A couple of things ACT is helping me with

[Guest guest]

Wanted to post a note about a couple of ACT-related things I'm

doing in regards to friends & community. These are things I

couldn't do so well without ACT resources to help me.

1) I have a friend whose home was hit hard by Hurricane Irene. She

& her husband live in a rural town near me, in midstate New York -

" rural " as in their home & three other homes are on an island in

the woods & you get to the houses via a bridge across a creek.

The biggest damage for them was that flooding from Irene took out

the bridge. They have put up a footbridge for now, but can't

rebuild the bridge proper because the creek is choked with logjams

- the next big rain or storm will drive the logs down the creek &

could take out a new bridge. Removing that many logjams costs more

money than these families could ever hope to raise on their own, so

they are hoping that their town (which was hard-hit in general by

flooding caused by Irene) will get federal or state disaster aid.

However, the town manager is an incompetent - he had turned down

free disaster training last year for himself & his staff, and he

is trying to hide this fact by refusing to apply for state &

federal aid. Other towns are getting aid, but not my friend's town.

Apparently the most important thing for the town manager is to get

re-elected next month & he fears that coming clean would turn

voters against him. But it is a small town so everyone knows it

anyway. But the candidate running against him is even more

incompetent, so he will probably get re-relected regardless.

And my friend is also suffering & in pain because so much damage

was done elsewhere in town - friends lost homes, etc. She has

lived there for decades and is totally wired into other people's

lives, so their pain is her pain.

So she is a mess of PTSD, anxiety, rage, anxiety, depression, etc.

She is trying EMDR with limited success - it does nothing for

the rage or depression or anxiety. She says she feels she has

lost her place in the world.

I'm loaning her " Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong, " plus

another ACT workbook, " Finding Life Beyond Trauma. " I hope she can

try these out & see if they help. I really don't know if she will

go for the ACT message, but at least I have something rather

than nothing to offer.

2) I mentioned last week I had a sticky community situation to

deal with and wasn't sure how, but wanted to use K.'s

example of public speaking as inspiration.

What I am choosing to do is write a letter to my town newspaper

about the situation, casting the problems involved in a positive

light by suggesting they are really opportunities; I then list

recommendations backed by best practices.

I am deliberately taking any blame out of the letter & adding in

some praise of the little that has been done right. At the same

time, I hope the letter's recommendations for change will serve as

a stake in the ground (if that is the right metaphor) so that there

will be more public accountability on the part of certain persons.

I don't want to get into detail because that would be a VERY long

story indeed, but I am hopeful this approach will work - it allows

me to do something that MAY be helpful, whether or not it actually

works out.

- Randy