Category: Self care

Self care at year end

The final month of 2021 has arrived and the rush to year’s end is gathering pace. It is a time of heightened demands on our time this month as we attempt to finalise projects and tasks to ensure we start the new year with a clean slate, as we make arrangements for the festive season or attend festivities to mark having made it through a tough year. And this is before we get to Christmas day (if you celebrate this event) or New Year’s Eve!!

For some, this festive holiday season can generate a range of emotions or trigger levels of mental distress arising from shared family histories or non-existent celebrations or gatherings. It can be an unsafe occasion, a time of amplified anxiety, depression, sadness, or loneliness.

Here’s a few tips to keep you safe and help you navigate the demands and challenges of this busy month.

Pace yourself
As we move towards the holiday season, friends and colleagues are keen to catch up before year’s end, employees are pushing to have projects finalised, family members are eager to confirm plans for events, and parties abound. The list goes on. The pace in December can be relentless – if you let it.

Remember you have a choice in how much you take on this month. Conserving your energy is important and you don’t have to cram everything in as there is another year awaiting beyond December 30. Pace yourself and decide which activities truly need your immediate attention, and those that can be moved forward into 2022.

Celebrate with care
The festive season can be a time of overindulgence – too much food, excess alcohol, late nights and little sleep, work Christmas parties, family get togethers, new year’s revelries, and many social gatherings. For some of us who have not long emerged from lockdown, the temptation to go overboard and frenetically socialise is great.

However, all this socialising can have an impact on your physical and mental health if taken too far. The human body has a great capacity to rejuvenate and bounce back. Yet sometime we can ignore the signs of overload at our own peril. Celebrate with care and consider that your body can be overburdened by too much of a good time.

Practice kindness and be patience
Given the increased demands placed on us it is easy to become impatient and irritable, causing us to act in ways that are less than ideal towards others. We’ve all snapped at family gathering as our buttons have been pushed, often by the very people who installed them. Or at sales assistants who are doing their best to help us select festive gifts. It’s not a great look and usually leaves you feeling like a bit of a fool.

Keep in mind that you are not the only one feeling overwhelmed. We are all juggling opposing stresses. Contemplate the power of patience as it provides an opportunity to slow down a little. Count to ten if that helps – over and over if necessary. Bear in mind that kindness trumps irritability every time.

And don’t forget to check in on your friends and those who find this a particularly vulnerable season.

Bring joy
A question to ask yourself is how you can bring joy to the festive season. The COVID pandemic, and the restrictions implemented to keep us safe, have wearied us all. The connecting thread that has provided the most comfort in amongst all this has been our social networks. Reduced time with our friends, family, work colleagues, and partners has brought a heightened appreciation for their role in our lives. We have much to be grateful for and many people, including our health and essential workers, to thank.

Being around a grump or those who are downbeat is no fun at the best of times. And this year it is particularly undesirable. Think about how you can be joyful and show your love to those around you, how you can enhance their lives as we celebrate having made it to the end of 2021.

Take time for yourself
Amongst all this activity it is important to make time for yourself. We’ve all been called upon to exercise atypical flexibility as we’ve navigated our rapidly changing world. Use the festive season as an opportunity to slow down once the major festive celebrations and family commitments are over. Set aside moments to kick back and relax, to draw breath and reflect on what you have learnt over the year that was, and to dream a little about the year to come.

Me – I’ve got my reading pile in place and plan to settle in for stints with my head buried in a book, because as many of you know I’m a big reader and books are my thing (some would say my addiction, but I beg to differ!!). So let me share some of my favourite novels for 2021:

Still Life by Sarah Winman
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Enjoy and let me know your top reads for 2021. Always happy to hear a good book recommendation. And finally, thanks to my wonderful colleagues Reed and Polly, and to those of you I’ve had the privilege to work with in 2021.

To you all – have a safe and wonderful festive season and a very happy new year.

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This article first appeared on the Mannaz Journal site.

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About the Author: Julie Regan

Julie is a professional transition coach, working with people in career transition and those exploring and developing their artistic and creative practice. She is the Director of Creative Coaching Options and brings over 20 years’ experience working in the creative arts and coaching space. Julie is also a writer and film enthusiast.

Changing Times & Staying Safe

There are a number of words that sum up the human experience over 2020 and 2021. The one that stands out for me, particularly at present, is safe. More than ever we are called upon to keep ourselves, our families and communities, our work places and environments safe.

Our world is changing faster than ever before. Daily, as the pandemic rages, we are required to absorb and adapt to the restrictions brought about by the ever evolving nature of the virus and remain vigilant to the need to remain safe and protected.

Remaining safe is not just a physical need; it is also a psychological one.

The impact of this pandemic is causing varying levels of mental distress in our society as we adapt to life without the usual support structures for our mental wellbeing – social and physical engagement, personal freedoms to make choices about how and with whom we spend our time, opportunities to move freely within our suburbs, cities, states or between countries. The need for psychological safety, and the sense of security this brings, is presently high on the agenda.

