Connect The Homeless-A Project Leveraging Positive Psychology
It’s my personal story about understanding the meaning of social connections.
Why did I choose this project?
In the morning of Feb, 15, 2012, when I found myself onset with Bell’s palsy, a facial nerve system disease, I could have never imagined how it would change my life.
Before that, I was a senior manager in a high-tech company, the second largest search engine in China, in charge of a team of more the 20 people. I was working hard, and my life was filled with the happiness from the birth of my first child.
But on that morning when I woke up, I found half of my face was numb, and in the following 24 hours I lost all functionalities of my left face. I couldn’t smile, I couldn’t sneer, I couldn’t close my eye, I couldn’t lift my eyebrow, and when I ate there was no sense of my left tongue and foods stuck in my mouth. I looked at the mirror and found a weird face with totally dissymmetry, even when I cried there was no tear coming out from my left eye. One month later, after a surgery, my doctor told me that I was one of those 3 in 100,000 that could have such a sever Bell’s palsy, and I will never look like what I used to be.
Why me? When I was still struggling to answer this question, things gotten worse. My postpartum depression was killing me. Insomnia hit me, baby’s crying made me desperate, and Bell’s Palsy made me look like a monster. I didn’t want to go out of my home to see anyone. I was depressed even more.
In order to get a better treatment, I quitted my job, and my family moved to US. My therapist was in San Diego, her treatment was advanced and awesome, but what’s more beneficial, is that she told me that comparing to the treatment of facial nerve problem, the ability to use facial expressions to interact with people, and to experience a sense of connection with them are more important.
I hadn’t heard about positive psychology then, but I was so lucky to have my therapist give my first dose of positive psychology. Right now, after the lessons I understood why it’s so important for me to live as a “normal” person and to reach out for social connections. Because human beings are social creatures and wired to connect to others. Oxytocin and Dopamine, 2 of the 4 hormones that related to happiness directly come from social connection. Humans have a need to belong, to connect, to bond. (Myer, in Positive Psychology in Practice, 2004) Indeed social relationship is one of the foundations of my wellbeing and the source of happiness and positive emotions.
When I reached out for more connections to my church, neighbors, community and friends whom I made in language school, the social support, like empathy, caring, suggestions, advices, constructive feedback that I’ve received in all those relationships helped me to build my confidence and hope in my life. And my physical situation’s getting better too. My personal experience is exactly aligned with the research by Helliwell and Putnam(2004). In studied of over 100,000 participants in 49 countries, they found that trusting and reciprocal social ties were significantly related to happiness and life satisfaction-both directly and through their positive impact on health.
So while I am receiving the benefit from social support from people, I’ve been thinking if I can support others by building connection with them, and I got this idea when one day drove down the highway and saw an old lady, a homeless asking for help on the ramp. My initial idea is to reach out to the homeless and ask them to draw a picture, visualizing what they hope for and ask them to come to my church on Sunday. The visualization technique used here towards hope is based on the theory that visualization can induce the positive emotions, help set goals and increase self-efficacy.
My first connection with Ron
I started my project in a chilly and windy spring afternoon, about 8 weeks ago. I met Ron at the entrance of Safeway and he was playing keyboard there. He had a sign in front of him writing “HELP!! Please! USAF Veteran”. He told me that he lived in his truck, and he used to be a flight scheduler in the army and went to Vietnam for 90 days when the war was almost done. Part of his cohort’s job was to clean out and destroyed all confidential materials, intelligence documents, especially with names, and even to burn cash sometimes. He played many instruments, and keyboard was just one of them, others were trumpet, guitar, and he said that he had learnt them from someone in the college. And, he likes writing.
Photo copy right by Sophia Pang
And then I said to him “You like writing. My English is not good. How about you help me on my positive psychology project, and I pay you for that.” He said ”OK”. Then in the Starbuck inside the Safeway, he helped me to work on my “Hope chart”.
Photo copy right by Sophia Pang
He said many words to encourage me to use the language in a more confident way and gave me suggestions on practicing instruments, like “Don’t worry about getting better and don’t compare yourself with others.” But when I asked him to draw a hope chart for himself and told him that it’s part of my project, he looked very resistant, pushing back the paper and pen, saying ”No no no. Trust me I’m not the right person to do this. Let’s focus on your part.” Suddenly I realized that this man sitting in front of me is not a customer asking for coaching, but a stranger asking for help financially. People are alert and maybe somehow vulnerable to talk about themselves. There was a moment in my heart like “Gosh! My plan is not working!” But quickly I had the learner choice map in my mind, and I told myself “OK, forget about the final project and just focus on the person.” We were back to the music which I thought we both had interest in. He enjoyed this topic and I could see the light in his eye. Then I asked him “Hey how about visualize your music and draw a picture about that?” This time he seemed more relax and said “OK”, just like he didn’t want to disappoint me for a second time.
