There is an old adage that triggers many people the wrong way. Often misinterpreted as an expression of judgement, “you made your bed, now lie in it”, is a phrase that many of us fifty years plus heard our parents say. When used wisely, this 16th century French idiom was intended to heed a gentle warning about the consequences of personal decision-making and the reality that there are always impacts, intended or otherwise of choices we make on others. Latin-based languages generally embed a nuanced metaphoric flare in choice words, so there is no accident that the French centralized the bed and the bedroom in personal decision-making. The history of morality, which in essence is the ability to make good and right decisions for yourself and the people you love often focuses on human passions. It is not as difficult to make a personal decision when you are neutral or unaffected by the consequences. It is only when your own personal human passions have been ignited to engage in a behaviour that might have significant consequences on your life and future that your moral compass becomes aroused.

I am certain as I write today’s Christmas blog that many of you have raised your eyebrows and sighed at the mere mention of a moral compass. Many of you doubt that you have one, and some of you who have rejected “institutional religions” attest that morality is simply a way for large rich organized religions to control you. Used in this ironically and rejectingly righteous way, some of you have tried to silence your moral compass as an act of personal freedom. A more modern term used to describe your moral compass today is your “gut”, as in I had a gut feeling that this would cause a problem in my life.

There is an actual diagnostic category for moral injury. Gabor Mate’s book, When the body says no, builds on the bio-psycho-social-spiritual work of Van der Kolk’s seminal text on trauma, The body keeps the score. Both medically trained scientists describe ways that the human body, as much as your conscious mind will hold on to stress created by witnessing or engaging in activities that cause moral injury. This is a personal reaction that warrants your attention, as it may continue to cause harm unless otherwise treated with a trained mental health provider. The field of psychosomatic care has grown exponentially over this past decade.

As someone with close to forty years in the field providing direct mental health care, I never thought psychosomatic theories would renew. The body of work in psychosomatic theory had already been chastised mostly by women for victim-blaming. There have been generations of abused women suffering from hosts of psychosomatic illnesses viewed as mysterious or neurotic where symptoms were treated without ever addressing the problems of early childhood abuse, or domestic violence. I address this ethical dilemma in my clinical practice by using the term holistic care wherein your body is as important as your mind and spirit in understanding what is happening to you when triggered. It is critical that mental health providers have trauma-informed perspectives that gently, yet directly explores any early childhood abuse or present-day harm in a person’s life. It is truly a failure in care when clinicians misunderstand the root causes of distress.

I do have bias about the importance of human morality and the need for people to have a deep and clear relationship with their own moral compass. Your sense of morality, that is your desire to do the right thing is not only motivated and shaped by religion. It is also shaped by social norms, culture, and socioeconomic class. I do privilege the perspective that your relationship with your moral compass is created in your early childhood when protective and nurturing adults impose limits on what you might like to do, mostly based on risk of harm to self and others. When nurtured lovingly, early childhood is the time humans learn to be careful with the self and others, and equally importantly, to make decisions that include the wellbeing of the other.

Here are some ways to reacquaint yourself with your own moral compass this holiday season:

• Pay close attention to what triggers your sense of “right and wrong.” It might take some time to understand that this is your moral compass communicating to you.
• Be mindful of the who, what, where, why and when you are feeling this sense of something being done correctly or not. It might be as simple as, the gift he gave was cheap or I can’t believe she made that homophobic remark.
• Review events in your mind after celebrations have ended and ask yourself how you feel about your own conduct with family and friends. Did you over-indulge in food or drink or say something that you regret?
• Stay present and accept your role in your family and friends noting that everyone’s moral compass is affected differently, and that it is not your job to act as a morality officer correcting every faux pas that we as humans generally do when we gather together.
• Grow in comfort with your personal sense of morality and allow yourself to become attuned to what and how doing the right thing impacts your overall sense of self.

This year, some of my family have decided to celebrate Christmas in Rome. We will delight in the beauties of this ancient city, and enjoy all of the Italian food and comforts during our stay. We hope to see the new Pope Leo in St. Peter’s square on Christmas day, and honour what having a pope in Rome from the new world signifies globally. We look forward to exploring La Befana Market in the piazza Navona. We envision attending Christmas Eve Mass in a little less known church somewhere in the city, and quietly honouring the birth of a man, Jesus who we continue to believe is the son of God gifted to make humans and the world a better place.

Sincerest wishes for a peaceful Christmas and New Year,

Happy Holidays!

