Dear Olive Branch, March 2023

A P.E.A.C.E. Perspective on Practical Problems

Topic: Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask First: Care of Self

We’ve all heard flight attendants say, “Put on your own oxygen mask first.” That is care of self. We share the following stories with you, so we are cleared for takeoff.

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My Care of Self Tools

Taking care of myself has not been easy. Growing up in a household where money was scarce, we were taught not to ask for anything we did not truly need, but instead to make do, or do without, and to not complain about the situation. We heard stories about my mother’s family having a family over for lunch, and the children were amazed that they were allowed to have bread, with butter and jam on the same piece of bread. When I was young, when I was allowed to have a friend over for a meal, she was amazed that she was allowed to drink as much milk as she wanted at my house. Many little things allowed me to feel grateful for what I had.

My parents gave me the opportunity to learn the skills that allowed me to take care of me, in whatever circumstances I found myself. My dad had gotten a job with the Highway department, where he bagged soil samples in canvas bags, and he discovered that they just threw away the bags when they were done with the soil samples. My dad brought the empty bags home. I had learned to sew at the Junior High School. When I had outgrown my clothes, I recycled the canvas bags into a pair of bell-bottom pants and an A-line dress. I decorated them with felt tip markers, which washed out. This gave me the opportunity to change the designs with the felt tip markers, which worked until the felt tip markers went dry. I had enough of the canvas bags leftover to make covers for my schoolbooks. I decorated the book covers with sewn designs with leftover spools of colored thread.

When I had a family of my own, when my children needed toys, I was able to make toys out of scraps of this and that, and my children were happy. When I needed to repair my house, I asked many questions, read some books, bought just what I needed, and tackled the job successfully. I had learned to stretch the bottom dollar. I prized my independence, and I prized my being prepared for whatever came my way. I learned skills to problem solve, which I enhanced with a dose of creativity. I knew I had the ability to take care of me, whether it was smooth sailing, or during extenuating circumstances.

— D. Satterlee

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Don’t Eat All the Ice Cream

For years, my husband and I had a system for sharing. An example was the agreement to not eat all the ice cream out of a container without giving the other person a chance to have some. This worked well for decades. Another long-engrained practice I had was not to waste food, I had grown up in a large family during the depression after World War II.

After my husband passed away, this habit of not eating all the ice cream was so ingrained in my being, that I just couldn’t eat all the ice cream in a container. Well, after having to throw away containers with bits of ice cream and lots of crystallized masses, I had to rethink this practice. Since he was no longer here to eat his share, it was wasteful for me to NOT EAT IT! What a revolution. I gave myself permission to eat all of the ice cream. And a bonus was not feeling guilty for wasting the bits of old yucky ice cream at the bottom.

I was learning to take care of myself as a single person. I was learning to recognize a need to make changes, to find solutions. The cognitive process was freeing, but the emotional part was not so easy. When I ate the first entire container of ice cream, I was saying another “So long honey, it was nice having you in my life for so long.“ — M. Shelton

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The Beach as Self-Care

I was entering a new era — from working full time and teaching young children every day to working part time and teaching college students a few days a week. What was that going to look like? How was my daily life going to change? I needed some time to myself to reflect and sort out options.

The beach has always been my place to go — the constancy of the waves, the sound of the gulls, the flight of the pelicans, the surprises in the sand, the fog bank rolling in during the late afternoon — over to a bed and breakfast at Point Reyes for a few days. It’s amazing to me that a place so different from where I live inland can provide cleansing and opportunity for clarity.

I discovered this when I was a young girl and my family lived in a resort town in New Jersey. In the summer the town was full of families and beach towels and umbrellas. And in the winter the beach was ours, a place for riding bikes on the boardwalk, finding treasures in the sand (we found a dead seahorse once) and making up story games on the empty beaches.

So as an adult, the beach is therapy, a place to meditate and take care of myself. It’s the part of nature that I feel most at home in. Some people get that from being in the forest or in the mountains. But the gift of the beach is always a gift to me. — J. Daniels

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“You Are Going to Be So Proud of Us!”

“Care of Self” has many components! One of the most important is that of knowing that you are a capable, competent problem solver. Knowing we can solve problems builds security and strong mental health… essential for “Care of Self.”

I was out in the play yard at Cal State Fullerton Children’s Center supervising free play. It was spring semester and we had been working all year on the skills of expressing feelings, using words to state needs, and solving problems in ways that everyone’s needs were met as much as possible. Usually, in the more challenging situations, an adult would step in to facilitate and guide the process since emotions usually ran high, making the creative thinking process more difficult.

On this particular day, two five -year-old boys came running up to me announcing in their very big voices, “Susan you are going to be so proud of us!” I was eager to hear and didn’t have to wait… .“We had a problem and don’t you want to hear about it?”

Of course, I did! “Tell me,” I said. Well, both boys talking at once, eagerly explained that there had been a problem in the sandbox about sharing the shovels. “What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, we talked about it. We said that we all wanted turns with the shovels and it made us sad when we didn’t get to have a turn. Everyone listened and then we figured out how to take turns with everyone who wanted the shovels. And that’s how we solved the problem! Aren’t you so proud of us?”

I was delighted to hear the full description of the problem, how it was handled successfully and most of all the delight the boys shared as they talked about their success! The proud way they came to tell me about it, complete with the detailed description, showed how capable they are as problem solvers and that they know how competent they are. For a teacher or parent, nothing can be more important than to know the children are capable of handling their own problems. — S. Hopkins

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NOTE: We chose “Dear Olive Branch” as the title for this column for several reasons — foremost as a sign of peace. Also, olives come in many colors, sizes, tastes, uses — a sign of diversity just as there are many types of questions and those who send the questions. We hope “Olive’s” responses will help you, the reader. If you have a question for Olive use our contact form. When Olive isn’t available to answer questions, members of EPCC and/or P.E.A.C.E. will step up to help.