Category: Wellbeing

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

What I learned in lockdown

One film I occasionally watch when it pops up on television or a streaming service is Ground Hog Day. In the film, Bill Murray (Phil Connors in the movie) navigates being caught in a repetitive time loop of a day that goes wrong, a day where he could have made better choices, been a better person. Finally, after some self-indulgent behaviour, Bill gets it and realises that if he changes he can get himself out of this loop, this constantly repeating day. It is a film that makes me laugh. At least it did until I got caught up in my own repeating loop of lockdowns in Sydney.

Admittedly, like many, I don’t have control over all that is happening in my world at present. As we enter into further restrictions, varying depending on which local government area or state you live in, it is hard not feel a little disheartened. Generally, it is important to maintain and enhance positive emotions for our wellbeing. Living in lockdown, it is even more essential to prioritise positivity.

“Prioritising positivity means designing and/or organising your daily life to maximise the experience of positive emotions. Research has shown that people who put themselves in situations or contexts where they are likely to experience a range of positive emotions are more likely to feel happier and experience fewer depressive symptoms. Another form of prioritising positivity is known as “pleasant event scheduling”, such a playing with pets” (Green, 2019).

So coming back to the film, I took a lesson from Bill and looked at what I’ve learnt from my lockdown experiences – what kept me buoyant, what bad habits I could ditch, and what I can do this time around that has been proven to increase positivity. Here is some of what has helped me and I hope may help you.

Keep moving

Feeling sluggish in lockdown is not unusual. Remaining inside in line with imposed health restrictions, devoid of our normal opportunities to exercise, it is easy to become inactive. Hours at home either at your work computer, or on the couch binging on your latest favourite series, can certainly bring the energy level down.

Weeks without my regular swimming practice doesn’t help my wellbeing; I need a regular physical exercise routine to keep me moving, to get some oxygen into my blood stream. I set aside time each day to walk, walk, walk to take up my sixty minutes out-of-the-house exercise allocation. Not only am I feeling better and having my curiosity sparked, I am getting to know my neighbourhood better and enjoying the various architectural and horticultural gems I discover along the way. Dog walkers will totally understand this experience.

If you are unable to leave the house, check out online exercise or yoga classes – there are plenty of them available. And remember, exercise has many of the same benefits for depression or anxiety as medication.

Stay connected

Many of us are presently at home with partners and family, or indeed living alone, and removed from the contact with our regular social circles, with our friends and extended family members. We are social animals and as such have a need for connection. Nurturing positive relationships with others is important for our wellbeing.

During lockdown, I find it helpful to do regular check-ins with my friends and close contacts. I get to know how they are travelling, what their particular challenges are, and what strategies they are employing to deal with our restricted lifestyle. And the check-ins let me to share my experiences and broadens my currently limited horizons.

Making regular contact lightens the load of isolation. It grants us an opportunity to reminisce and savour the joys of life, have a laugh, and overall, to increase our positivity.

Choose your news and limit it

I am a news fanatic and like to follow what’s happening in different parts of the world, in different social and political spheres. Over the last lockdowns, and early into this one, I found myself watching and listening to too much television and radio news updates. Often the same statistics and stories about the pandemic endlessly repeated. A COVID news loop.

My partner finally said to me, “Enough, you’re not doing yourself any favours with all this news. You’re just heightening your anxiety.” So I cut back, limited my news intake, and returned to my ‘to be read’ book pile. I got back to doing something I love – reading.

If you’ve been consumed by the news and/or social media, introduce some “pleasant event scheduling”. Return to doing other things that bring you joy – cooking, knitting, gardening, painting, listening to music, the list goes on – to enhance your positivity.

Such a move ensures you have more to discuss with others when you do your regular check-ins. Remember, there was a time pre-COVID when we engaged in broader topics of conversation!

Use your time productively

At my house, there are many tasks awaiting my attention – an overstuffed cupboard that requires clearing, numerous book piles that need sorting into some sort of yet-to-be-determined order, my yearly tax return, a garden shed full of unknown surprises – I could go on. You get the picture and I’m sure you could match me one-for-one.

