Resilience and belonging (Weeknotes 14–24 January)

7 min readJan 24, 2021

It’s 10 weeks since my last weeknotes, oh well. Getting used to the strange cadence of when the writing energy and inspiration hits.

Highlights from the last 3 weeks

It’s been busy, but my highlights have been:

welcoming Jenny and Anna to the content support team at GDS — I’m very lucky because I’m line managing these 2 superstars :-) what a privilege!
some heart to heart chats with people in my team
content designing (still brexit-related!) — pairing on content work with Minal has made the challenge less challenging and more enjoyable :-)
supporting our cross-gov heads of content group who are exploring ways to solve cross-cutting problems
receiving brilliant support from my line manager and team to work flexibly while home-schooling
excellent tips and moral support from our GDS parents network — including the Happy Child App
more time (and hugs) with my kids
feeling incredible gratitude and appreciation towards my kids’ teachers for their herculean efforts balancing classroom and online learning — all done with incredible energy, care, compassion, patience and humour
gradually increasing my running distance — up to 12k, whoop
listening to my daughter’s Disney Sing Along CD on repeat :-)
discovering some new soulful music (The Breath and Mandolin Orange) — thanks Al and Anna for the recommendations!
beautiful walks and frosty days

The hard stuff — adjusting to change again

When it first hit home that the schools were closing I felt pretty dejected. I felt I didn’t have any emotional or mental energy left for another big change in routine, or for motivating the kids to work at home. I didn’t want to lose my ‘me time’ in the evenings. I didn’t want to lose the walks/runs to and from school. I didn’t want to lose the momentary and fleeting face to face connections with other parents. I didn’t want my kids to lose out on everything that’s made them thrive at school over the last few months. In truth, I was heartbroken. And I still am!

Sometimes all the negative feelings sweep over me like waves. I’m learning to stop fighting them, because that just makes me more tired. So I just surrender, lie on my back, and let them carry me for a while. Eventually (within hours or days) the wind lessens and the sun peeps out, and the sea is calm and I can start swimming again.

Whatever I’m feeling, I’ve been remembering how to manage and stay resilient. These are my main strategies:

Keep acknowledging this situation is still not normal — humans are made for relationships and connection. We’re under a lot of mental and emotional pressure, which takes its toll
It’s ok to stay in the negative feelings for a while — acknowledge them and say to myself ‘yeah, this is so hard, it’s a really crappy situation’
Don’t feel guilty for the negative feelings — they are natural and normal
Don’t compare my situation to others’ (well, so and so has it worse, so I need to stop feeling sad)
Every day, notice some positive things, or ‘moments of joy’ — like listening to a robin singing, a thing my child said, the taste of good coffee, a chat with a colleague (or reading a heart-warming story about a dog — thanks Linda!)
Allow myself to be less productive than normal at work — with the added mental strain of home-schooling and the general emotional burdens of everything, it’s just impossible for me to function at my best
Share with others how I’m feeling — with both friends and also a few trusted colleagues at work — for example, ‘I’m finding this hard’ / I’m struggling to get my brain to focus today’
Ask for help, accept offers of help and reach out to support others
Tell myself “I’ve done a good job today. I’ve done the best I could with the resources I had.”
Prioritise sleep — we should be getting at least 7–9hrs every night
Exercise — at the moment I’m only managing 1 run a week, but it really gives me a mental boost
Limit comfort eating (sometimes it’s necessary though!)
Lean into nature

I’ve also been doing some thinking about resilience, relationships and belonging.

Resilience and forgiveness

Last week the talk at my church was about the connection between forgiveness and resilience. It really struck a chord — forgiving others but also forgiving myself. Sometimes I feel I’m failing at everything. While the truth is that I’m not failing, I do make mistakes — like losing my rag with the kids and shouting at them when they’re not doing what I want them to do, or making an error of judgment on a content piece. I may need to put things right or say sorry, but then I also need to show myself compassion and forgive myself.

