This is winding down I guess - so what have I learned?

I feel as if I'm only trying to avoid the inevitable. I've only heard from "Sam" once since my last blog post. She has been to school a couple of times.. but it is sporadic. I had hoped to work with her school schedule to find a regular day of the week and time that we could meet - but she has not yet come up with a regular weekly school schedule that she can maintain.

I have no way to contact her (she still has no cell phone and she and her boyfriend are staying with his sister on and off while they look for a place of their own). I can leave her messages at school, but I hate to call continuously if she either isn't showing up to school or isn't going to return my calls. For a mentoring relationship to work, it must be two way - and I'm not sure that is the case with this one any more. I feel bad because I can't help but feel that it is my own failings that have led to situation... not "Sam's" personal situation but, rather, the fact that she is no longer communicating with me. Based on our last conversation, I don't think she is avoiding me intentionally - but I do think that she associates me and our relationship as something connected to school and while she does say that she still wants to graduate, she doesn't seem to be able to find a way to make going to school a priority in her life right now.

I did learn not too long ago that her cousin went to the same self-study program about a year (or perhaps a bit more) ago. Apparently he was an extremely motivated student. He spent 6 to 8 hours per day 5 to 6 days per week on campus working on a combination of self-study packets, computer lab courses, and classroom courses. By keeping this focus (and this schedule) for a full school year, he was able to complete nearly two years worth of "credits" and graduate. "Sam" and I talked about this and about the fact that his situation was different from hers in many ways. She indicated that she understood that a big part of why he was able to complete so much work was because he focused completely on school and was not distracted from that focus in any way. We talked about the kind of schedule he maintained, the goals he set for himself on a short-term basis to enable him to achieve his long term goals. I think that "Sam" knows how to say the words that make it sound like she understands this - but I suspect that on some level, she still thinks that she should be able to complete all the credits without really focusing on the work. I'm not sure how to help her with this, especially since she does not seem to be in a place where she wants the kind of help I have to offer. Still, I feel somehow like this is my failing.

Looking back on it, I can see that self-reflection is something "Sam" needs to do a lot more of. Although she has told me that she writes in a journal regularly, I've never read her journal (I've seen the notebook that she calls her journal, but I felt it would be an imposition to ask her to allow me to read it and she never offered the opportunity to me). Perhaps I gave up on the blogging idea to easily - I honestly felt that without the incentive of writing credit, she would view journaling online a real chore (as she is still quite challenged by keyboarding skills) - especially since she already kept a handwritten journal. Hindsight leads me to suspect that her journaling is not self-reflective in nature. I think I made the assumption that because she enjoys creative writing, poetry writing, and keeping a journal, that she must be comfortable with reflection. I can see now that this assumption was rooted in me projecting my own propensity for reflection onto her - only because I also write poetry and prose and keep a journal (more than one journal in fact).

So - where do I go from here (I asked that last time too)... I'm not really sure. I feel dissatisfied with myself for "allowing" this to happen and yet I can't really pinpoint exactly how I could have prevented it. This frustrates me because it is my nature to want to "figure things out" (I like to know both the "why" and the "how"). I don't want to give up, but it feels rather pathetic to keep pursuing the relationship if the other party is not committed (or perhaps not even really interested). Right now "Sam" needs a stable living situation, someone to support her financially (or some way to do that for herself), and someone to help her achieve mental (psychological) stability as well - I cannot give her a place to live (I'm not prepared to offer her a room at my house), I cannot give her money to live on (I have barely enough to support myself and pay for school ... etc), I'm not even sure I can do much to help her find the other type of stability she needs... I suspect that she is in need of more than a positive role model as I suspect that she is not truly in a place where she can recognized why someone else is successful (the situation with her cousin was a big clue).

I'm torn. I want to call the school and check up on her again - but if I honestly ask (and answer) myself what I will do with that information then I come up against the fact that I'm not prepared to go chasing around town looking for her and making sure that she makes it to school every day (and I suspect that's what it would take right now). I think to be a true mentor to this young woman, in her current situation, I would have to have several hours a day available for her and I just don't have that. I keep asking myself, "If this were not a course assignment, what would I do?" I keep avoiding the answer because I know that I would not continue to pursue the relationship. I like "Sam" and I definitely fell a certain affinity for her - but I did not have a chance to really establish a deep connection before all these challenges presented themselves in her life and in our relationship. I don't feel truly, deeply, vested in this relationship. I was starting to feel that - but the last few weeks changed that.

So - what have I learned about myself? Well - on thing I beginning to realize is that the reason I looked for a mentoring relationship outside of my workplace was that I didn't really feel all that vested in my relationships at work (the current corporate climate made that difficult... but it is also my own fault for not moving beyond that). The interesting (and rather amazing) thing is that as I worked with "Sam" and later as I tried to work through the obstacles and frustrations with "Sam," I began to develop and nurture a completely different approach at work. I've come to feel much more involved with my colleagues. It began with one specific colleague (the one I've mentioned in here previously) but it is not extending to the rest of the team that I work with. I'm feeling more and more like an integral part of the team. I used to think the reason I didn't feel that way was because of some external situation (corporate culture, other members attitudes, etc) - I've come to understand that the most significant influence on these feelings of being on the "outside" come from inside of me and are not imposed by some external force. I wonder if I would have realized this sooner if I'd sought out a mentoring relationship within the workplace - or if I would have managed to avoid this lesson altogether by viewing myself in the role of the mentor only. The value that "Sam" brought was that I was able to see my role at work as mentee first and then as mentor to the person that was mentoring me (once I realized that he was looking for someone to learn from as well as someone to teach).

Believing as I do that things are as they should be and that I am right were I need to be - I cannot spend too much time obsessing what I should have done differently. I can't change what I did - and I'm not sure that I would (since I would not have the benefit of what I've learned). What I do have a responsibility to do though is to learn from this experience and apply what I've learned to what I do from now on. I have learned the importance of paying careful and active attention to not only the needs of others but also to their own personal context. I've learned that it is difficult to not project your own ideas, experience (context) on someone else, and yet you must strive for that if you're going to offer them help achieving their own goals. I've learned there is a big difference between helping someone achieve their goals and showing them how you think they should go about achieving them (or maybe even telling them what you think their goals should be). I've also re-confirmed how important self-reflection is in developing ones goals.... and that without ongoing self-reflection we may not know what our real goals are and so may not be able to articulate them.

Both this experience and my current ARP work have taught (and are still teaching) me to listen better. I know I listen more actively and honestly now. I catch myself trying to impose my own context on what I hear and/or contemplating how I'm going to respond. Because I have begun to recognize when I do this, I'm now able to try to stop these inclinations (or limit them at least). I'm sure I still impose my own context (it is human nature I think) and I know that I still sometimes start crafting my own response while the other person is talking... but... knowing and being aware is at least half the battle... so I'm making progress.