About Mindful Steps

How it came to be...

Mindful Steps began as Mary's passion project...

(The super short version: Life, or should I say death, threw me for quite the loop. While supporting my sister and others in their grief, I used a series of pictorial and word continuums. Realizing the power of these scales, I pursued what I called my "Empathy Connection Project," which developed into Mindful Steps™.)

Here's the whole story...

As an educator, I am not only a teacher, but a mentor, advisor, and leader. As a believer, I believe in the good of people, hope, and possibilities. As a giver, I give of my time, my heart, and that which I have developed through experience. In my years as an educator, I have valued the relationships I have built with my students and peers with empathy being at the core of these connections. 

As time went on in my career as an educator, I realized how trauma and adverse life events affect every aspect of a child’s being. I saw the increased importance of building resiliency with my students. I continued to create an atmosphere in the classroom that fostered empathy and incorporated social and emotional learning to strengthen resiliency. 

Throughout my life, I have been an active member of my community, promoted student involvement in community service, and responded to several natural disasters throughout the country. Currently, I provide hospice respite care and am involved in several children’s grief camps. But for much of my time in Mexico, I was not as actively involved in service as I feel I should have been.

While teaching in Mexico, I attended a conference in New Orleans that changed my life. The speaker, Pulitzer award winner and author, Sonia Nazario, highlighted the plight of immigrants traveling through Mexico and her story of researching the life of Enrique which led to her award-winning book Enrique's Journey. I was so moved by what I heard that day, that I left questioning what I was doing in my life to be a true global citizen. Each year, my 7th-grade students started the year creating a “citizen passport” where they established how they could be aware, active citizens, both locally and globally. We encouraged them to be “glocal” citizens.  As I listened to the speaker at the conference, I heard a “whisper” asking other than in my community, “What am I doing to be a global citizen?” At that point, I felt that perhaps it was time to answer that whisper and to leave the classroom to make an impact in people’s lives in a different way. 

When making this difficult decision to leave a secure job and a profession I loved, I turned to “my cape.” (Listen to Guy Clark's, "The Cape") In the past, when I took risks or made major life changes, I envisioned myself going through life wearing a cape in which I could “fly,” not so much as a superhero, but flying in a productive way and keeping me from crashing. It would guide me to move on, move forward, and allow me to land where I was headed. I realized it was time to “dust off my cape” and take a leap of faith and trust it would take me in a new direction (even if I didn’t know where that was at the time.) I had some ideas of what my life would look like in the near future, but then life events uprooted my path and it seemed as if “the wind went out of my cape,” and grounded me to a halt.

I was still living in Mexico when I received the devastating call that my nephew, Don, had died by suicide. After a heart-wrenching week back home, I returned to my life in what felt like a world away. I grappled to figure out how to support my sister, Linda, as she lived every parent’s worst nightmare. I knew a “how are you?” wasn’t the question to ask, especially through a text when she wasn’t up for phone calls. 

I’ve used different versions of scales in a variety of ways in working with students over the years. I came up with the idea of using a scale to communicate with my sister by simply asking her on a scale from 1 - 10 “where she was” in that moment. She didn’t have to elaborate, justify, or answer with the lie “fine or okay.” She could elaborate as she chose. As time went on, my scales grew from numbers to words, pictures, emojis, and even including humor when I felt it appropriate. Her responses varied based on “where she was” in her pain at the moment she answered. I continued to send her daily scales, and now almost four years later, I continue to use them periodically. My sister, Linda, noted the following: “With Mary reaching out to me using her creative disposition scales, it encouraged me to respond with more than just "okay." It was always comforting to hear from her and the perfect way for one to express ‘I know you are in pain with relentless grief, I love you and am here if you need me.’ It helped me for many months as grief tends to be a solitary personalized abyss.” 

During those first days, (and even now,) I didn’t always know what to say to my sister. I know I said some things I should not have and used platitudes, such as repetitively stating, “another mom with a similar loss told me it will get easier.” She didn’t need to hear a platitude in that moment. I also shared my belief that the stigma of suicide was no longer as prevalent in our society, mostly to help her not anguish about what others thought, and probably because I wanted to believe it myself. Of course, I believed at the time that it was my job to help take away her pain and “fix” her. I have learned so much about grief and grief support since that traumatic point in our lives. Linda needed to feel the pain because grief is not something to be fixed. My job at that moment was to listen, let her know that she was supported, and create a safe space where she knew her response would be received without judgment or question. She needed to know that it was okay not to be okay. The scales allowed me to establish my role in supporting my sister by making a daily connection, showing my love, and reminding her that she was not alone, and to just be there to listen and accept “where she was” at any given moment. 

In the two years that followed my nephew’s death, I experienced four more significant death losses. I look at that time and refer back to my “cape” not only as my metaphor in taking risks and having trust in myself but now as a metaphor for grief. My cape "failed" me. I crashed to the ground. Then, just as it was gaining air, it got caught on a tree branch and ripped. My cape got tangled, dirtied, and torn; it dragged me along, sometimes suffocating me and taking away my breath and my hope. As I look back now, I realize my cape had not failed me, but it was wrapped up in my grief which is only to be expected because grief is all-encompassing.

During this time I was searching for my “next steps” in my quest to “listen to my whisper” and impact my world in a different way. I continued to use the scales with my sister, my niece, and others who were experiencing grief, whether anticipatory or complicated, as well as losses that were not death-related. As I was sorting out where my life path was taking me and “trusting my cape,” I was encouraged by friends to focus on the support I had given my sister and others and take what I had experienced in my personal grief process to use my scales to create resources for others outside of my circle. I took a global leap, once again turning to my cape, and started a passion project, Mindful Steps, with the goal of sharing the support scales to reach as many people experiencing grief as possible outside of my own community. Seeing the power of scales in social and emotional learning, I created a curriculum for teachers and counselors. This has led me to present at educational and wellness conferences and consulting for educators and clinicians in both the area of grief and trauma support and for use in social and emotional learning.

As I continue to develop and share my passion project with others, I thank my cape. Although my cape did not usher me where I had envisioned when I decided to leave my career as I knew it. The tears on my cape have been mended. The residue has been wiped off. The scars, however, remain.  My trusty cape will falter again, stitches will be stretched and need tending, and there will be new tears and tatters, but I know my cape is there for me to trust. With this trust, I take my experience and my feeling of hopefulness to offer you a method; the use of scales, to use in your practice, support groups, schools, and with loved ones. 

*It is now several years since I first wrote this, and my cape has taken me to Mexico and now back to Wisconsin. I continue to see where it will take me.