These lockdown restrictions have provided an opportunity for us to take time to do long-standing tasks or activities. Not so they become chores, rather that they become achievements of time well spent during the pandemic. A COVID bonus if your like. For me last year it was tackling a neglected garden and reinvigorating my back yard.

This is a chance to set a plan to use your time beneficially and have something positive to look forward to – and back on – as time well spent in lockdown.

Be kind to yourself and others

Last, but not least, be kind. Kindness boosts our levels of wellbeing and has a positive impact on self and others. There is much uncertainty swirling around us at the moment and it is easy to get caught up in the vortex. Maybe you’re late on a deadline, or forgot to undertake a particular task, or get cranky when someone doesn’t call you back – all perfectly understandable with so many things competing for our attention as we adapt to the ‘new normal’. Nonetheless it is a good time to lower your expectations a little and relax. After all, in life’s big picture do these things really matter?

Time to give yourself, and others, a break and employ kindness instead of criticism. Because deep down you know we are all really just doing our best in these strange and extraordinary times.

And if all else fails, just watch a movie – but maybe not Ground Hog Day. Stay safe and strong and reach out if you need support.

REFERENCES:

Green, Suzy (2019). The Positivity Prescription. Sydney: Dr. Suzy Green

About the Author: Julie Regan

Entitlement & paying attention

One of the things I have been thinking about post-2020, and our first year of living with the Covid virus, is entitlement. The last year has seen many shifts in the global consciousness with many institutions, beliefs and assumptions being challenged for the ongoing misunderstanding and mistreatment of diverse and often disenfranchised communities.

The communities I am thinking of are those involved in and affected by Black Lives Matter protests, the #MeToo movement, transgender rallies, LGBTQIA+ struggles, disability and neurodiversity community battles, indigenous rights and political recognition campaigns, environmentalist battles – the list goes on.

The last year has provided an opportunity to reflect and question much about our world. Injustice and inequality has risen as the pandemic has wreaked havoc on many industries and workplaces, with many people losing their livelihoods as sectors of the economy across the world have been wiped out – think of the tourism industry for one. Mental distress and alienation is on the rise as ways of socially engaging and connecting shift, as uncertainty about what the future holds grows.

The stories of how people are engaging and coping with these changes are all around us.

It is important to stay up to date with shifts that are occurring within society and not act from a place of entitlement and ignorance, a place of assumed knowledge. It is easy to fall into this trap as we lead busy lives with many demands on our time and attention. However, it is also important to broaden our perspective of the world to incorporate people and experiences that encourage us to think outside our own bubble, to hear stories outside our experience or those of our peer group.

At this time of great social change, we all need support and allies, people who show empathy and can see the world through other’s eyes, who show understanding as we face down our own individual challenges. So I encourage you to pay attention and listen to the stories, all the different stories that are being told around you. They will introduce you to characters that have the power to broaden your horizons, present you with different perspectives, create connections, and enrich your life.

“Stories have a transformative power to allow us to see the world in a different way than we do if we just encounter it on our own. Stories are an entry point to understanding a different experience of the world.” Clare Patey, Director of the Empathy Museum.

Please get in touch if the above article resonates with you in light of your own situation.

REFERENCES:

The Health foundation (2016). The power of storytelling. https://www.health.org.uk/newsletter-feature/power-of-storytelling – The Empathy Museum – https://www.empathymuseum.com/

About the Author: Julie Regan

Drawing the line

Many of us are now working at home or splitting our time between home and the ‘old’ office due to COVID restrictions. Those without the option of moving into a safe home office space over the pandemic or have been commuting to and from work trying to stay safe. Under these circumstances, the issue of work-life balance has been more highlighted than it was previously. While we speak of work-life balance, it is really more about work-life boundaries, about how we control the boundaries around work and non-work activities.

