Case Study - Special Challenge

“It’s not even close to being the same, and I just hate it when she says she wishes she didn’t have to deal with her wacko father—at least she has that choice!” Owen was sharing what his cousin had said about her dad—who was an alcoholic, had abandoned her family which had sent her mom off the deep end and left them barely scraping by. Owen’s comments reflected his own ‘special challenge’ with his dad who had died when he was 13. Now 16, his mom had sent him to counseling to help him deal with his grief. He was in no mood to accept that anyone else, especially a cousin who still had a father, could be hurting as much as he was who would never have a father again.

“Do you think we should make scale of Special Challenges? As in, your cousin Ticia’s special challenge of growing up with an alcoholic father, absentee mother is lower on the scale than you having to deal with growing up without one of your parents at all?” I asked Owen.

“Because clearly, Ticia thinks that having an alcoholic dad limits her ability to build her Life Puzzle. That’s what a special challenge is—where we take anything that happens to us—like death, alcoholic parent, or having diabetes, or even having red hair—and we place on it a belief that it limits our ability to own our Life Puzzle-making. You just shared with me that she blames her dad for ruining her family and as a result she’s going off the deep end, drinking, partying, hanging out with a really bad group of kids—all of which are Life Puzzle jamming behaviors, not Life Puzzle making. Obviously she thinks this special challenge of her deadbeat dad is limiting her ability to create a great life. But it her special challenge as bad as your special challenge?

“Well, I’m not saying it isn’t awful that she’s got such a jerk for a dad, but there’s still a chance he’ll come around and someday she might have a good relationship with him. I don’t have that chance.”

“You’re right, you don’t get to talk with your dad—but you have a great mom who is working especially hard to be there for you. Ticia’s mom isn’t much better than her dad so maybe that makes her special challenge equal to or worse than yours?” I asked.

Owen thought about it and then I said to him, “Owen, the thing about a special challenge is that it isn’t what happens to you—it’s what you do with what happens to you. Ticia hurts, it doesn’t matter if you hurt more than her—what matters for both of you is that you recognize the hurt—alcoholic father/death of a father as a special challenge that’s happened in your life. After acknowledging this, you both have to make a decision—will you let this keep you from making as whole and dynamic a Life Puzzle as possible. It seems to me that by being angry at Ticia for expressing her pain as if it’s a slap in the face to your pain means you’re starting to let your special challenge make you a victim. Is that what you see too?”

Owen fluffed the pillows and moved around on the couch while he thought about this. “No, but I’m just hurting so bad, I guess I don’t want to hear that anybody else is hurting.”
Owen and I continued to talk. He’s still in deep grief dealing with his special challenge and my work with him as a client is to nudge him towards channeling this special challenge into something that ultimately helps him grow his Life Puzzle—not get stuck in it as a victim for life! The death of a parent is not something any of us would sign up for, but once it happens—we can grow from it as much as we can be a victim of it.

That is true for all of us, no matter the special challenge. It isn’t what happens, it’s what we do with what happens. The best example of this is Christopher Reeves, “Superman” who became paralyzed from the neck down. Certainly, if he had chosen to respond as a victim to this special challenge, none of us would have faulted him. However, he took his special challenge and used it to grow his Life Puzzle to the best of his ability until the day he died. He added a new dimension to his work area, community area, parenting, relationships—in most of the areas of his whole Life Puzzle he continued to grow while acknowledging his special challenge. Would he have preferred to not be paralyzed—certainly. But he took his special challenge and continued growing his Life Puzzle.

Owen would prefer his dad was by his side—but now he has to decide to take this special challenge and continue growing his Life Puzzle. You can see how a special challenge plays a part on whether or not he’ll be a Life Puzzle maker or a Life Puzzle jammer. Clearly, Every piece impacts the whole!