The Great Reflection
While I know this time has been marked by some as the Great Resignation and many are taking this time to resign from their current roles to either leave the workforce entirely or find roles that more closely align with their core values at this stage of their journey. For me, I have experienced what I will call The Great Reflection. After pressing the gas and being in a perpetual state of go since COVID, I was long overdue for a pause.
Hitting the pause button to reflect on all that’s happened since the pandemic started was long overdue. For me, there were not only work-related changes but also changes to the dynamic of my personal life as well. Like so many people, I found my state of normal changes on various levels at work, at home, and within my community. Below are a few of my reflections and thoughts.
During the pandemic, my mother came to live with us full time. She reached the point that she could no longer live alone. A few years before COVID hit, we learned that she was starting to show signs of Parkinson’s disease. A few months into the pandemic and she joined us for good. Becoming a part of the sandwich generation has been a transition. Some days I don’t feel like there is enough of me to go around. However, I’m mostly filled with gratitude that I get to share this time with someone so special. It’s tough watching your parent grow old; especially, if they are battling an illness that is adding complexity to aging gracefully. I’m in awe daily of my mother’s strength and willingness to persevere.
The blurred boundaries around work and life. At the onset of COVID, it was a lot of moving parts and that equated to long days that bled over into the evenings and nights. It was drafting communications, dealing with exposures, and trying to pull together processes and protocols in a space that we had never played in before. However, as we started to work from home, the routine of pushing work across the boundaries of life continued. What started out as a temporary need became the norm. Reflecting on this, no one ever told me that I had to continue to be “on” all the time. It was an expectation that I placed on myself until I could no longer withstand it.
Year two of the pandemic was a lot…and burned me out. Running from fire to fire takes its toll on anyone eventually. I am no different. By the time June 2021 rolled around, I was pretty burned out. With family obligations and a workload that had stretched beyond a reasonable capacity, I was suffering. Somehow I have managed to hang in there and find my way back. However, it’s increasingly clear that boundaries are good, and sticking to them is necessary. It’s also important to establish what can and can’t be done given the resources you have been provided. There is no HR magic wand…great things happen but they require resources (both monetary and human). It’s not my responsibility to work myself to death trying to accomplish what hasn’t been resourced. It’s my responsibility to communicate what can be realistically accomplished given the resources on hand. It’s also my responsibility to hold my boundaries at all costs because nothing is worth your physical and/or mental health.
It’s okay to extend myself some grace. Change takes adjustment. Reflecting on the past two years, I didn’t give myself enough grace given all the change that was coming full force in my direction. You almost need to be intentional about taking a close look at the changes happening and what they mean to your life. What is the impact of those changes on how you live and work? It’s a time when you have to renegotiate with yourself. Adding things to my plate should have meant being okay with taking some things off. Trying to do it all leads to burnout (see #3); so, show yourself grace early in the process and allow yourself an adjustment period when dealing with change.
Something that I’m still processing and reflecting on is George Floyd’s murder. There is just an enormous sadness that I haven’t really discussed that I feel whenever I think about what happened to him. However, not just him, I feel the same sadness when I think about Ahmaud Arbery. It was hard to even know how to process these events without crumbling under the weight of what they meant. I was overcome with an extreme sense of helplessness. However, I pledge to use whatever voice I may have, to speak out and educate others about racism and its horrible impact on people. It still doesn’t seem like enough and I’m still processing how to not be helpless but exercise my power to honor these men.
The bottom line is that I’m just now - almost three years into the pandemic, processing everything that has happened and drawing conclusions about how these events are changing me. True reflection requires us to pause and we can’t do the deep work if we are always moving. In this movement - busyness - we don’t allow ourselves time to feel the emotions and process fully the gravity of the situation. So, many times I have been told to not feel - just keep going. So, we keep moving from situation to situation. However, I’m fully committed to honoring myself with compassion, setting boundaries that put what I value first, and using my voice to speak out about the things that can no longer be protected by silence.