“Boundary control refers to the extent to which you perceive that you are in control of how you manage the boundaries between your work life and personal life.“ (Kossek, 2016, p.262)

Boundary control will vary for each individual as we have our own unique ways of working and engaging around work and what we value; distinctive personalities and behaviours; different life phases; and preferred work styles. Kossek (2016) has identified three work styles – integrators who are happy to mix work and personal activities during the day ensuring that work is done by working later, or on weekends to make up the time and ensure the job gets done; cyclers being those who have jobs that have peak busy periods where work concertinas between busy and quiet (think teachers or FIFO workers); and separators being those who have a clear delineation between work and personal life, setting limits on both and preferring, or being unable, to mix the two.

The digital world in which we live makes it easy to be ‘on’ far more than ever. Enhanced communication technology allows more connectivity and immediacy, creating expectations that people are constantly available (Von Bergen, Bressler. 2019). The merging of work and non-work has implication for personal well-being and relationships, as well as the organisational level.

“Effectively managing work—life boundaries cannot only reduce work—life conflicts, but can also reduce stress, burnout, addictions, mood disorders, and enhance mental and physical health.” (Kossek, 2016, p.259)

“The ‘always-on’ work culture also creates numerous problems for organisations stemming primarily from the fact that it denies workers a sense of individual efficacy and autonomy by putting them on a permanent state of alert. It drains morale and initiative, and scatters employees’ mental resources, making it difficult for them to take ownership of projects and prioritise their efforts. Additionally, research on working long hours is associated with productivity decreases for firms.” (Von Bergen, Bressler, 2019, p.54)

France was the first European country to recognise the importance of ‘work-life’ boundaries, introducing the ‘right to disconnect’ legislation in 2017. The El Khomari law recognises that “employees are under no obligation to bring work home…and that it was not misconduct if an employee was not reachable on a smartphone outside of work hours.” (Von Bergen, Bressler, 2019, p.57). In an Australian first, the Victorian Police recently had the ‘right to disconnect’ written into their enterprise bargaining agreement. Police officers are to be contacted outside of their shift hours only in the case of an emergency such as a bushfire or terrorist attack. (Ziffer, 2021)

Although we are not always one hundred percent in control of our work flow, we are in the main responsible for setting our own work-life boundaries. We are in charge of our own self-care, of knowing our preferred working style, of knowing when we are happiest with our life situation, and when someone has overstepped the line. To determine what those boundaries are requires self-reflection, time out to review our current situation and ponder how things might be different going forward.

“If you feel you do not have time to develop friendships outside of work, exercise, or just relax to take care of yourself, particularly if you place a high value on needing time for self, you are unlikely to have healthy work— life boundaries.“ (Kossek, 2016, p.265)

What are your work boundaries? How are you setting boundaries to ensure you have a sense of control over your life in these COVID times? Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if the above resonates with you in light of your own situation.

About the Author: Julie Regan

Experiencing zoom fatigue & moving forward

In my last article I wrote about how the global COVID pandemic has seen change become the order of the day, along with the realisation that we now have the opportunity to do things differently. Nowhere is this more evident than in how we conduct our working lives, for example, using video conferencing technology like Zoom on a daily basis.

Many of us are working from home, or a mixture of home and office, or indeed not working at all due to the loss of employment. It has been a time of massive re-adjustment as we’ve pivoted to create new structures for our working day.

Office meetings are now held via Zoom or other remote platforms; the in-person connection gone as we sit in our home work spaces and speak to colleagues about our joint projects and delivery schedules. We have a new phenomenon of Zoom meeting fatigue as managers attempt to hold teams together through daily remote connect up times. And you hear people speak of craving face-to-face connection like old times, longing for a chance to share a coffee with a client or work colleague over lunch.

Working from home during the pandemic and often freed from the daily commute, we’ve been offered a period of reflection; an opportunity to re-evaluate how we spend our time and the rituals we have in place to support our daily lives. As a result, attitudes to work, a place that once provided the major sense of connection, achievement, and satisfaction have changed; work no longer has the same focus in our lives.

