Apologies for the radio silence. January was HARD. Plus, rather than send out an email like clockwork, I tend to wait until I've got something useful to say. And I haven't felt I had anything useful to say until now...
When I was beating myself up for not getting down my list as far as 'write a newsletter' in January, I realised that I needed to take the advice I was giving to everyone else.
1. Normalise how you are feeling
Miserable. Overwhelmed. Like I wasn't doing a good enough job anywhere in my life. Totally normal given that it was January, 10 months in to a global pandemic with little end in sight, with kids needing to be homeschooled and one person down for the month in our central team. All. Feelings. Totally. Understandable.
2. Don't add to the pain by beating yourself up
The worst of our suffering often comes by our own self judgement, rather than the actual emotion itself. I was beating myself up for feeling miserable. And beating myself up for not having the mental / emotional capacity to put something into writing. Which leads me to...
3. Reality check your expectations of yourself
It is simply not realistic to expect the best version of your working self during these times - whether you've got kids at home with you or not. I was coaching someone who was struggling to balance work and homeschooling. The thing is, she told me, that the school work is compulsory and her work is also non-negotiable. Conversations were needed with both work and school about what was realistic right now. I have been performing at less than 100% and it is HARD when you are client facing and running a small business. What has helped is to prioritise. My non-negotiables were being totally present when facilitating / coaching and letting some of the admin / marketing fall through the cracks.
So... apologies...I think. Another story I've found myself sharing is one that happened to me on the labour ward 9 years ago. I was, erm, not very polite to the anaesthetist on duty that day. I'd been waiting for three hours since requesting an epidural and... you don't need to know the detail. The next day, I was mortified. And set about trying to find the guy to apologise. The midwife came up to me and said, "No-one needs to apologise on the labour ward". It was such a healing thing to hear. In one sentence, she alleviated all of my guilt and my shame about how I'd behaved under intense pressure. Maybe we could extend that same instant forgiveness to our colleagues, and indeed to ourselves, when we fall short of our expected standards right now.
We're putting to practise in our system what we see is needed in the wider system. Yes, it's been the darkest month I've ever known. And I'm beginning to feel hopeful. My friends in the NHS tell me they feel hopeful for the months ahead (when they really didn't in 2020). And, despite today's snowy conditions, we have much more sunlight and signs of Spring on the way.
There's going to be a lot of work to be done in reducing the inequalities caused and exacerbated by the pandemic.
We're up for it.
Rox