Skip to main content

The Subtle Process of Healing

By Stephen C. Schultz

The weather was wonderful—about 55 degrees Fahrenheit with blue skies. The warm sun bathed my face as the sage and junipers swayed gently in a cool breeze blowing from the West. There is nothing quite like the smell of sage growing wild in the high mountain deserts of the Southwest.

I was sitting on a small boulder outside the kitchen at Discovery Ranch South. DRS is a residential facility that provides personal and customized care to young teenage girls who struggle with emotional concerns.

I walked up some stairs and into the lodge (kitchen and eating area), where I heard some discussions taking place. I walked in and saw five girls being instructed on how to make a cobb salad. One girl was slicing tomatoes, another had cut up celery, one was chopping lettuce, and a girl at the stove was boiling eggs and cooking bacon. They were smiling, talking, laughing, learning, feeling, and simply being "normal" teenage girls!

I heard the dull roar of conversation as the rest of the girls entered the lodge to eat lunch. I walked out of the kitchen to the dining area, and one of the girls ran up to me and said,

“Hi, Steve! I got to ride my horse today!”

“Good for you!” I responded. “It’s good to see you again.”

She smiled and then walked off to get in line for lunch. What she didn’t know was that I noticed the scratches and raw, pink-colored sores on her arms. I started talking with a different girl and a therapist who had just walked into the room. We slowly made our way to the lunch line. I ended up standing next to the first girl, the one who had ridden her horse earlier in the day. I looked at her arm again and said,

“You do that with a pencil eraser?”

She responded, “Yeah, I got in a bad headspace not too long ago.”

“You OK now?” I asked, raising an eyebrow with a sincere tone.

“Yeah,” she said a little sheepishly.

I replied, “That’s good! The important thing is that you work through it and heal on the inside as well as on the outside. I imagine riding your horse is really helpful.”

She simply looked up and smiled, a twinkle in her eye. Then she turned, grabbed a plate, served herself some salad and tacos, and sat down with the other girls at the table.


Labels:
Location: United States

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Rocky Landscape of Teen Sexuality

 By Stephen C. Schultz (Editor's note: This is a very sensitive subject and may be uncomfortable to read. The information in this post is essentially focused on schools and therapeutic programs that have a residential component.) The chairs were all in a half-circle. There must have been over fifty, all filled with students. Banners from various colleges and universities hung from the rafters. The dull roar of multiple conversations, all happening simultaneously, cut through the air and echoed off the walls. I stood in front of the crowd and waited. The conversations and dull roar slowly faded, like a train disappearing into the distance. All eyes were now on me. I asked one question: “Who can tell me what grooming is?” I have spent my career working with families and teens through some very difficult times. I am a partner in a specialty care facility called Oxbow Academy. Oxbow specializes in treating teenage boys from across the globe who are burdened with the socially sensi...
5 comments
Read more

Lessons I learned from a childhood experience with bullying

By Stephen C. Schultz The dew around the window was starting to bead up. In a classic case of chaos theory, the little beads of water gave way to gravity and randomly bounced and bumped their way to the window sill like a steal marble in a pinball game. There was a small pool of water in the cracked and peeling beige paint. I sat facing the window, staring at the small engraved stone nestled in the flower beds. There weren’t many flowers at this time of year. Mostly rhododendrons and Oregon grapes reaching skyward from the damp bark mulch that covered the planter area.   The month of January in Eugene Oregon was filled with days and days of mist and fog.   In fact, pretty much from October through June was filled with fog, rain, mist, showers, freezing rain and occasionally snow. The local weathermen didn’t bother with predictions about the chance of precipitation; they took pride in developing new adjectives to describe the type of precipitation and how much you can...
10 comments
Read more

The Young Boy and the Rattlesnake

By Stephen C. Schultz (Editors note: This is a story used in a Wilderness Treatment Program. Many come to this program having struggled with depression, anxiety and substance use.)   Many years ago there was a young Native American who lived in the very land you are residing in. He decided to seek wisdom by journeying to the top of Indian Peak. As he approached the base of the mountain he came across a rattlesnake that slithered beside him. The snake coiled as if to strike and the young boy moved back quickly in fear of being struck by the snake’s deadly venom. At that instant the snake spoke to the boy saying, “Don’t be afraid of me, I mean you no harm. I come to you to ask a favor. I see that you are about to traverse to the top of Indian Peak and was hoping that you may be willing to place me in your satchel so that I don’t have to make the long journey alone.” The young boy surprised by the snake’s request quickly responded by turning down the offer, stating, ...
5 comments
Read more