Forgiveness is often difficult, and when we are tested and rise to the challenge, it strengthens us. That strengthening helps us bounce back in the wake of disasters and traumas. Forgiveness can help us become more resilient. (Psychology Today, Resilience and Forgiveness)

Resilience and relationships in the workplace

One of the keys to resilience is togetherness. Walking through the muddy mire with a bunch of people you trust, you like, you laugh with, share with, people you know have your back — that feels doable. If you’ve got that then you’ll get over the finish line in good shape.

I started my new job at GDS remotely, as have so many others. It’s really hard building relationships at work when you haven’t met anyone face to face. You have to be really intentional and proactive, arranging chats with people, joining clubs and networks. I’m 6 months in and I’m still working on building a sense of belonging.

For belonging to be a thing, it’s important to feel known, seen, accepted, supported, valued, part of a team that’s pulling together in the same direction. These are the things I’ve found help with this:

meeting with 1 or 2 people frequently and repetitively, just for chats
being honest with people — you can’t build meaningful relationships unless you’re able to show up as you
you can join clubs but still feel lost in the crowd — so maybe use them to identify one or a few people with similar interests to connect with 1–2–1 or in a smaller group
finding allies and people who share your interests, concerns and passions — this can take time but keep going and don’t give up!
check-ins at the start of a day or in meetings help everyone to be seen and heard
create spaces in teams for conversations about wellbeing and togetherness
share successes and appreciations as a team — before Christmas we did a team appreciation session and it was powerful (I keep my page of ‘Things we appreciate about Lizzy’ pinned above my monitor to encourage me when I’m feeling a bit pants)

Exhaustion or loneliness?

I’m slowly getting through Brené Brown’s book Dare to Lead — I’m about half way through ‘Part One: Rumbling with vulnerability’. This week I read a story that really resonated with the belonging theme. Brené recounts a story from the director of innovation, analysis and leadership for Air Force Global Strike Command. At a staff event this director asked everyone present who was exhausted, and a most people stuck up their hands. Then she asked how many people were lonely, because some recent studies had shown loneliness was often a cause of exhaustion, rather than the pace of delivery. About 25% of people put their hands to indicate they were lonely. As a leader, she felt vulnerable asking this question, because she wasn’t sure what to do with the responses, or how to fix that problem. But it was the start of something important. She recounted:

“As leaders we are trying everything we can to reach our airmen… We spend so much time talking with them about available resources, but I’m not sure enough of us are talking about the fact that in the end, a lot of people are just lonely. They’re not connecting, and they’re not reaching out…. My willingness to ask an uncomfortable question opened the door to a great conversation. We ended the afternoon event having had a very candid discussion about how we build relationships in the unit, how we reach out to others when we’re feeling alone, and how we create a community of inclusion. It also provided valuable insight for the squadron commander and set him on a path to address the right issue: connection and inclusion versus busyness and exhaustion.”
“The words we use really matter. But words like loneliness, empathy, compassion, are not words often discussed in our leadership training, not are they included in our leadership literature… I’m comfortable using a word like lonely — sometimes an awkward and uncomfortable feeling and word for us to talk about — because I am willing to sit in that discomfort and give them permission to be in it with me.” (Brene Brown, Dare to Lead, Part One: Rumbling with vulnerability, Section 2: Call to courage)

Inspiring and thought-provoking stuff.

Let’s keep working to connect with each other in authentic, meaningful and supportive ways.

Signs of hope

It’s great to see signs of hope in some places…. including my back lawn, where the first flowers (acconites) are coming up — it’s a magical little patch of lawn where a series of different flowers come up between now and June. I love waiting for and watching the different flowers poking up in the grass.

And to end, here’s a lovely song from Mandolin Orange… “Well I try to close my eyes, Clear my mind, Just listen to the wildflowers grow, Such whispers on the breeze.”

Mandolin Orange — “Echo”

And some Disney cheese — ‘We’re All In This Together’.