Here is his story, a visualization of “Real Good for Free”, which I found fascinating. Ron put himself into this song story. He used to live in this Fairmont Hotel and out of his window he could see Reno playing flute at the corner of the street. Reno was 37 years old and working part time in veteran center with a pay of 11 dollar/hour. Reno was not asking for money, he was just there playing flute. Children let out of school ran toward to Reno and danced with his music. They knew nothing about Reno’s story and situation, but they liked his playing. People in the hotel knew the story of Reno but they didn’t care. Sometimes Reno was unhappy then he didn’t play that day. For most of the time you could see Reno in the corner by a quick lunch stand, playing real good for free. “Unlike the other man who looked from the window,” Ron was saying himself, “He can only play for money. And what put them to choose different way.” He stopped and pondered for a while, and he wrote down a “ME” and a “HER”, and said “This is me and my wife, and between us is our relationship.” Then he said nothing more. I thanked him and paid him, and asked him to keep that picture. I found this song on Youtube, by Joni Mitchell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUo9C1vUt0A
Photo copy right by Sophia Pang
Photo copy right by Sophia Pang
The lesson I learn here is that a good connection is not just to reach out and talk to people, but to connect with things in common, with respect, understanding, empathy and care. And I realized that to visualize what people look for in their hope is a topic kind of too personal and sensitive when they are in vulnerable situations, so I decided to change to ask them to visualize whatever can bring them positive emotions and draw them down.
More connections in the shelter
Then I visited the shelter which is operated by Sunnyvale Community Center. I saw people there waiting in line to be let in the big warehouse-like building, where they will stay during the night and will be sent out before 9 o’clock the next morning. And some asked me for food even the shelter offered their super just because the food is not going to be distributed until 6pm but they have been hungry for a whole day. I used to volunteer in that community center as a food packer. And when I was told that they were building a shelter, I imagined people there will be taken good care of. And I’ve been watching a lot about the homeless in shelters from TV News. But not until I stood there with them and saw how it looked like in the shelter that I could feel these real people with real suffering.
I remember Venessa who met months ago and told me she lived in Sunnyvale shelter. I went to the shelter several times to see if I could find her for my project, or if I could find someone else to do that. People lined up there were very friendly to help and asked one another about her name. Even I didn’t find her, many of them are willing to help with my project, with the food I shared with them, and they told me many stories about them. And here some of their beautiful works.
Photo copy right by Sophia Pang
Mary and her dream home where her Mom and her twin babies living together, with a palm tree in the front yard, a Japanese cherry blossom in the backyard, a USA flag on the side of the house, and Starbuck in her kitchen. At last she added a big Mercedes car in front of her house. Her home used to be in San Jose but was burn down last August. She’s working but still can’t afford her housing.
Photo copy right by Sophia Pang
Photo copy right by Sophia Pang
This is Temara and her very cute doodles. Her used to be a veterinarian. She was so happy when she was drawing these little vivid doodles and she asked me to take a selfie with her. And she said many times “Thank you”.
Photo copy right by Sophia Pang
And David and the two cats he feeds everyday on his way. He used his keys as a cat-call and he showed me this cat-call like dancing. He works as a security in a hotel.
Photo copy right by Sophia Pang
And this is from Lisa, a Mom of six children. She wrote down the names of all her six children and said to me “Please pray for them in your church.”
The connections with them are so real. Even I wasn’t completely comfortable at the beginning, they change the negative stereotype against the homeless for me through these wonderful paintings. What’s more, they allow me to see and appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of every individual of them, even when they’re in very vulnerable situations. I think that’s the meaning of social connection for me. I used to be in post-partum depression and was taken cared by people’s kindness, and these positive connections toward me strengthen me to reach out to help and to build connections to support others. And when I see people, offer my kindness, I feel that I am seen and having positive regards to myself too.
What we can do for the homeless?
I found some numbers about homelessness in Santa Clara County from Google. (Quoted from: 2017 Santa Clara County Homeless Census and Survey Report https://www.sccgov.org/sites/osh/ContinuumofCare/ReportsandPublications/Documents/2017%20Santa%20Clara%20County%20Homeless%20Census%20and%20Survey%20Report.pdf)
In 2017 there are 7,394 individuals experiencing homelessness in Santa Clara County and more than 5,400 of them are unsheltered. They are living in their cars, in cheap motels, in the parks or under the bridges.
I loved some words from a TEDx talk by Rex Hohlbein about homelessness. He said: “What do we do with all the information that we are constantly hearing about homelessness? Do we take it in? Does it touch us? Mostly importantly does it motivate us to get involved in some way.
NO ONE chooses to be homeless, no one. Every single person outside has a profound reason for being there. And in our busy life we have passed over those profound reasons. We have given over this task of ending homelessness to government, nonprofits, religious institutes… If we’re going to end suffering of homelessness, we are all going to have to slow down and get involved in some way and try to show some kindness to them.
Kindness does not try to fix anyone. Kindness does not try to control the outcome of donation. Kindness is just for kindness sake. But in the moments of acknowledgement, of connection, of friendship, of relationship, hope is created, and hope is everything for those have nothing.”
I hope my connections to these people can bring them some feeling of hope too. This project will be continued, and now I have papers and markers in my backpack everywhere I go. I hope the people I connect can see they’re so worthy by these moments they’re visualizing, and by experiencing these positive moments they can also broaden their minds and see the value of relationships, the strength they have, the motives to change, and make it possible to build their resources to live in a different way.
