Anjali George's Extraordinary Graduation Speech for Access Institute Fellows

Last week it was the Fellows turn to join the ranks of Access Institute’s 2020/21 graduates. Many hugs were shared yesterday as Access Institute bid farewell at our Fellow’s Graduation Luncheon. We will miss all of our graduates dearly but can’t wait to see all the fantastic things they accomplish moving forward!
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At the graduation ceremony, Anjali George Ph.D., Director of Elder Services, offered the new graduates an extraordinary speech that perfectly captured these challenges and triumphs and we thought it worth sharing.

Last week it was the Fellows turn to join the ranks of Access Institute’s 2020/21 graduates. Many hugs were shared yesterday as Access Institute bid farewell at our Fellow’s Graduation Luncheon. We will miss all of our graduates dearly but can’t wait to see all the fantastic things they accomplish moving forward!
 
At the graduation ceremony, Anjali George Ph.D., Director of Elder Services, offered the new graduates an extraordinary speech that perfectly captured these challenges and triumphs and we thought it worth sharing.
 
Anjali is parting ways with Access Institute in September as she makes the move to private practice. We are all ecstatic for Anjali’s next chapter but Access is going to miss her tremendously! She has had an indescribable impact on making the Elder Program all that it is.
 
Enjoy Anjali’s speech in it’s entirety:
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“We tried to the do the impossible this year—we, the staff, tried to run a fully remote training program in the midst of a global pandemic. And you, the fellows, tried your utmost to absorb the abundancy that is Access’s training from the flat beam of screens in your homes. Impossible. You provided the highest caliber care you could muster for your patients. You did this in the midst of fear, uncertainty, attacks on truth, attacks on democracy, racial injustice, and so much lack. A problem of too much space is how I’ve come to think of it. There were moments when you made it. Moments you didn’t. I think we all know this feeling too well—reaching, grasping, trying to close the gap, trying to connect to our work, ourselves, and others. Impossible.

This idea of too much space makes me think of the silence of this year at Access. Deafening at times. Silence. Too much space, too much distance, incarnate. Silence.

The silence is the thing that existed between us and that we endured together. In the absence of being next to each other in a room, as we are here today, the silence is what surrounded us, staring back at us, day in and day out, face to face, sometimes even as we filled the space with words.

Not quite connected, just shy of managing to mutually contain one another. In the silence, I heard our collective futility-- we couldn’t and wouldn’t connect even if we tried… mightily. Somehow there was something always…missing. And we alternated between trying and resigning, at times embracing the futility of it. I wonder if leaning into the futility was one way we protected ourselves from registering the heaviness of disappointment, the something missing feeling, of this year.

And yet, it happened, there were moments when you did connect. Many of these were moments laden with paradox. Sometimes, it took shutting parts of yourself down while you pushed to be present as much as possible for those situations and people you felt responsible for. Even while trying to stay connected, you had to keep parts of yourself hidden. You muted yourself, you turned off your cameras. The aim was survival, literally. Exposure was too dangerous….

In the psychic sense, the only way we dare to let go is when we know the full weight of our experience will be held by a tightly woven net of shared experience.

You know this because now it’s your business to know this.

Impossible. And yet there is something to be proud of. I have no doubt in my mind. Even as that word impossible rings in the air, I know that each of you made the impossible possible for your patients. Maybe you couldn’t always give all you wanted, do all you wanted, be all you wanted to be. It took so much out of you, to create the conditions in yourself to allow your patients to experience themselves as real. You literally had to be a space for them, an environment in which to inhabit. How can we be proud? When we feel so bad about all that was missing, all the ways this year fell short of what we had hoped and dreamed of? And yet that is our task here today.

You all had moments of triumph, when you know you broke the seal and touched someone deeply. I want you to pause and think of one of these moments right now. My wish is that I knew what these moments were for each of you, that they weren’t experienced so privately, so on your own. See if you can unearth the memory. How do you know you affected someone? What does it feel like to know it in your bones? Raise it up like a glass of champagne, let’s marvel at it together. Here. Now. At the same time.

I invite you to now turn your thoughts to a moment when you felt someone here touched you deeply. Think of how affected you were, how you felt altered by the encounter, perhaps a little lighter after. Maybe it wasn’t someone, maybe it was a collective encounter. Let’s think of it together. See if you can roll it between your fingers, notice what you remember.

Here we are. This moment has finally arrived. Your GRADUATION DAY! You worked incredibly hard to get here. From the moment you started researching and dreaming up this life and career for yourself….
I can assure you, you’re not dreaming now….

I am honored to be here on this momentous occasion as you cross the threshold between being a therapist in theory to being a therapist in practice. Turns out you’d been doing it all along.
Some of you may not feel ready…. yet here you are… at the finish line.

It is hard to leave Access, hard to leave training. I should know. In some ways I never left. I just kept pushing a button that extended my stay year after year. But in life nothing stays the same. And for all of us, at some point, the time comes to leave. Just like you know you can’t stay anymore, I know I can’t either. I know it in my heart. But I will miss Access dearly. Years in training keep your ears close to the ground, connected to the people who tremble and shake from the world’s injustices and to those who are learning to help them despite the odds. I wish you all success, money, and a career that sustains you, but I also hope you all continue to find ways to stay connected to populations who most need your sensitivity and depth of thinking….. AND your professionalism. Because that’s what you are now. Pro- fessionals!

Congratulations To You!”