Don’t get me wrong, work still holds an important place in our day. However, the last year has allowed many of us to restructure and reorder our time to fit other things that equally provide a sense of achievement and connection into our daily routine. It has allowed us to work smarter so we can easily include physical activities like going to the gym, gardening or taking a long walk; so we can connect and have more time with family and friends at the end of our working day instead of commuting; so we can read or relax watching our favorite streaming series. We have looked to other things to provide us with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, at other ways of connecting to people.

New rituals have been put in place as we move to create some sort of stability and certainty in uncertain times. In my community, the first wave of the pandemic and lockdown saw an increased number of us walking in our local park in the morning and grabbing a coffee as we headed home to start our working day. Not a big thing, but a change in the way we started our day as we all tried to maintain a fitness routine and some sense of connection to our neighbours from a distance.

And I am not saying we are working less or slacking off; far from it, as research shows that productivity has increased and people are actually working longer hours when working from home. Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research in the USA in 2020 found that

“Compared to pre-pandemic levels, increases in the number of meetings per person (+12.9 percent) and the number of attendees per meeting (+13.5 percent), but decreases in the average length of meetings (-20.1 percent). Collectively, the net effect is that people spent less time in meetings per day (-11.5 percent) in the post- lockdown period. We also find significant and durable increases in length of the average workday (+8.2 percent, or +48.5 minutes), along with short-term increases in email activity” (DeFilippis et al., 2020).

Which brings me to the issue of work-life balance and how to maintain healthy boundaries between work and home in the ‘new normal’ work environment. I’ll address this in my next post.

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How are you doing work differently in 2021? Have you put healthy boundaries and new rituals for your working day into play? What do you find most enjoyable, and challenging, in your current work structure? Please get in touch if you are looking to do things differently in 2021 and would like to uncover how best to do this.

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REFERENCES:

DeFilippis, E., Impink, S. M., Singell, M., Polzer, J. T., & Raffaella Sadun, R. (2020) NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.: Collaborating During Coronavirus: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Nature of Work.

About the Author: Julie Regan

Letting go

In January I started a six month course in Narrative Coaching with Dr David Drake, a leading specialist in this field. Narrative Coaching is based on the concept “that stories are at the core of what makes us human“, and is aimed at supporting people in a safe and structured coaching environment to share their stories, to experiment and imagine new ones, and to embody and bring these new stories into being. It is a powerful way to assist people to change.

As a continuous learner I love nothing more than the challenge of new concepts, discovering new ideas, and appreciating what a diverse and wonderful world it is that we live in. I also enjoy observing and experiencing how my learning teaches me new and different ways to live, to work with people to bring their ideas to life.

Before we started David sent us a four powerful prompts to help us prepare for the course, to get us in the right frame of mind for the forthcoming immersive learning experience. The questions were framed to encourage us to reflect on our lives, who we are in the world, what has lead us into coaching, how we work with and listen to our coachees; all important and reflective questions.

Which assumptions, habits, stories or outdated practices could you let go of in order to free yourself to work more powerfully as a coach?

The most powerful and challenging of the four questions was the one above. It was followed up with a discussion on self-limiting beliefs in our first live session. Reflecting on this question and the discussion I came to the realisation I was indeed holding myself back; that some of my assumptions, habits and stories, self limiting beliefs – around being a successful writer, a successful coach, of being the best person I know I can be – were on a continuous re-wind loop. A loop keeping me stuck just spinning my wheels.

It was a liberating realisation because it highlighted things I can let go of – mainly beliefs and old stories not grounded in current reality – and made me aware that I am standing in my own way by hanging onto these things. Importantly, it reminded me that things do not have to be this way; I can let go and move forward and that is perfectly OK.

I am still pondering the question and looking forward to discovering what else I can let go of in the coming months. What about you? Anything that is holding you back, no longer serving you, that can be released?

Drake, David B. (2018) Narrative Coaching: the definitive guide to bringing new stories to life. CNC Press, California