Psychological safety was first defined as ‘a group phenomenon that reduces interpersonal risk’ (Schein & Bennis, 1965) in the 1960s. Dr Amy Edmondson went on to broaden the concept to include several additional factors. “Psychological safety, in large parts, depends on others: when one feels psychologically safe, he or she relies on others who will continue to trust him or her, even if an error arises. Additionally, psychological safety spans very narrow temporal boundaries. It covers interactions between individuals in the short-term when one interacts with another in a particular manner. It describes an interpersonal sense of safety that emerges over a short period of time for a given group of people.” (Drinka, 2018)

The majority of theories around psychological safety pertains to workplace teams and groups, and how to create environments that enable people to make mistakes, take risks, feel secure enough to share their ideas and embrace failure as a learning opportunity.

It is about creating a space where people feel secure in their relationships with others, with the group, to reduce the negative emotions causing anxiety and a sense of overwhelm. Edmondson identified three core leadership behaviours to support psychological safety in teams: frame work as a learning problem, acknowledge your own fallibility, and model curiosity and ask questions (Psychological safety, 2021).

With the challenges posed by the pandemic, we need to ensure we foster psychological safety and security in our currently restricted human interactions, to reduce any anxiety such interactions may bring, and to support each other as best we can at this time.

Here’s my take on Edmondson’s behaviours as a way of dealing with the change we are experiencing:

Frame the current situation as a learning opportunity

Over the last year and a half we’ve all been required to amend our behaviour, think and do things differently, and adapt to changed circumstances. Take this time to reflect on how you’ve responded and adjusted, how you’ve tried different things, how you’ve changed your mindset. Review what has and hasn’t worked – on whatever level you chose – as you’ve adapted. It is an opportunity to learn about yourself and how you may wish to do things differently going forward. Share these learnings with your friends who no doubt will have some gems of their own.

Acknowledge your own vulnerability

We are living in astonishing times. We’ve pivoted into different ways of working, socialising, thinking, just being. Constant lockdowns make it hard to plan, affecting our sense of control, often resulting in feelings of frustration and overwhelm. The need for answers and certainty is running high. Remember, there is no perfect way to deal with the crisis. It is important to acknowledge your vulnerability and allow yourself to not have all the answers. Focus on what you can control and reach out to friends, family, and support services if you need help. You are not alone in this.

Model curiosity and ask questions

Try to stay curious about our current social reality. I don’t mean bombard yourself with news feeds. Rather, reach outside yourself and become a curious observer of the changes occurring around you. How is your neighbourhood adapting and evolving, how are social interactions playing out during lockdown, how are you engaging differently with the world? Ask questions of your friends, family, work colleagues about their experience and provide the space for them to share their observations. Create some psychological safety for all at this time.

Please don’t hesitate get in touch if the above resonates with you in light of your own situation.

REFERENCES:

Drinka, Ginevra A. O. (2018) Coaching for learning agility: The importance of leader behavior, learning goal orientation, and psychological safety. PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, 2018 https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D82531CV/download

Psychological safety – History, concept and application. Psychological safety website https://www.psychsafety.co.uk/about-psychological-safety/ Accessed 26 August 2021

Schein, Edgar H (1993). How Can Organizations Learn Faster? The Challenge of Entering the Green Room. MIT Sloan Management Review, January 15, 1993 https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-can-organizations-learn-faster-the-challenge-of-entering-the-green-room/

Schein, Edgar H and Bennis, Warren G. (1965). Personal and organizational change through group methods: the laboratory approach. Wiley, New York.

About the Author: Julie Regan

Birdsong & Contemplation

One of the most enjoyable things about the last 18 months has been the birdsong in my neighbourhood. The early bird calls to welcome the day as the sun rises over the park and the empty streets and laneways. The warning calls as they chase the sun to rest across the darkening skies at days end. Shrieks of delight filling the air as the parrots strip the grevilleas of their spring blooms. Happy squawks as the minor birds splash around in the birdbath in the garden, or screech alert calls of a cat prowling amongst the flowerbeds.

In my neighbourhood, prior to the Covid pandemic, the opportunity to hear such delights was limited. The overriding clamour of close and distant traffic, the scream of planes coming and going, people making their way to work, home or somewhere else equally important, invaded our senses. The clamour we unconsciously accept as being the way things are in inner city Sydney.

It’s the price you pay for living in the city – constant unquestioned noise. And no doubt it will return once we come out of lockdown.

Now the birdsong may seem like a strange thing to focus on. But to me it symbolises stillness. The noise has dropped off and I can hear not only the birds, but also myself think. An opportunity to listen and hear what nature has to offer as I contemplate my navel in lockdown. An occasion to sit, reflect and enjoy the stillness. It has been refreshing.

The stillness is providing time, without all the peripheral clamour, to reflect on life. It is sustaining my wellbeing as I clear the clutter – both material and mental – and return to what is important. The stillness is allowing me to breathe more deeply and, as Polly writes, access my multidimensionality. I’ve had a chance to revisit my values and virtues, to create a new future vision, to evaluate my community connections, to reset goals and possible achievements, to hit refresh and get clear about what really is important to me in this rapidly changing world.

I encourage you to take an opportunity now – or at any time – to enjoy the stillness and to listen to what the birds in your neighbourhood have to say. It’s the little things, right!

About the Author: Julie Regan