Lisa Romano-Dwyer PhD, RSW

Today in the Toronto Star newspaper, I was glad to read an article about one local school board’s decision to re-instate a system based on merit for acceptance into specific specialized programs. Some of the controversy dates back to 1987 when the “cutting edge” TOPS program was created at Marc Garneau high school in Toronto. The TOPS program was designed for children who showed great promise in math and science-based courses. Initially, students were accepted into the program if they had the “grades” to support their intellectual prowess, scientific curiosity, and community involvement. Over the years, there were many contestations about notions of elitism in education, particularly when it seemed that certain groups were excluded from participating in exclusive programs. In response to demands for equity and fairness, the board opened up specially designed programs to everyone and offered spots based on a lottery system. Suffice it to say, that today the board had to humbly announce that there has been a dramatic change in student engagement and participation in aspects of the program.

It has always been difficult for parents of bright, very bright, and gifted children to have the needs of their children recognized in local systems, mainly because their numbers are fewer. Most discourses related to neurodivergence seems to be exclusively used for people struggling to learn, behave, or socialize. Intellectual giftedness is also a neurodivergence that warrants deeper understanding at a pedagogical level. Super processors and problem solvers have unique sets of challenges that are created in systems of learning that fail to fully appreciate how smart people learn and need to learn individually and in groups. It would seem to me that supporting the needs of bright children would benefit our society as much as it does to support children who struggle to learn. Understanding “Giftedness” as Neurodivergence — Prism Advocacy

As a clinical social worker, I am growing weary of what seems to be the persistent exclusion of bright, very bright, and gifted children in child-based articles. Having close to thirty years of social work experiences in Elementary and Secondary Schools, I can attest to the growing attack on “intellectual quotient” in education. It is sad that most people continue to misunderstand valid and reliable measures of intellect, and the exceptional learning needs of children who grasp concepts quickly. There are individuals who learn things with great ease, and who can play with new information in truly innovative and creative ways.

Over the years, many concepts have been contested, and most with good cause. Particular populations had felt excluded from specialized programs designed for gifted students. Perhaps, the TOPS program example here in Toronto will jog our memories about the importance of ongoing quality assurance and evaluation methods implemented with regularity to ensure premature claims that systemic changes are effective. The lottery system was introduced to address complaints about equity and fairness as people began to generally fail to believe in the merits of students who had been successfully accepted into the program based on academic achievement. It seems to me that rule abiding students have suffered since the late ’80’s as well. In my experience, the majority of students are pleasant and compliant, even at post-secondary and community college levels. Students who work to submit their assignments on time, show up to class, and meet the behavioural expectations of the classroom, are somewhat taken for granted and overshadowed by the demanding needs of the “difficult” learner. The systemic obsession with the difficult learner has short changed children who simply do what is expected of them at school. It may have also snuffed out the creative spark of several gifted children who were not admitted to the TOPS program due to chance. We will never really know the full cost of this consequence to our city.

For the past seven years, I have been working with high achieving professionals and their families. High Achievers are generally interested and engaged in most areas of their lives. In general, they have a strong super-ego, and feel a sense of responsibility for others and projects that they oversee. High achievers are quick at identifying problems, and open to solutions that make sense. They are collaborative and creative, and typically appreciate counselling or coaching services that help them to gain clarity about less than great situations at work or home. Similar to bright, very bright, and gifted children, high achieving professionals with long track records of accomplishments have exceptional needs in the workplace that may also be overlooked by the demands of difficult colleagues whose incompetence or challenges arrest the attention of supervisors and managers. Work with high achievers is also highly rewarding as they grasp concepts very quickly, and mobilize into action and self-care without much fuss.

I also think that by restoring a place for merit-based perspectives and practices at school, people will reacquaint themselves with the value of a job well-done. The notion of merit means many different things, but to me it includes the idea that one has “earned” a grade, the job, an award, or a spot. It implies that an individual has put some effort into doing something that others also assess has been difficult or hard to do. There is a common “sense” or social cache to a job well done, especially when the problem to solve was quite challenging.

Re-creating space for a job well done holds the promise that people will once again be able to discern value and quality in performance, productivity, and outcomes. It may also restore the view that there is always a small group of people who are genuinely better at something than you might be. Its a tough pill to swallow, but one that is better learned young. Growing appreciation in the value of other people’s gifts, talents, and accomplishments inspires hope in the ability of people to freely choose wisely despite distracting challenges or chaos.

Do. Think. Feel Well.

Lisa Romano-Dwyer MSW, PhD

There seems to be a throwback in zeitgeist to an earlier time where character trumped importance in all things. For the past decade, the rise in radical identity politics has taken its toll. It began as a call to revolute against the norm or mainstream and challenged all things traditional. Of course, the roots to this call for social change was fueled by years of neglect on issues fermented in what had traditionally been viewed as marginal spaces in society. It seemed that there was a flip in focus that geared governmental policy to address protecting individuals and groups who identified in ways that vulnerablizied them. This shift in focus seemed to cause societies at large to cast its collective view on attributes related to the who one is rather than on the what one does or has achieved. In my view, this shift was mobilized by social media and did impact everyone on a global scale.

