, my most challenging Access talk was with the teenagers in
London. Kids were rolling up my cortices fold-out cards and pretending
it was a joint even before the talk started. During a cortices
demonstration, one boy commented on the brand and value of my watch,
like he was contemplating stealing it. Later, a fight broke out and the
staff had to be very physical with the two boys and bar the door with a
table afterwards to keep them separated. It was also my shortest
presentation to date.
2. Be prepared to work with chaotic organizations
Most NGOs are, to various degrees, underfunded and therefore mostly
under-staffed and under-resourced. This frequently leads to a lack of
structure and communication which can be hard and frustrating to
navigate. Also, if you only are there a few hours a week or month you
may inevitably be one of the last to know about changes in the
organization.
I have showed up to find a closed door more than once as people forgot
to inform me about staff training days, odd holidays etc. Also, room
allocation and translators have been an issue where I have volunteered. This is not personal or a reflection of how important your work is to the organization and/or the beneficiaries.
3. Be patient with finding the right organization
You might think there would be so many takers if you offered free BodyTalk sessions, right?! I charge xxx per session and are now prepared to give it away for free, people must be lining up...
But, it can actually be more difficult that you would think. I remember
having a rather cooling experience when trying to cold call a large
jail in London as a freshly baked CBP. In my pre-BodyTalk NGO work I
remember the volunteer requests, and how it can be hard to always say
yes because of the time and commitment it takes from the organization's
side.
I suggest making a request for a good match in your MindScape workshop.
This worked wonderfully for me when I initially went to Rwanda without
any contacts at all (not that I recommend doing that, but on this
occasion, that's how it happened). On the first afternoon of my trip, I
went to the pool of a hotel with my kids and ended up chatting to two
young Danish girls who were volunteering at an SOS orphanage. They
promised to put the BodyTalk opportunity to the management. The next
morning, after dropping off my kids in the school they were at for a few
weeks, I happened to pass the SOS Village sign and drove in to say
hello. I started the following day.
I also did my research on NGOs and sent emails out to organizations to
offer my assistance. Some I didn't hear from at all, and most wrote back
to say that they couldn't fit me in. But one lady, founder of a women's
empowerment charity, Aspire Rwanda, wrote back and I went for a meeting
the following day. Her name was Peace, we got on like a house on fire
and she invited me to come and teach Access to all her staff members,
and also run sessions for the beneficiaries and staff there. This ended
up being an important relationship, and with the help of the IBF, I was
able to go on a second trip there and teach the staff to teach. I wrote
articles back in 2014 to share my experience:
"Tales from Rwanda," May 08, 2014
"Feedback from sessions during first visit," August 15, 2014
Rarely have I felt more in sync with the universe than on my two trips to Rwanda. It was such an honor to experience that flow.
4. Look after yourself and use your colleagues
The organization I worked with in London was set up by a
psychotherapist. It was mandatory to come for monthly group supervision
sessions, and there was a counselor on call. That is rare, and usually
the responsibility of looking after yourself will fall on you.
Make sure that you call or go and see a colleague if you have
experienced something that you need to talk about, and of course, as
always, make sure you get your own sessions. There are no medals for
soldiering through difficult situations alone. Additionally, it can be
interesting to look at what this brings up for you.
I remember speaking to a pediatrician at the refugee center and she said
that after three years, she still cries on the way home most days.
5. Set your boundaries
How far do you want to stretch yourself? Financially? Time and schedule
wise? Are you willing to compromise on who you prefer working with?
These are important considerations to have early on because in many
charities there is a bottomless demand for support, and it can be a
slippery slope. Boundaries are a very individual matter, and often the
more you get involved, the more you get out of it.
In the refugee center, I decided not to attend any volunteer or clinic
meetings. I read the meeting notes, but do not take the time to go.
Perhaps there could be a stronger sense of belonging and engagement to
the organization if I went, but this is the boundary I defined for
myself.
I also choose not to contribute financial support on top of the
sessions. It is hard when sitting in front of parents who can't afford
glasses for their children, or people with toothaches who can't afford
the dentist bill. It is tempting to lend a financial hand, but I try to
get more comfortable with the inequalities of the world (or more
comfortable with my discomfort with the inequalities). I grew up in
Scandinavia where everyone looks the same, earns the same, and where
poverty means not being able to go on a skiing holiday. It does mean
that the Starbucks coffee, that costs the same as the daily food budget
for at least one refugee, doesn't always taste the same on the way home.
6. Honor your commitment
Some voluntary work will be one-off volunteering opportunities (for
events, fairs, etc.), but if you engage with an organization on a
regular basis, make sure that you are ready to commit and stick to it.
Often the beneficiaries that you work with have experienced plenty of
let downs in their lives, and a lack of reliability on your part would
only mean adding to this. I also find that it is important to show the
organization that I am serious, and I do this by prioritizing my
volunteering commitment like any other professional commitment. This is
also why it is so helpful to be working with one or more colleagues, so
you can fill in for each other if you have to take time away.