Once you reach your 40s, or possibly earlier,
you’re likely to have experienced a profound personal hardship and had to
navigate through it while keeping your job.
Whether it’s the death of a loved one, a
divorce, a life-threatening disease, a significant injury or something else,
personal hardship takes its toll on us all at one point or another. Here are
some tips to care for yourself and others when these twists and turns of life
occur:
1. Check In with Yourself – The Emotion Wheel is a helpful tool to get you
in touch with how you’re feeling. Give yourself the gift of being honest when
others ask you how you are. When my father passed away and people asked how I
was I’d say “really sad” or whatever was true. Then I’d notice people would
either try to talk me into feeling better (don’t do this! Let a person feel
what they feel), or they’d change the topic, or they’d meet me where I was with
compassion and kindness. The latter always felt best. When you’re going through
a hardship your job is to feel and process it, not to fake it to make others
feel better. That approach will only suppress the grief and lengthen the
healing process.
Figure-3.2-The-Emotion-Wheel
SmartTribes
Institute
1. Ask For Help – Yes, many of us have been
taught that this is a sign of weakness (as is vulnerability), but it couldn’t
be farther from the truth. People want to help. It feels good. And when they
are asked for help, it lights up the reward center in their brain and is deeply
fulfilling to them [see work of Naomi Eisenberger of UCLA]. Asking for help is
actually generous to others, as well as to yourself. Saying you can’t do
something honors your Organismic Rights to Exist and to Have Needs.
It took me a while to let myself reach out to others, and it amazed me how
eager they were to help, and how deeply satisfying it was for them.
2. Pad Your Schedule – When you’re in the middle
of a personal crisis or profound hardship, you’re not fully present. You can’t
be. Part of you is
processing the trauma, grief, shock of the experience. And based on the degree
of intensity, the part of you that’s temporarily “away” can be a huge part.
When my stepson died it was a world-jarring shock—one day he was fine, then
boom! The next morning he was gone. A large part of me was pre-occupied with
deep grieving for many months. So I worked less, and set deadlines with 2-3x
the wiggle room I normally allocated.
3. Get Into Nature – There’s nothing like nature
to be life-affirming, especially when we need to remember beauty, grace and the
peace of stillness. Even a 30 minute quiet walk in the trees or a park can
bring one peace. Ideally you’ll be surrounded by quiet and forest, yet do what
you can.
4. Meditate – learning to cultivate internal peace
and quiet provides you with a sanctuary you can always retreat to. Even a mere
5 minutes daily starts to train your mind that it’s not in charge—your higher
self which witnesses the constant barrage of thoughts is.
5. Watch Movies That Help You Feel – You may need
to laugh and lighten up, you may need to cry and let it all out. An executive
coaching client of mine once told me he didn’t cry, it just wasn’t something he
did. Then a personal hardship occurred in his life and he needed to cry, he
needed the release. But he wouldn’t let himself. Then the suppressed sorrow
became anger. I urged him to watch one of a variety of movies that would help
him cry. Finally he agreed to, and he cried for several hours. He finally let
it all out. And he’s been a different, gentler, kinder, more connected person
since.
6. Honor The Process – Healing from a personal
hardship will take different amounts of time for different people. Honor your and their process,
without setting expectations and deadlines (hey! Aren’t you done grieving yet?
= not cool!). The seasons take time, so does healing. Chill. Enjoy the process,
let it unfold, gather the wisdom from it, as later you’ll look back on it as a
transformative time.
The Net-Net
Sooner or later we all have to navigate our
work while moving through a personal hardship.
Asking others for help, giving yourself
internal and external space, and getting into nature help a great deal.
Are you navigating a personal hardship right
now? If so, what’s helping you?
Christine Comaford is a leadership and
culture coach who helps businesses achieve growth. Learn more at SmartTribes Institute and
see Power Your Tribe: Create Resilient
Teams in Turbulent Times and SmartTribes: How Teams Become
Brilliant Together.
No comments:
Post a Comment