In recent times schooling, hiring and even dating practices shifted as well. How an individual identified became more important in candidate searches than anything else. You are likely familiar with the check-box system currently used when applying for school, job, or a date. There is a list of questions that work to categorize candidates based on identifiers such as race, ethnicity, gender, previous relationships, preferences, languages spoken and more. Some platforms seek questions about income levels, and the number of members in a household as well. There are many types of programs that currently seek ways to “identify” your demographic data. Some questions on survey-type platforms such as your age, marital status, or religious affiliation are no longer legal in most professional hiring or student application interviews.

Nonetheless, more and more platforms have been created to weed out individual identifiers that are not preferred in a particular context by systems designed to filter data. Some dating applications allow users to create limited filter settings, which activate remaining potential matches that programs determine are best for you. Many of you have certainly had experiences whereby identifier-matching services got it completely wrong, overlooking individuals who are truly a better fit for you. Job hiring apps and platforms are similar, also offering user-directed filters to target particular candidates for jobs. Hearing mostly about the lived-experiences of dating-app users, it seems that this data-driven process is imperfect.

An idealistic perspective of human character would be difficult to identify on platforms for hire or dating. Most hiring screening programs rely on information such as years of experience, languages spoken, the number of degrees earned and more. An imaginary online recruitment checklist for character might include some evidentiary support of:

• Respecting people’s time
• Listening with care to what people have to say & contribute
• Understanding that people have bad days
• Honouring one’s personal limitations and boundaries
• Affirming unique contributions by offering verbal praise, rewards, & bonuses
• Doing what they say they would do
• Trusting people to help
• Celebrating personal and social successes with authenticity
• Engaging fairly in tasks designed for groups
• Being honest about setbacks and failures
• Completing assigned tasks
• Speaking up when someone is being mis-treated
• Helping those expressing a need for support

Character is typically assessed once you have made it through the online screening process, and you are meeting with people in a formal interview, or on a date. Many single people posting on dating apps express how “exhausting” this process has become for them. They have accepted however, that in order to really meet anyone in today’s society, you must have a dating profile on at least one reputable dating app. There are obvious dating app preferences and after a short while on them, people quickly discern whether this is the site where they might meet like-minded individuals or not. Some people use dating apps for sex and hook-ups, but most adults are actually interested in finding a more serious life-partner and soul-mate.

It might be a worthwhile exercise to reflect on the concept of “character” and what it means to you at home, in the workplace, and at play. Do you feel that your character is as important to your sense of self as your physical attributes? Do you think that the people closest to you stay close to you based on those all too familiar identifiers used to screen your suitability for school, job, or a date? Or, do you believe that perhaps people choose to be close to you because you are trustworthy, kind, helpful, loyal, honest, fun-loving, and compassionate?

The ways that people identify and speak about the self is of utmost importance. Your “I” is unique and as such open to terms that best identify your sense of self. An authentic sense of self is definitely greater than the sum of it’s individual parts or identifiers. In this sense, you likely feel that there is more to you than the terms used to identify your cultural, physical, religious, or ethic affiliations and gender. Character transcends your identity and is best understood as a qualifier rather than an identifier. Being with that individual impacted me positively because of the genuine care and concern spent trying to understand what I had in mind. Qualifiers might help guide you in your quest for candidates to date or to employ. This is especially true when you begin to describe your experience with the candidate using “I'” statements such as, “I found this person’s honesty really uplifting during our chat today”.

“The purpose revolution: How leaders create engagement and competitive advantage in an age of social good” is an excellent read for those of you in business. It provides several examples where leaders unpack what customers are really seeking, how brand loyalty develops, and why and how people decide to invest in you and your company. Much of what is written in this book speaks to human character, and the need for people to feel as though they are seen and respected during capitalistic exchanges. The traditional term might be “customer service”. When I call a number or ask a question in-person, will someone take the time to listen and assess what I need, and then help me or not? The Best Buy Blue Shirt strategy is one such example shared in the book where customer service is based on authenticity and care.

It seems that first world countries continue to progress and enjoy the liberties associated with greater wealth. As the gap between the rich and poor widens globally, governments aiming to protect the “social good” need to be more vigilant than ever before about listening to voices rising from marginal spaces. Perhaps, identity-informed character will help to lead the way.

The Purpose Revolution: How Leaders Create Engagement and Competitive Advantage in an Age of Social Good by John B. Izzo | Goodreads

Enjoy your day,

Lisa Romano-Dwyer BSc, MSW, PhD, RSW