Messy Emotions R’ Us

I think of myself as a level-headed person not prone to freak outs. I’ve had a long career and been through all kinds of ups and downs, from winning awards and interviewing celebrities to laying people off and being laid off myself. People tell me I seem unflappable, and it’s true that I’ve worked hard to project a sense of calm control no matter the circumstances. (Partly that was a survival tactic: When I started my career, you didn’t dare “act like a girl.”)

But managing my emotions during this never-ending pandemic has felt like a full-time job.

There is a new recognition that expressing our vulnerability at work isn’t just a normal human thing — it’s a leadership skill that can help build a sense of psychological safety for your teams. But how do we strike a balance when we feel suddenly overwhelmed, awash in the emotions that come with another disrupted season?

The experienced executives and insightful coaches I’m fortunate enough to interact with daily have great advice about staying (relatively) sane amid the chaos. Among the bits of advice I am relying on these days:

• Connect to your body to stay grounded in the moment. A technique I learned from coach Dana Look-Arimoto is to stand up from my desk, take a giant step back, and then turn completely around. Physically stepping back in this way interrupts my feelings of frantic tension and reminds me to widen my perspective. Or try this “three balls” exercise from coach Joie Seldon. “Start by becoming aware of your feet on the ground, particularly the balls of your feet. Take a breath and sense air flowing down to the balls of your feet. Take the time you need to really sense the balls of your feet. Then bring your awareness to your pelvis, specifically your ovaries or testicles. Take a moment to imagine energy flowing into these two areas. Finally, become aware of your eyeballs. Not the whole eye, just your eyeballs. Now, sense all three of these areas at the same time: the balls of your feet, your ovaries or testicles, and your eyeballs. This is a great way to ground yourself quickly, and you can do it in public — for example before giving a speech — because no one will know what you’re doing.”
• Build big and small ‘pauses’ into your schedule. High achievers don’t like to let up even for an hour, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last two years, it’s that giving ourselves a break isn’t optional. I interviewed Molly Q. Ford, Vice President, Global Equality Programs at Salesforce, for our podcast recently, and she described all of the steps Salesforce has taken to foster the wellbeing of their employees, from all-hands Monday mental health sessions to instituting a no-questions-asked Covid leave policy. But Molly had to overcome her own trepidation to take a break herself. “This year I took three weeks off for the first time in 10 years,” she said. “And asking for that was scary and crazy, but my manager’s reaction was, ‘Yeah, we get it.’” She is now dedicated to building big and small pauses into her own routine. “I’ve decided that I need a vacation on the horizon, that I need to know there’s a point where I’m going to be able to disconnect.” Just as important for her is “‘doing small things to find joy.” Each Friday she schedules 25-minute coffee sessions with newer hires or interns at the company. “It gives me a nice reprieve from the normal meeting-meeting-meeting cadence where I have to solve something.”

• Check in frequently with your community. “Networking” is one of my least favorite words–it emphasizes transactional give-get relationships over the genuine connection that happens when you share your story with another person. In our November Watermark Women’s Meetup, Karen Wickre, author of Taking the Work out of Networking: Your Guide to Making and Keeping Great Connections, shared her best advice: Be curious. Ask people how they’re coping, delve into the things that are inspiring them, and don’t be afraid to reach out just to say “I’m thinking about you and wondering how you are doing.” One of my favorite questions is one we ask in each Watermark podcast: How did you end up in your job or profession? Every woman has a story to tell, and this kind of “networking” helps you feel inspired and energized.

Wishing you peace and joy in this New Year.

- Peggy Northrop

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash