Career Transition Coaching with LJN

I guess it’s not surprising, having gone through an unexpected and significant career transition myself in 2020, that the majority of my coaching clients over the past four years have been people who are themselves in a professional shake up. Some clients have had the rug pulled out from under them, and others are considering pulling out their own rug. Either way, a career transition is, as one client describes it, a roller coaster ride with hopeful ups and disappointing and discouraging lows. Being on the ride with my clients is such a privilege as we navigate an uncertain time in someone’s life - together. 

As I head into the fifth year of LJN Advisory, I wanted to gain a clearer understanding of what career coaching looks like with me. Obviously, Bridges’ Transitions model - Endings, Neutral Zone, and New Beginnings is a grounding philosophy and tool, but there are a lot of career coaches out there with varying approaches. What is unique and most helpful about mine?  It felt important to be able to answer this question so I could be clear when speaking with potential clients about what it is I do, and just as importantly, what I don’t do.  The best way to find out, was of course, to ask my clients about their experience working with me. I reached out to a few long term career transition coaching (CTC) clients with four questions. 

Firstly, I was interested to start with what their preconceptions about career coaching were before they started. Julie (all names have been changed to maintain client confidentiality) summarized everyone’s responses when she said, “I held a narrow view of career coaching, perceiving it as a surface-level service focused on refining application materials and interview skills to obtain a new position. I did not fully grasp the potential for the more comprehensive, transformative experience I was offered.”

Somewhat selfishly, I needed them to affirm that, at least with me, CTC has multiple purposes and desired outcomes. Getting a new job is just one of them. Friends, it’s tough out there - many jobs posted don’t actually exist, or have an internal candidate lined up, and if I had a dollar for every time someone told me that their applications go into a black hole with no acknowledgement, I’d be a rich woman. It’s taking a while for people to find a new professional home, so if I am carrying the pressure of the primary outcome being to find them that home, the imposter phenomenon can emerge and I become less effective. 

Secondly, I wanted to know what they were hoping to get out of CTC. Sean, who was preparing to pull out his own rug, told me, “I was hoping to find a person who would help me with the career transition I had decided to make - someone who could guide me through each step of the journey. I needed to find a coach who understood the nonprofit arts world and could therefore have an appreciation for specific challenges or circumstances that I might encounter along the way. Additionally, my resume and online professional presence needed to better tell a cohesive story of the skills and leadership qualities I bring to the table.”

Clare seconded Sean in that she while needed technical help with her materials, she knew that was just a piece of the puzzle, “Honestly, I was just in search of a new job and felt completely overwhelmed and unsure of where to begin. I can confidently say that if you're seeking assistance in crafting an outstanding resume and cover letter, Lorna Jane is exceptionally skilled in delivering results. But not fully leveraging her extensive knowledge and holistic approach would be a missed opportunity for your own professional growth.”

Some clients, like Sarah, bring to the work an all too common experience - burnout from unhealthy working habits or workplace or trauma from a painful ending, “I felt very lost and burned out coming from an extremely high-performance position and making the clear decision to take some time off. The transition approach with Lorna Jane allowed me to re-evaluate my priorities, my strengths, and what my next steps could be. I spent a lot of time thinking about whether to re-enter the traditional job market versus finding a new pathway and Lorna Jane supported all the options. Perhaps most importantly, she provided the right pacing for my transition so as not to be overwhelming - for me, I needed to work very slowly at the beginning and end of transition and more intensely in the middle of the process.”

Thirdly, I wanted to get more granular - how would they summarize what CTC actually looks like with me? I asked them to codify their experience in three bullet points. Back to Sean who was really helpful by grouping his resposne into three areas:

Holistic - LJN goes beyond the well-being of someone’s professional career and considers the impact on a clients’ entire well-being. We worked together with the understanding that what was happening in my professional life would inform and affect my whole self and set goals that were in the best interest of that comprehensive perspective.
Collaborative and Reflective - LJN reflects back observations and asks thoughtful questions. This helped me build a plan for my career transition that felt true to me. Her collaborative approach is truly empowering. 
Practical - Sessions always concluded with practical next steps that would bring me closer to either providing clarity around a career-related question I had or would move me towards achieving my goals. Sometimes that consisted of Lorna Jane sharing a related article or book, or asking me to complete a reflective exercise, or it might be an action to take. I always left our sessions with clarity around how I could continue working toward my goals, which was both motivating and gratifying.

It was helpful for me to hear that CTC with me is both holistic and practical - I work hard, when it’s desired by the client, to preserve that balance both within each session and over the arch of the engagement. And, some clients are looking solely for a holistic reset while others need a shorter engagement to primarily work on their materials. To put my search consultant hat on for a minute, when I meet with candidates for their first round screening interview, I want to recognize the person I am speaking with from what I have read about them. I don’t just mean checking that what they said they have done on their resume matches what they are telling me, but that they are using consistent language about their skills, achievements, and aspirations. If you can capture that in your materials, you can speak to it with more ease and confidence. Julie talks about this when she says, ‘LJN helped me release inner blockages that enabled me to quickly develop a more compelling narrative and resume, one that ended up unlocking a rewarding new chapter in my professional journey.’

Finally, I asked my clients to look back at their CTC experience and name what was most helpful. Clare - ‘My job search was unexpectedly long and an emotional rollercoaster that I wasn’t always prepared for. Lorna Jane played a crucial role in helping me maintain focus, recognize moments of learning and growth, stay accountable, and pushed me when I needed it the most.”

Sean reminds me that my training as a Gestalt practitioner is particularly helpful when clients are in an active search. “In addition to traditional interview preparation, Lorna Jane’s emphasis on creating a two-way street in interviews will elevate your confidence and help your decision-making throughout the job search process.” There are subtle power dynamics that fluctuate as the candidate moves through rounds of interviews with a variety of organizational stakeholders. Sean highlights a really important dynamic that I want my clients to feel grounded in - it’s a two way street. It’s as much about whether a role and organization is right for you, as whether you are right for them. If you present yourself authentically and consistently from your materials through to the final interview, you are in your own seat of power - ‘This is who I am - if I am the right fit for you, then hire me, if I am not, while I might be disappointed when I get the email releasing me from the search (hopefully you’ll get a personalized, honest, and kind one), it will be because I am not the right person for the job.’ Or, the organization’s values don’t line up with yours, or they simply don’t know what they are doing. Either way - not getting that particular job is a good outcome for the you. This framing creates a healthy amount of detachment between you and the search process - making it easier to be objective and to manage that roller coaster ride.

I’ll let Julie close us out, “For me, the absolute most helpful thing about my time working with LJN was the support and learning she provided.  I am stronger at my work from my time spent with LJN. Moving through a difficult career transition has helped me to write better, speak better, ask better questions, and lead organizations better. Working with LJN during this very difficult time was truly a gift of all around support.”

I am hopeful that if you are someone in or considering a career transition, that you recognize your experience in these reflections. It’s hard, it’s lonely, and it’s not a straight line. A coach is not right for everyone, and my appoach is not right for everyone. I learned from my clients that I am focused on the whole (that’s the gestalt piece), that grounding a clients’ search in who they are and what they bring to the table and translating that into written and verbal communication is paramount, and that the balancing of practical assignments and tools with stepping back to ask questions and observe helps people to be present and open to whatever the ride throws at them.

If Career Transition Coaching with LJN is something you are interested in learning more about. Let’s set up a time to connect.

Reemerging and reconnecting

Hi friends, family, mentors and clients past and present,

My last communication with you all was September of 2022. Almost a year. While I am 100% certain that no-one out there is losing sleep over the absence of my newsletters, I have become increasingly aware of late that I have missed my monthly Rambles with you. It helps me both to focus and learn when I dedicate a little time once a month to gather my thoughts and reflect on something that has come up in my life or work - a spark that has captured my attention or engaged my curiosity.

2023 has been extraordinary. My partner was diagnosed with cancer in February and suddenly, overnight, we were thrown into the underworld - the machine that is daily cancer treatment. It’s a club that so many people belong to or have belonged to in the past, and nearly everyone knows and loves someone who has belonged to the club. Despite how frighteningly prevalent cancer is, and no matter how much remarkable love and support you get from friends and moreover, strangers, it was a profoundly lonely and scary time. While my partner is through treatment and the prognosis looks good, the road to healing for him, for me, and for us, is long and slow - and like with all the devastating and difficult challenges that life throws at you - there’s a little piece of you that is forever changed. And that’s ok. Joy and Sorrow.

We transitioned permanently up to my house in VT in late July and Maple Tree Cottage is working her magic in the healing department. It’s really hard (for me at least) to be angry or upset about anything when you live in a state that has 78% tree coverage! August is a quiet time for me work wise which is such a blessing. I even put my vacation autoresponder on for the first time since I launched the business is 2020. I needed deep and real rest in order begin to heal, and to support my partner in his recovery.

Had a lightbulb moment recently when my dear friend and long time yoga instructor Jojo Reger shared this piece of wisdom while we were preparing for Mountain (Standing) Pose, “It takes effort and energy to stand still.” It’s so hard for us to press pause and stand still for while isn’t it? How do you put down your phone, say ‘no’, be unavailable in 2023? That’s a whole other blog for another time but what I will share is that after taking just one week away from client work, I noticed a marked increase in my productivity - and in the quality of my output. I had to write an Executive summary of a 17 document Leadership Transition Plan and it took just a handful of hours rather than laboring over it for days as would have been the case just a few weeks prior. Note to self - its important to practice stepping back and stepping away. Yoga is called a ‘practice’ for a reason. We have to practice standing still. I am refreshed and reinvigorated and ready to reemerge and connect. This letter is a step in that process.

Closing with a poem that has seeped its way into my consciousness by unexpectedly showing up several times in the last two months.
Thanks for Rambling with me today.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

RUMI

Transitions - New Beginnings

When I look at this picture of me, I see pure joy. Those who know me well will see the abundance of emotions behind the eyes and within the smile. On June 24th of this year, I exited an 8-year Ending and Neutral Zone and entered a New Beginning. This selfie was taken on the day I became the owner of the 1920’s cottage in the background. She is named Maple Tree Cottage after the only tree in my little yard.

In month 2 of this 4-month series featuring William Bridges’ Transition’s model, I opened with his simple statement, ‘Every beginning starts with an ending.’ 8 years ago, my ending event was the end of a long relationship. This was the catalyst for a mid-life transition, a lengthy period of uncertainty, turbulence, exploration, and deep reflection that has transformed my personal and professional life.

One of the obvious questions Bridges’ tackles in the chapter on New Beginnings is, ‘How will you know when your ending is complete and that you’ve spent long enough in the Neutral Zone?’ Is this ‘the’ real beginning, or just another phase of the neutral zone? Well, unfortunately, it’s unlikely there will be a fanfare to escort your new beginning in, or a party announcing its arrival. “Much as we long for external signs that point the way to the future, we must settle for inner signals that alert us to the proximity of new beginnings… a faint intimation of something different, a new theme in the music, a strange fragrance on the breeze.”

On September 8th, I packed up the cottage after a glorious 7 weeks of nesting, to travel back to Boston. Although I would be back to VT before long, it felt significant. I started the day with my first visit to Lisa, the massage therapist in the town. In response to the usual inquiry as to ‘why VT?’, ‘Why Wallingford’, I shared a little of my transition story. At the end of the session, she offered a poem. Considering we had met just 70 minutes previously, and considering that I was starting to source content for my New Beginnings Ramble, I was stunned and moved when she read aloud one of my favorite poems, John O’Donohue’s ‘For a New Beginning’ (see video above for me reading it while rambling and I’ve included below). Why should I be surprised though? As Bridges tells us over and over again, the cues and signals are there if we come out of our comfort zone for long enough, listen hard enough, and stay quiet for a while.

In 2014, when I was in the midst of my ending, and at the beginning of my neutral zone, I retreated for a week to the Cape for some rest and healing. On this trip, I also paid a visit to the massage therapist in the town. She told me at the beginning of the session that she was an intuit and often received strong messages when working on her clients. 8 years on, I remember her message for me verbatim:

You are a like a mustang – you will just keep running and running, and then one day, you will find a tree and then you will stop running, and rest.

Maple Tree Cottage won’t be the last tree I rest under, but she is an arrival point. She represents a New Beginning. I believe it is not a coincidence that I found her in the year that marks half-life anniversary. I have now lived more of my life in America than in England. There is a coming home quality to my New Beginning. I’ve had the fortune to travel to some of America’s most beautiful National Parks, The Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Mount Rainier, and the Redwood National Forest. These places are beyond words and no photographs do them justice. But, the rolling hills and country lanes of rural England are in my blood. I’ve found them here, in the Green Mountains , in the woods, rivers, and fields of VT. So, when people ask me why VT? I say that it reminds me of home.

Now that I am here, I am adjusting, discovering the new, and at the same time, reacquainting myself with myself! As Bridges says, “It is, after all, a new chapter of you life that is beginning, you haven’t become someone else… The person is really there again after a time of being somewhere else… Psychologically, the process of return brings us back to ourselves and involves a reintegration of our new identity with elements of our old one.” I recognize myself again, and the pieces of me of that I find most comfortable and even cherish, are more visible and easier to access.

I pinch myself daily. I walk from room to room and stand in the doorways staring. It’s mine. I feel unbelievably blessed. And, I have worked hard and intentionally during my eight-year transition to uncover what I really wanted and needed. I suffered losses and setbacks along the way, and I took risks and courageous leaps forward. I kept moving. Keep moving. You will be rewarded.

In addition to a reading, Lisa, the massage therapist here in VT, also pulled a daily wisdom card for me. It was only when she showed me the card - ‘horse’, that I made the connection with my the Mustang insight from 8 years earlier, and the significance of my singular Maple Tree. The text read, ‘First, I seek joy, and all else follows. Since your feeling of joy is your connection with your source, one you have achieved joy, you have achieved connection with your source. And under these circumstances, all that is good follows.’

Thanks for joining me on this summer Ramble. I’ll close with ‘For a New Beginning’, by John O’Donohue.

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

 Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Transitions: The Neutral Zone

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And we have arrived at… The Neutral Zone! (Enter your own sound effect here). As I reach the fourth installment of my summer ramble series featuring William Bridges Transitions model, I admit I am finding it really hard to summarize his work. Frankly, I just want you all to read the book, but in lieu of that, here is an attempt to encapsulate Bridges’ description of the Neutral Zone, the middle stage of any transition process, and what he describes as, ‘The place between two somewheres.’

After that (endings), you encounter the neutral zone – that apparently in-between time when, under the surface... the transformation is going on. Everything feels up for grabs and you don’t know who you are or how you are supposed to behave, so it feels like a meaningless time. But it is actually a very important time. During your time in the neutral zone, you are receiving signals and cues…  as to what you need to become for the next stage of your life. And, unless you disrupt it by trying to rush through the neutral zone quickly, you are slowly being transformed into the person you need to be to move forward in your life.

Yup. It’s that easy. Simply spend an extended period of time not knowing who you are, where you are going, and serve that up with a heaping side of uncertainty. Sign me UP! Well, as it happens, I have signed up for it a couple of times and likely you have too. In fact, I just exited what I anticipate will be the most significant neutral zone of my life. I entered the zone on February 24th, 2020, on the day I left NYC, and exited on June 24th, 2022, the day I closed on my house in VT. Two years and four months in the place between two somewheres. Following my difficult ending experience, I was deeply relieved to have the chance to step back and get lost for a while. I was hopeful that if listened hard enough, and for long enough, that both the yelling and whispering voices I was hearing would guide me towards my new beginning. And they did.

Here are Bridges’ six suggestions for how to navigate and maximize your time in the ‘zone’

1)      Accept your need for this time in the neutral zone. But, beware of the traps of fast forward and reverse... Opt for the turtle, forget about the hare. At the same time, do keep moving. The transition that bought you to this place cannot be undone.

2)      Find a regular time and place to be alone. People in transition are often still involved in activities and relationships that continue to bombard them with cues irrelevant to their emerging needs. The real need is for a genuine sort of aloneness in which inner signals can make themselves heard.

3)      Begin a log of neutral zone experiences. Yes, it is a paradox to talk about emptiness and then to suggest that something there is worth noting. The point is that we need to resist the tendency to imagine that what is needed is external to our situation.

4)      Take this pause in the action of your life to write an autobiography. Because recollection is likely to turn up some useful information about other transitions in your past. And because that past is an artifact from another time and probably needs revision.

5)      Take the opportunity to discover what you really want… Wanting turns out to be a far less clear matter than we usually imagine, for it is overlayed with a lifetime of guilt and ambivalence. So here you are now, in a position to get a little of what you want after all these years, and you find yourself unsure and confused. How can you move past this difficulty and use your real wantings to orient you toward the future.

6)      Take a few days to go on your own version of a passage journey. Must be an unfamiliar place! The retreat is a journey into emptiness and a time to cultivate receptivity. The more you leave behind, the more room you have to find something new.

There are over 40,000 accounts of mystics retreating into nature. Most of our spiritual and religious leaders entered the Neutral Zone; Mohammed, Abraham, Christ, Moses, and of course Thoreau.  When I was preparing to write this Ramble, I took a couple of hikes on the Appalachian trail which is just over a mile from my house in VT. It’s the time of year when many thru hikers are reaching VT with around 400 miles to go until they end their journey by climbing Mt. Katahdin in Maine. It’s humbling to share the trail with these pilgrims and to walk in the footsteps of the many souls whose lives have been changed forever by a 5 month walk in the woods. I was reminded how much I enjoyed reading the book ‘Wild’ by Cheryl Strayed. Following the death of her mother. Strayed, a very inexperienced hiker, impulsively decided to walk the 2653-mile Pacific Crest Trail. Solo. She spoke about her experience with Oprah.

Oprah: What did this hike teach you?
Cheryl: Acceptance. I had to accept the fact of the hour. The fact of the mile. The fact of the summer. The facts of my life. Over and over again, I found that if I could accept those difficult things, everything else sort of gave way. Each step led me to the next step, the next truth that was going to reveal itself. We all suffer. We all have heartbreak. We all have difficult things. They're part of life. Realizing that was very profound for me. The PCT gave me a really grand sense of humility, which is what you need so you can keep walking in ways both literal and metaphorical.
Oprah: Who would you be if you had not done this hike? Who are you because you did it?
Cheryl: I think I would still be me; I would have found what I needed to find, but in a different way. Still, everything I am is born of my experience on the trail. I feel like I literally walked my way into the life I have now. Nine days after my hike, I met Brian, my husband; several years later we got married and had our children. I walked all those miles, and I learned all those lessons. It's as if my new life was the gift I got at the end of a long struggle.

Strayed needed and chose an extreme neutral zone experience. We don’t have to retreat to the woods for months to find our next path. But it is a time to explore, experiment, and to take yourself out of your comfort zone. The Neutral Zone also has the potential to be an extremely creative time. If there are places you have always wanted to visit, hobbies you’ve toyed with trying, languages you keep saying you’ll learn, or communities you are curious to join, this is the time. These gaps in our existence happen a handful of times in our lives, at most. Our culture promotes productivity and rewards overworking.  We say, ‘I don’t have time’ all the time, and sometimes we don’t.  But many times, it’s simply not true, we do have the time but we choose, mostly subconsciously, not to take it. Our daily lives are so compounded with the normal way of doing things, that even the concept of ‘choices’ is not visible to us. Shame, guilt, the expectations others have us, and especially those we have of ourselves, holds us in place. So, if an ending opens a up window of time, take it. Seize it. Enter the neutral zone.

Stay there for a while and perhaps your new beginning will emerge.

Transitions: Endings - Part Two

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In Part one of ‘Endings’ we focused on intentionality and preparedness. More often than not, we know that an ending is coming. There is an opportunity to consider how we want the ending to, well, end. I don’t mean to make it sound easy, it’s not. But if you approach an ending intentionally, with a future oriented mindset, and perhaps even take active steps to ensure the ending gives you and others meaningful closure, then it is far more likely that your ending will result in creating the conditions under which a new beginning is possible. In this second installment of ‘Endings’ we focus on what is actually happening to us during an this first stage of the transition process. Bridges breaks down the ending stage into 5 experiences: Disengagement, Dismantling, Disidentification, Disenchantment, and Disorientation.

Much like the stages of the transition process itself; endings, neutral zone, and new beginnings, these five experiences could happen in any order, at any time, all at once, or not at all. As I reread the five ‘Dis’s’, I was transported back to 2020 when I moved through my own ending as a leader in the field of music education. I’ve layered some of those experiences over Bridges’ descriptions to hopefully bring them to life.

Disengagement - “Divorces, deaths, job changes, moves, illnesses, and many lesser events disengage us from the contexts in which we have known ourselves. They break up the old cue system that served to reinforce our roles and to pattern our behavior… As long as a system is working, it is very difficult for a member of it to imagine an alternative way of life and an alternative identity. But with disengagement, an inexorable process of change begins.”

I’m not sure I would ever have pulled out my own rug – made the purposeful decision to disengage from my role as an Executive Director. It was a position I had been working towards my whole career and by obtaining it, I had ‘arrived’, and proven myself to be capable of leading an institution. I had lived up to my own expectations, as well as those of others who had been supportive cheerleaders to me throughout my career. We rarely opt out of something while we’re ‘in it’, especially if it involves giving up a salary and starting completely over. Who would choose that? But I didn’t choose it, my rug was pulled out and a transition began.

Dismantling - “Disengagement only stops the old signals and cues from being received. It leaves untouched the life infrastructure that you’ve constructed in response to those signals. The disengagement can take place in a moment…  but old habits and practices and behaviors that made you feel like yourself can only be dismantled… one piece at a time.”

Leaving Manhattan and following the moving truck back to Boston with my well-travelled baby grand piano wrapped in plastic, starkly began my dismantling experience. I packed up my home for the sixth time in seven years. The experience I had been through saturated every cell of my being. I was full of it. The depth and breath of the emotions I was holding in my body was like nothing I had experienced before. For the better part of 15 years, I had got up, selected my clothes for the day depending on what was on my calendar, gone to an office, led meetings, prepared reports, managed teams, reviewed budgets etc. etc. How on earth was I going to fill my day now?

Disidentification – Labels make us feel safe, and they make the people around us feel safe. When we meet new people, as hard as we might try to find a more meaningful question, it’s a matter of time before we ask, ‘So what is it you do?’ We are more comfortable when people have a straightforward answer, one that we understand like, ‘I’m a schoolteacher,’ or ‘I’m raising my three children.’ When you respond with ‘I’m in a career transition,’ or ‘I’m working on figuring that out,’ you get something between awkward clarifying questions, unneccessary (although well-intentioned) sympathy, and an awkward silence. There is an inevitable time in the ending phase of a transition when you are not the person you were, but you’re new identity is at best, under construction. Bridges encourages us to get comfortable with ‘I don’t know yet,’ as ‘Holding onto old identity gets in the way of self-renewal and transformation.’ For more about this, check out a previous ramble,  ‘I’m not lost, I’m deciding which way to go.’

Disenchantment – Fellow Ramblers, this ‘Dis’ is REAL. I’d been through the other four at various times in my life, but nothing could have prepared me for this one. “Disenchantment is a recurrent experience throughout the lifetime of anyone who has the courage and trust to believe in the first place…The disenchantment experience is the signal that the time has come to look below the surface of what has been thought to be so. The disenchanted person recognizes the old view as sufficient in its time, but insufficient now.”

For 15 years, ‘what I had thought to be so’ was that my career destination and purpose was to lead others. Moveover, I believed this is what I wanted. It was tempting of course to question my competency after what was admittedly an extraordinarilly difficult leadership experience, but no, it wasn’t about whether I could lead, it was about whether I should. Did leading make me happy? Did the stress, pace, and level of responsibility for others live comfortably in my body? As it turned out, the answer was no.  This was really, really hard to admit, but once I said it out loud to myself, I knew it was my truth. There were other ways I could be helpful and influential to the field I had dedicated my career to other than running an organization. And, fortunately, I had ideas about what they were.

Disorientation – If the neutral zone and the new beginning are characterized by a process of reorientation, then the ending period of any transition must contain a process of disorientation. Here, you are standing on the shore of your past and stepping out into the water. You can’t yet see the shoreline on the other side and when you turn around, the shore you left behind is no longer visible. I was no longer a leader of an organization, but my new path had yet to be forged. I was going to be lost for a while. It is here, during the experience of being disoriented, that the gateway to Bridges’ ‘neutral zone’, the middle stage of any transition process, becomes visible, In next month’s ramble, we will open the gate and step through.

I hope to see you there.

Transitions: Endings - Part One

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Hey there! Welcome to the second installment of my summer series highlighting the work of a personal and professional mentor of mine, William Bridges. You can read last month’s Ramble which served as an introduction to his Transitions model here. Bridges was one of Organizational Development’s earliest pioneers and is most famous for his book ‘Transitions,’ first published in 1980. The chapter on ‘endings’ is the longest in the book and after many readings, remains for me the most revelatory. When I started to write today’s Ramble, it soon became apparent that I was going to have to divide this month’s blog into two sections. Today’s Ramble will focus on raising our awareness and being more intentional around the ending stage. Next month we’ll explore in more detail what to expect during this emotionally powerful, and as you’ll read about today, deeply informative and necessary time.

Let’s dive in. If you ask a person to tell their life story in one minute or less, it might go something like this: I was born in ? When I was 18 I moved to ? to go to college. At age 22, I started work at ? When I was 30 I got married to ?  I became a parent at? I retired when I was ? You get the idea.
Notice that we tell our story in terms of beginnings, the ‘starts’ of something. Our milestones are framed as next steps. You’d get a raised eyebrow if you told your story like this:

When I was 18, I ended my childhood and moved away from my family of origin. At age 22 I ended the official education chapter of my life. At age 30, I stopped being a legally single person. When I was 65 I ended the working period of my life… etc. Weird right? When you tell your story this way, you draw attention to your developmental transitions, rather than the ‘change events’ themselves, the wedding, a graduation, your retirement. Although these events marked an ending, they don’t describe the psycholoical and developmental significance of the period in your life that has come to an end. It’s obvious why we frame our life story in terms of next steps, but what could we be glossing over?

The chapter on endings is the longest for two reasons; firstly, endings are a vital pre-requisite for new beginnings; and secondly, they are the stage in the transition process that we are mostly likely to shortcut, and perhaps even avoid. We undervalue their importance in the transition process, and we absolutely underutilize their ability to help us prepare for what’s next. The reason for this tendency is simple, endings can be painful, and over the past century in westernized cultures, society has slowly diminished the space and time for talking about loss and public grieving. Endings are full of paradoxes; we likely feel sad, and we also feel excited. We feel a sense of loss, and we are ready for a fresh start. It’s at least, a time flooded with conflicting emotions.

Considering that we have to deal with endings all our lives, most of us handle them poorly. This is in part because we misunderstand them and take them either too seriously or not seriously enough. We take them seriously by confusing them with finality…. We see them as something without sequel, forgetting that they are the first phase of the transition process and a precondition of self-renewal. (Bridges)

As my life story example earlier attempts to illustrate, we do more than just ‘misunderstand’ endings, we tend not to consider or acknowledge their existence as we bound through life. It’s much more fun to think about the new job and the new apartment in the new city, than it is to dwell on how much we will miss our friends, colleagues, and the old neighborhood. On a less conscious level, we underestimate the importance of the daily routines and rituals that have become entrenched in our lives in the old place. A future-oriented mindset keeps us moving forward, and there’s nothing wrong with that strategy, as long as we also take the time to notice what’s ending.

As a search consultant, I am hired to help organizations find their next leader. The last day of the departing leader’s tenure, and the first day of the new leader’s appointment are the ‘change events’. The minute the leader puts the phone down from the board chair to announce they have made the decision to leave or retire, a transition begins. And it begins with an ending. As all the attention, energy, and often considerable resources shift to the search for the next leader, I like to focus my early meetings with the search committee and other invested and impacted constituents on what’s ending. I ask, “What’s coming to an end for the organization with this departure, and what’s ending for you?” “How will the organization be marking the ending to celebrate and recognize the contributions of the current leader during their tenure?” Being intention about the outgoing leader’s ending is not just for the person who is departing, although this would be good reason enough. The leaving party, the scholarship established in their name, the plaque on the wall, are all part of helping the people who worked with that leader to let go, for it to become real, and for some, to grieve. Having everyone sign a photo memory book allows people to feel like they are contributing something tangible to the ending. After all, the ending is happening to everyone. Taking time and care at this sensitive time increases the chance that the remaining consituents will accept the incoming leader. Perhaps you’ve heard it said that ‘Funerals are for the living.’ (Roelif Coe Brinkerhoff)

The word ‘closure’ is often accompanied with an ‘air quote’ gesture, and garnished with a roll of the eyes. I get that the term has been overused but I can’t help but wonder if we mock the idea of closure because we are uncomfortable with endings. I’m a huge fan of our need to sort out our ‘stuff’ at the end of every chapter. ‘What do I want to keep?’ ‘What did I learn?’ and my favorite, ‘What am I ready to let go of?’ If we pay attention to our endings, our new beginnings have brighter lines and there is space in our body, mind, and spirit for the new to emerge, less cluttered by the residue of the old.

There are endings in our life that come as a shock, the ones that we cannot prepare for. But most of the time, we know they are coming. In those cases, can we plan for them, be intentional, and dare I say it, even choose what we want that ending to look like? How do you want to spend your remaining month in your job, in your neighborhood, or even in a relationship? When my former husband and I parted, I stumbled upon Daphne Rose Kingma’s book – Coming Apart -Why Relationships End and How to Live Through the Ending of Yours. We both read it and it not only helped our ending, but instilled in me a practice of being intentional, which has served the many endings I have had in my life since that point. Kingma said:

I've helped 100s of people through the process of ending their relationship: people who precipitated the ending, people who resented the ending, and couples who mutually agreed upon the ending. My experience is whether you left or were left, if you are willing to go through the ending in a directed and thoughtful way, without avoiding any emotional part of the process, you can go on to establish a new and more satisfying relationship. 

You could easily replace the concept of a relationship with a move or a job change and this quote would hold true. Kingma echos Bridges insistence that a meaningful and intentional ending is the essential first stage in moving forward after an ending. Bridges opens his chapter on ‘endings’ with a quote from T.S. Eliot, To make an ending is to make a beginning. The End is where we start from.

Between now and next month’s Ramble, I encourage you to meditate a little on the endings in your life. Grab a piece of paper and write them all down. I bet you will be surprised as to how many you have forgotten, how many chapters in your life closed without you even noticing. If there were endings that were formalized or celebrated by an official change event such as a ceremony, what was that experience like? How, if at all, did that ritual aid the transition? Who did you turn to? What were your coping strategies? What mixed emotions did you have? How have your previous endings experiences prepared you for your next one?

I’ll see you next month for Endings - Part 2.

Transitions - Part One

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Last summer I did a series of Rambles called Emerge, charting our individual and collective journeys as we emerged from COVID. (Sigh.) I enjoyed the challenge of writing monthly blogs with a throughline theme, so I thought I’d tackle another series this summer.

You probably noticed that in nearly every Ramble I reference the work of William Bridges (1933-2013), a Boston born consultant, and one of the fathers of Organizational Development in the United States. His most famous contribution to the field is his Transitions model; a framework that helps us to make sense and perhaps more importantly, to make the most of challenging and significant life changes. As this model, and the book of the same name are foundational in my work as a coach and leadership search consultant, it’s high time I do some deep dive rambling that offers you a walk through each of the transition stages: Endings, Neutral zone, and New Beginnings.

I have read ‘Transitions’ 4 times now, including after a divorce, and then most recently when I unexpectedly transitioned from being a non-profit arts executive to a self-employed consultant in 2020. Each time I read it, I come out better prepared for my next transition. If you, or someone you love is in transition, I hope this series of Rambles is helpful to you in some way and that it inspires you to learn more or read the book!

We go through multiple transitions in our lives, some are developmental and therefore likely expected, graduating high school or college, formalizing a long-term relationship, parenthood, retirement etc. Some transitions, although just as common, are unplanned. Unexpected events like relationship separations, career path shifts, health concerns, or losing a loved one, often cause a reaction and response for which we find ourselves woefully unprepared to manage. Part of the reason for this is that we tend to focus on the change event iself, i.e., the divorce, rather than the consequent transition to becoming a single person again. It’s in the transition process where the larger story of our life unfolds.

Unless a particular time of personal transition is seen in the context of the arc of an individual’s lifetime, it is unlikely to have any meaning larger than “ending this and starting that.” It is, after all, that larger meaning that we are looking for when we ask “Why”. Why is this happening to me? We wonder. “And why now?”

At the heart of Bridges’ message, at least as I receive it, is that transitions are essential to our development as human beings. So, when they happen, expected or not, it’s a time to slow down, or even press pause to grieve, celebrate, rest, step back, notice, evaluate, experiment, and take risks. It is this intentional approach to the time after major change events that aids us in our never-ending quest to answer life’s most fundamental questions: ‘What do I need’? And ‘What do I want’?

If all this sounds heavy and overwhelming, well, managing major life changes are. Bridges’ genius is that he created a simple framework to break transition down into three stages. Here’s the Transition’s model:

Over the course of the next three months, I’ll focus on each of the stages one by one. In closing out this overview, I want to draw your attention to two things about the model that are fundamental to understanding and managing transitions:

1) The ending comes first. “Every beginning starts with an Ending”. (Bridges)

2) The three stages overlap. There are no bright lines. What makes a transition such a psychological process, is that we often experience paradoxical emotions; loss and relief (endings), uncertainty and antipication (neutral zone), and fear and excitement (new beginnings) all at once. It’s a lot.

I look forward to diving into Endings with you in late June. I’ll leave Bridges to sign off.

Transitions is not simply a manual on how to cope; rather, it is based on a theory of personal development that views transition as the natural process of disorientation and reorientation marking the turning points in the path of growth.

I am seeking…

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Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself to this world
so worthy of rescue.

by Martha Postlethwaite

I was really moved by this poem read by my yoga instructor JoJo during savasana this past Saturday. What resonated with me was the encouragement to intentionally create space and time in your life to allow your purpose in the world to reveal itself. How am I giving myself to this world? Great question. The poem also reassured me that we don’t have to do big things to make a difference. Our contributions can be invisible to others, even to ourselves.

I am beginning to understand that the question ‘how can I give myself to this world’ is fundamentally reliant on my ability to answer the question, ‘What am I seeking’? Somebody said (and if you know who please tell me), “If you don’t know what you want, it’s no surprise you’re not getting it.” I love the slightly facetious tone in this statement. It’s so ‘duh’.

I feel like I am getting more clarity about what I am seeking in my life as I approach 50. The greater clarity fuels me with the courage I need to take active steps to make it happen. I know much more about what I don’t want for my life than when I was approaching 40. It’s this part of aging that I am truly relishing. I know I don’t want a lot of stuff, I don’t want to manage sustained stress, I don’t want to work more than 30 hours a week, I don’t want a lot of responsibility over others, I don’t want a huge circle of friends, I don’t want how I spend my time to be dictated by others, etc, etc. In a previous blog, I talked about decluttering - how we accumulate experiences during the first half of our lives and then start shedding what is no longer serving us in the second half. That’s been both my experience and my intent. As I declutter, I see myself more clearly. I feel more comfortable in my skin and accept my sharp edges and challenging traits with more grace. Only then will I know how to give myself to this world. Those of you who have worked with me in a coaching capacity, and perhaps even some of my friends will know that I love the phrase “best use of me”. In order to know the best use of ourselves, we have to know ourselves, what we seek, need, and value.

This month’s Ramble leaves you with a challenge - Finish the statement, “I am seeking…”  in 10 (additional) words or less, WITHOUT using the word ‘and’. Try it It’s such a simple question, yet many of us spend a lifetime trying to answer it. If this challenge proves difficult for you, perhaps follow the poet’s advice and create a clearing for yourself in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently…

I am seeking a simpler life.

You?

Leadership change vs leadership transition

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Hello fellow ramblers and happy new year. It’s been about 6 weeks since I last took a ramble with you. There are many reasons why I haven’t felt motivated or inspired to write and I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you what those are. A client I met with this week manages a teaching faculty of 100 who just transitioned back to remote teaching... again. I asked how morale was, she said, ‘they’re dispirited.’ I get that. Yet here we are in 2022. One foot in front of the other. One day at a time. Expecting the unexpected. Etc.

One of the reasons I haven’t rambled with you is that I am busy facilitating a search process for an organization whose leader is retiring after over two decades. The last search I ran was for an organization whose founding leader retired after three decades. Business economists have long been anticipating a seismic turnover in senior leadership as the baby boomer generation pack up their offices in droves. The non-profit arts sector is no exception with the next generation of leaders stepping into complex roles during challenging times. It’s also a fact that this new generation of leaders are extremely unlikely to stay for a decade, let alone two or three. To that end, search committee members in both searches had the same question for me; ‘When a long-tenured leader leaves, why does their replacement often have a short tenure?’ There are many reasons why a new hire might not work out, as this terrific LinkedIn articles explores. Of course, I knew I wanted to look at this question through the lens of transition.

The obvious answer is the ‘big shoes to fill’ scenario. How can a new leader possibly live up to the massive expectations laid out for them in the wake of the former leader’s departure? The new leader must straddle a very fine tension point: Don’t upset a long-standing arrangement and be sure to honor the past, while at the same time, make your own mark and please shepherd in a new vision. This is a tall order for any incoming leader. And, there’s only so much that the outsider coming in can do to manage that tension successfully because the tension existed before they even stepped through the door. After some reflection, here’s where I landed. The reason incoming leaders sometimes don’t stay long when following a long tenured leader is that much attention has been paid to the change event, meaning the leader leaving, and hardly any attention to the transition.

One day the old leader is in their office, and the next day, somebody new. It’s an event, an external, situational change. However, the transition began the day the outgoing leader picked up the phone to call the board chair, perhaps as much as a year or two earlier, to let them know they had set their retirement date. That phone call sets off a long transition process that arguably lasts until the new leader has been in place for one year. Here’s Bridges:
Several important differences between change and transition are overlooked when people…use change and transition interchangeably. With a change, you naturally focus on the outcome the change produces. Transition is different. The starting point for dealing with transition is not the outcome but the ending that you will have to make to leave the old behind. Situational change hangs on the new thing, but psychological transition depends on letting go of the old reality and the old identity you had before the change took place. Orgs overlook the letting go process completely and do nothing about the feeling of loss that it generates. And, in overlooking those effects, they nearly guarantee that the transition will be mismanaged and that, as a result, the change will go badly. Unmanaged transition makes change unmanageable.

I can’t recommend enough that organizations read Managing Change by Bridges as soon as the Board Chair puts down the phone. And not just the leadership, but anyone who will be impacted by this change and therefore participating in the transition. He goes into detail as to what can be done to prepare the community for the uncertain times ahead. Here’s a few of his top tips:

1)  Communicate, communicate, communicate - Say what you know, say what you don’t know. Keep people abreast of your anticipated plans, actions, and timelines. People may interpret a lack of communication as a signal that they have been intentionally excluded or that things aren’t going well
2)  Manage expectations and set realistic goals – Productivity and the ability to focus can be affected as the sadness and anxiety around the change event increases
3)  Avoid unnecessary additional changes - Can you put off a database migration for another year, or reconsider a change of venue for the annual gala?
4)  Plan events that mark the ending - Celebrate. Give people a chance to say goodbye
5)  Create some space between the outgoing leader’s last day and the new leader’s first day – Allow time for the presence of the old leader to dissipate, even if it’s just for a week or two. There’s a growing practice of putting interim leadership in place or creating a temporary transitional leadership team to bridge this period. Inserting some neutral time to allow the absence of the previous leader to land and for people to take a breath before welcoming the next, is one to consider
6) Identify who is losing what? - Acknowledge the losses. Allow people to be sad
7)  Be compassionate - Rushing people to ‘just get over it’ always backfires
8)  Normalize and name the messiness – Give people a language to frame what’s happening and the space to talk about it publicly
9) The messiest part of the transition process begins just when you think it’s over! You’ve held a farewell celebration for the departing leader, and you’ve held a welcome breakfast for the incoming leader. After about three months of meet and greets, the new leader moves out of the ‘listening and learning’ zone and into the ‘let’s get to work’ zone. Here begins the hardest part of the leadership transition process.

This is just a snapshot of the wisdom Bridge’s offers on any significant organizational transition. At the heart of the matter is, “the results you are seeking depend on getting people to stop doing things the old way and getting them to start doing things the new way. And since people have a personal connection with the way they work, there is just no way to do that impersonally.”

Successfully managing a leadership transition can be a defining moment for an organization’s culture. Either it deepens people’s understanding of how the organization is already using and realizing its core values on a daily basis, or it helps to establish the values that are most critical to caring for the human fabric of those who invest in the mission over and above every day.

I’m not lost, I’m deciding which way I want to go

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Every time I get to intersection #2094 at the Blue Hills, I get my map out. There are 5 trails that intersect here and for the first few years I took a different path than I intended every single time! To this day, I still get my map out, not because I am lost, but because I am deciding which way I want to go.

In August of 2021, 4.3 million people resigned from their jobs in the U.S. This COVID related movement, recently named ‘The Big Quit’, presents people with the possibility of leaving unsatisfying jobs to find more meaningful work. Many are choosing not to return to chronically underpaid jobs, and many are still seeking rewarding and fairly paid work following layoffs. Many, like me, have completely shifted gears and are following a new path towards work that aligns with who they are becoming. It seems that one of COVID’s many paradigm shifts is that people are very intentionally considering what they do for work and why. It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘in-between jobs.’

Work is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday to Friday sort of dying.” (Studs Terkel)

Gandalf’s words of wisdom, ‘Not all those who wander are lost’ (J.R.R. Tolkien) have encouraged me over the last 2 years as I continue to navigate an unexpected mid-career pivot. While my new professional identity as a self-employed coach and consultant is feeling more comfortable day by day, I still catch myself lingering over at a job posting reasonably regularly, enticed by the status, salary, and familiarity of my former professional life. It passes quicker than it used to. The time between ending something and starting something new can challenge our sense of self and purpose, erode our self-confidence and make us question our skills and attributes. Whether by choice or not, it’s not a comfortable place for those going through it, AND it’s not comfortable for those watching you go through it either. Today’s blog considers the ‘neutral zone’, that messy time between an ending and a new beginning, from the outsider perspective. William Bridges, author of Transitions, describes the discomfort of the neutral zone using a ‘street-crossing’ metaphor:

‘One would be a fool to stay out here in the middle of the street any longer than necessary; so once you step off the curb, you move to the other side as soon as possible. And whatever you do, don’t sit down on the center line to think things over!

When I stand at that intersection with my map out, I frequently get asked, ‘Are you lost?’ This is such a beautiful gesture, extremely well-intentioned and completely human. I do the same thing myself when I see people staring at their trail apps or debating (arguing) whether it’s left or right to get back to the car. Obviously, I’m not suggesting we stop asking people if they need help finding their way, but I do think it’s worthwhile to check our primary assumption that the people who are holding a map are lost and therefore must be needing help. Additionally, I acknowledge that my offer to help could on some level be self-serving. I’d certainly be more comfortable if I knew that they knew where they were going and who doesn’t feel good when your knowledge or prior experience helps people to get back on the ‘right path’.

In the last two years, my friends and family have been incredibly supportive to me as I took a long pause. No-one ever asked me directly, ‘what are you going to do next,’ or ‘how long are you going to flounder around out there before you get another job.’ It would be normal for those who love me to wonder that. We are so uncomfortable with not knowing and with the unfamiliar, aren’t we? Recently, I accepted a part-time job as an Assistant Professor at an internationally renowned music school. I have been a coach and consultant for 2 years whereas I’ve taught voice for 25 years so this was something familiar, something tangible for people to grab on to. I sensed people’s relief at understanding once again what my work entailed, and their excitement when they recognized the name of the institution. I have received many congratulations and while these sentiments where authentic and appreciated, I wondered if I could faintly hear an undercurrent of ‘Lorna Jane has finally got off the center line and reached the other side of the street’. These are totally normal reactions for a world who as Bridges goes on to say, ‘has lost its appreciation for the gap in the continuity of existence.’

For us, emptiness represents only the absence of something. So when what’s missing is something as important as relatedness and purpose and reality, we try to find ways of replacing these missing elements as quickly as possible… we hope it can only be a temporary, if unfortunate, situation to be endured.

As a coach, ascertaining the reason ‘why’ a client has got out their map and paused at an intersection is fundamental information for me to gather at the outset - that ‘why’ assists me in figuring out how I can be of most help to the client. Similarly, if a person is indeed completely lost, what they need from you as friend, family member, spouse, or supervisor is completely different than if they are simply taking some time to decide which way they want to go. Their ‘why’ determines your entry point on the ‘intervention to cheerleader’ continuum (see visual above). What helping role will be most helpful?

As more and more people get out their maps to decide which way they want to go, perhaps we can consider adapting our question when we see someone paused at an intersection. Try - “Are you lost, or deciding which way to go?’

October is recalibration month!

September just ended and I am exhausted. I know many of my fellow ramblers have school or college age children, and many work on the academic calendar cycle. And… bless you, some of you fall into both categories. (I literally don’t know how you do it). Let’s just say it out loud, September is a HOT MESS. I cannot wait to have a day with nothing on the calendar on October 11th when America recognizes and celebrates Indigenous Peoples’ day.

On the surface, it’s obvious why September, the re-entry month, is such a busy and overwhelming time. To varying degrees, people experience life a little differently during the summer: kids are off from school, people tend to take more personal or vacation time, in New York City there is ‘Summer Fridays (yup – it’s a real thing) and generally (when possible and safe) we are outside enjoying beaches, parks and cook-outs. In other words, we might slow our pace of things down a little and prioritize activities that make the most of the long days and warm weather. It’s awesome. So then, when new routines are being established and all of your usual routines return at the same time, AND add COVID concerns into the mix, the entire month feels like a long run uphill. Oh, and did we factor in the days getting shorter?

In my little world, this September was particularly daunting. I got off the plane from a 3-week trip visiting my family in the U.K. on the evening of Thursday September 10th. I always experience an emotional re-entry after those precious visits and flying internationally, with all of the testing requirements was super stressful. Yet, by 8 am the following morning, I got my jet-lagged self to the COVID testing center at Berklee School of Music so I could teach my first day as Assistant Professor of Voice. I welcomed into my studio 10 young adults from all over the world who are navigating a transition which is enormous in any life journey, let alone during a global pandemic. They require a lot of my energy. On the Sunday, I resumed my church choir job which had been on hiatus for 18 months. I’ve been playing catch up from my trip, I’ve been reconnecting with existing clients and meeting with new ones, AND with every interaction with people, with public transportation, with a place, there is the extra effort of managing a myriad of COVID expectations, regulations and behaviors.

It certainly isn’t surprising that adjusting to new routines and re-engaging with activities that I haven’t done for a while has left me physically and emotionally tired, but what is actually happening that contributes to the overall sense of decreased energy, lost sleep and increased stress levels? Well, our brains are literally re-wiring. Here’s my favorite analogy – when you move house inevitably the kitchen is laid out differently in your new house. For the first week or so, you’ll continue to go to the draw to the right of the stove to get silverware only to find aluminum foil and clingwrap. Eventually, your brain re-wires to the changed location of the silverware and finding it becomes automatic. This is part of the reason moving is so exhausting, nothing is where it used to be and re-wiring the brain and body to habitually find things in new places demands a lot of energy. September gifts us an unusual amount of simultaneous re-wiring at once and therefore, in the most serious cases, we can find ourselves on a pathway towards burnout.

When stress is frequent, the more frequent activation of the neural pathways to the lower, stress-reactive brain results in their strengthening from enhanced wiring These pathways can become so strong that they become your brain's fast route to its lower, reactive control centers. The stressful, burned-out state when the lower, reactive brain is in charge overcomes the calm, reflective, and productive higher neural processing in the (PFC) – the preferred brain locale for control of behavior and emotional self-management.

As your efforts to achieve unreasonable goals are thwarted or increasing demands recur, and the lower brain dominates more frequently, you lose touch with your reflective brain. With less management coming from your reflective PFC, it becomes harder and harder to logically see these challenges in a realistic perspective or to solve problems creatively. (Dr. Judy Willis - Board-certified neurologist)

If there was a live chat right now, there’d be a lot of ‘Amens’. So, what can we do October to recover after a month when our systems have drifted off course? We need to navigate ourselves to a familiar, safe and/or fresh point of reference, we need to re-calibrate – to hit refresh.

Every person has a different way of recalibrating. I just need time in my house to change out my summer clothes to fall. I need time for just me and my partner, and I need time for just me. I need to watch Daniel Craig in his final 007 movie. I need to catch up on sleep. For the rest of October, I am intentionally blocking off time in my calendar for recalibration. We are hiking the skyline trail in the Blue Hills (Neponset land) on Indigenous Peoples’ day to see the early foliage and then a quiet dinner just the two of us. It’s a good start.

How are you planning on recalibrating this long holiday weekend?

Emerge -Ramble Six

Preview Video

The Emerge Project was launched on March 28th, 2021.  My goal for the project was to bring us together to chart our individual and shared experiences as we “tentatively and tenuously” emerged from COVID. I’ll be honest, it was hard to watch the Ramble one video. My assumption (and I was not alone) was that by September, by now, we would be emerging into some sense of normality. On March 28, 2021, Massachusetts (the state I live in) had 1,017 new cases. Yesterday there were 4,299. Are we emerging from COVID? Are you?

It’s been a turbulent few weeks -  COVID numbers surging, the unfolding situation in Afghanistan, wildfires and hurricanes. To state the obvious, we continue to live in a time of great uncertainty, so perhaps with the ability of hindsight, (a word that came up a couple of times in Ramble Five’s contributions) I would have called this six-month blog series ‘The Evolve Project’ or ‘The Adapt Project’. When I read the previous five Rambles in preparation for the composition of this final Ramble, it was clear from the beginning how cognizant we were that the concept of an emergence timeline was arbitrary, if not false. This was made most clear in Ramble Three when you shared your thoughts around the question, ‘To what degree are you conscious that a window of opportunity is closing?’

Kristin:  Hum… this question stumped me. I don't see, in any way, the "window of opportunity closing." The process of evaluation IS just that, a process. And for me anyway, it isn't dictated by a 'maybe' deadline. It's about a serious framework of time to make considerations on which you base new, updated decisions. Even if those "decisions" change again in the future.

Su: As COVID has unfolded I have been wondering when there might be an "end". I'm starting to think that the real point is that opportunity is always there for the taking.

Ramble Four asked the simple question “How are you doing”? and offered contributors 20 statements to consider in response. ‘We are going to be living with COVID for a long time, we just need to adjust and get on with our lives understanding and living with some risk’ was selected by most. As we collectively came together over this realization, we were affirmed by Pauline Boss, author of Ambiguous Loss, who said, ‘The Western idea is that suffering is something you should get over… or fix it or find some solution for it… But here’s the crux: Now and then, there’s a problem that has no solution.’

At the very highest level, perhaps humanity’s greatest lesson learned from COVID will be in the form of humility and acceptance. As it turns out, we don’t have the control we think we do. There’s an arrogance we have developed, one I believe Boss is referring too, that our incredible advances in technology and science can be relied upon and will always develop quick enough to save us. Perhaps this lesson, if we actually learn it, embrace it, and let go of our egos long enough to accept it, will be the ultimate preparation for the impact of climate change. We will hopefully gain some control in the future over COVID, but who knows if technology and science is up to the task of controlling the future of our planet.

COVID has proven to be a rare global ‘change’ event. We now enter the ‘transition’ process, a messy period of time where how we live and move in the world moving forward will not be driven by an external timeline but by an internal process of re-alignment, re-orientation, and re-engagement. Ramble Five asked you to be the authors of the final Ramble, asking you to pose one question to fellow ramblers as we go our separate ways. Your thoughtful questions have the potential to considerably aid us in this transition process.

Erika - How has your relationship or feeling towards Ambiguity changed after living with so much for this period of time?

Jennie - What is one new practice you might try in this period of ambiguous loss?

Amanda - Hindsight as we know is a wonderful thing, but hypothetically if you’d known in advance what was going to happen (Covid & impact) would you have lived the last 18 months differently or do you think you’re happy with the choices you made within the confines of societal restrictions?

Su - What advice or thoughts would you share with your pre-COVID self to prepare them for their COVID experience? Answer as if you were NOT able to tell them specifically about COVID.

Kathy - What can you take forward from these discussions that you feel has had the most transformative impact on your forward thinking?

Charlotte – What have you learned about the way you cope during difficult times? What mechanisms have you developed over the last can you rely upon in the future?

David – In five years’ time - how will you finish this statement, “If it hadn’t had been for COVID, I would never have….”

Maria – How has COVID informed, shifted, or redefined your understanding of ‘belonging’ and ‘community’?

Lisa - What is giving you hope and/or courage to continue moving forward through uncertainty as the COVID impact (along with other crises affecting the world) continues?

Matt – What do you know about yourself that you didn’t know before COVID? How can you use that knowledge to lead a more fulfilling life?

I appreciate Lisa bringing ‘hope’ to the table. There are days when I struggle to feel hopeful, and as I re-read this final Ramble, I realize that today is one of them. When I dig deep, I am hopeful that as I emerge, I am taking a small step closer to realizing life’s very hardest lesson - life happens in the now. Isn’t that the only thing that is certain in a time of great uncertainty? Our Buddhist friends have much to teach us here. Therefore, my final question to the group is one posed by Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön - Author of the book ‘Comfortable with Uncertainty’.

What does it take to use the life we already have in order to make us wiser rather than more stuck? The answer to this question seems to have to do with bringing everything that we encounter to the path.

This path has one very distinct characteristic: it is not prefabricated. It doesn’t already exist. The path that we’re talking about is the moment-by-moment evolution of our experience, the moment-by-moment evolution of the world of phenomena, the moment-by-moment evolution of our thoughts and emotions. The Path is unchartered. It comes into existence moment-by-moment and at the same time drops away behind us.

When we realize that the path is the goal, there’s a sense of workability. Everything that occurs in our confused mind we can regard as the path. Everything is workable.

Fellow Ramblers, thank you for joining me and each other on this journey. I hope you have found comfort being at each other’s side over the last six months. We are not alone. I am grateful to each and everyone of you, and hope (there’s that word again) we can continue to support each other on life’s evolving path.

Emerge - Ramble Five

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Ramble Four asked contributors to check up to 3 statements that best reflected how ramblers were feeling at the halfway point of our Emerge journey. In case you didn’t get a chance to check out last month’s contribution form, here are those statements:

1. I am emerging very cautiously and observe that most people seem more comfortable in returning to ‘normal’ than I am

2. I just take one day at a time, and how I show up is greatly dependent on the place, space, and who I am with/might come across

3. I am moving around life pretty much as normal

4. I worry that another surge/variant is around the corner

5. We are going to be living with COVID for a long time, we just need to adjust and get on with our lives understanding and living with some risk

6. I remain anxious and worried

7. I realize the risk is much lower now, but I feel the carry over of the fear and am not ready/or able to emerge with any sense of freedom

8. I feel like I have been through a traumatic time but I can’t pin point exactly what the trauma is yet, I just know I need to recover from something

9. I feel a huge sense of relief

10. I am energized about reconnecting with my pre-Covid life as well as finally meeting some new friends/colleagues that I have made over the last year in person

11. I am slowly starting to recognize myself again

12. The past year has been traumatizing in so many ways. I am very much still healing

13. I feel like a different person than this time last year, and not in a good way

14. I feel like a different person than this time last year, in a good way

15. I continue to struggle to feel safe, or optimistic

16. Now that restrictions have lifted/are lifting, I am intentionally making some changes in my life based on what I have learned over the last year

17. Things still feel out of my control and how I feel fluctuates daily

18. I sense that people are rushing to get back to how things were pre-covid and that I had hoped people would move forward, not revert back

19. I'm optimistic that some of the hard lessons we have learned over the last 15 months will effect lasting change

20. I've been ready and waiting for life to get moving again for some time. Excited it's finally here

21. I can feel myself slipping back into my old ways of being and I am working hard not to

22. I'm moving into a new and exciting phase of my life

Ramble Five shares the results - and the winner is… All of the Above. While there was one statement that ranked highest, it is clear that ‘how we are doing’ covers the full spectrum of emotional states. I guess I had anticipated this which is why I included such a broad set of statements in the first place. One contributor went as far as checking off every box (that’s my partner Ed, he’s never been a rule follower!) Ed is answering YES – I feel all these things, YES – I can feel all of these things at once, YES - each one of these statements represents my current or regular experience.

The statement that scored highest was #5: We are going to be living with COVID for a long time, we just need to adjust and get on with our lives understanding and living with some risk. In the follow-up question, ‘Did one statement strike a particular chord with you? If so, why?’ Malcolm said that #5 was, ‘Simply common sense.’ Jamie said, ‘#5 is true but that doesn’t mean I like it.’  Along those lines Matt said ‘I am completely uncomforted by the fact that #5 resonated with me most and it does not change the fact that I fluctuate daily between optimism and absolute pessimism.’ Another contributor categorized #5 as Acceptance, drawing a parallel with Kübler-Ross’s work from the late 1960s on the Five Stages of Grief.

The visual above places ‘acceptance’ at the end of a process, an arrival point. For me the direct parallel ends here because COVID is still very much alive and in fact thriving. However, it did help me to make the connection back to Pauline Boss’s work on Ambiguous Loss – Navigating Loss without Closure. This groundbreaking work named the experience of grieving when a loved one is not dead but missing, or absent through an illness such as dementia, or alive but no longer in your life, like a former spouse, or estranged sibling. (Here’s her interview again with Krista Tippet from 2016). Accepting that our (forgive me) ‘new normal’ is not static but persistently unsettled does little to comfort, let alone provide the guidance and direction we crave as we navigate continued uncertainty. Boss reminds us that while acceptance may not be comforting, it can be helpful:

The Western idea is that suffering is something you should get over… or fix it or find some solution for it… But here’s the crux: Now and then, there’s a problem that has no solution. Now and then, there are problems that don’t have a perfect fix. And then this idea of holding two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time (they might come back and they might not) is very useful for stress reduction. (Boss)

So, while Ramble Four suggests that (to varying degrees) we have accepted the need to get on with our lives with a certain amount of risk, it also told us that we continue to live with All of the Above. Perhaps your model looks more like this?

Ramble 5 is the last leg of our journey, and the final opportunity for you to contribute before Ramble Six brings our time together to an end. Since the beginning of the project, I have had in my mind a question I wanted to leave you with, but the diversity of experience you shared in response to Ramble Four’s question prompted me to rethink. I want you to pose the final question. As you reflect back on your journey, do you have a powerful question you want to leave your fellow ramblers with? Perhaps there will be one burning question that we are all grappling with? Perhaps the result will again be… All of the Above. The google form is below. Please fill out by August 23rd.

I hope you will all join me and each other as we lace up our boots one last time.

Emerge - Ramble Four

Preview Video

Over the last 7 years, I have moved house 5 times. 5. Times. And now I think about it, I have moved about 30 times in my life. The longest time I have ever lived in one place was my childhood home, and after that, the longest was 5 years. Needless to say, I don’t have a lot of stuff. Part of the reason for that is I don’t need or want a lot of stuff. I like an uncluttered space, and life. The other reason is that every time I move, I’m forced to play the KEEP-DUMP game. Do I need this second large suitcase? Do I use all this Tupperware? When was the last time I wore this formal gown? Do I really like this painting? I’m never going to read this book. DUMP. In 2018, I moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, and let me tell you, there is nothing that forces you to make harsh decisions about your stuff than downsizing to 700 sq. ft. (This is huge for a one bedroom in NYC btw). I sense we feel our stuff is integral to our identity, and while there may be some truth to that, identity is not a fixed asset. It’s fluid and evolutionary, shifting approximately once a decade.

In addition to being stressful, moving is a major disruptor, an upsetting of a long-standing arrangement. Personally, I enjoy this process of de-cluttering, of making periodic decisions about what I need, what enough looks like, and what matters to me. I find it exhausting, therapeutic, but not stressful. For good or bad, the insane amount of times I’ve moved has resulted in a low level of attachment to stuff. Yes, it can be hard to let go of things that held sentimental value to me at one time in my life, but the nostalgic twinge I feel as I put a much beloved pair of boots in the goodwill bag is short lived. As I divest of things that I have no further use for, or that have lost meaning to me, I refresh my understanding of who I am becoming.  Be like a tree. Stay grounded. Keep growing. And know when to let go. RUMI

During our lifetime, we accumulate stuff; relationships, belongings, assets, skills, work experiences, family members, hobbies, habits etc., but how often do we intentionally evaluate what we have, and what we still need and want. COVID was/is an enormous disruption. You might not have moved during the pandemic, (even I didn’t!)  but we certainly had an extended opportunity to evaluate and take action on what we learned. I heard an interesting segment on NPR recently on the topic of 'Friendscaping'.  ‘How to Rearrange Your Post-Pandemic ‘Friendscape’ - Re-entry offers an opportunity to choose which relationships we wish to resurrect and which are better left dormant.’ This is a much politer way of saying KEEP-DUMP!

Relationships came up a lot up in your Ramble Three responses. It wasn’t that you shared you were moving on from certain relationships post-COVID (or election!), but that you had a greater awareness around those relationships that sustain you during hard times and meet your deeper needs.  Many of you reported that you had regular zoom gatherings with certain groups of friends and that it had brought you significantly closer. KEEP.  Many of you reported that new relationships had formed, albeit through a screen. I have recently met several new friends in person for the first time. So cool.

There were distinct themes that ran through your KEEP lists:

·      Physical Activity – With no gyms, Dojos, or yoga studios to be found, people started walking, and biking. Regular time for outdoor physical exercise proved critical to people’s mental and physical health
·      Time around the dinner table with family
·      Slowing down – days were less burdened by the rush to get to the next thing
·      Spending time in the immediate neighborhood – supporting local businesses, getting to know neighbors, exploring the local streets
·      Healthier eating and drinking habits – cooking more, eating everything in the fridge, managing excess especially alcohol, sugar and carbs
·      Meditation in all its diverse forms – walking, seated meditation, journaling, creating sacred space in your house, boundaries around alone time, making music, crafting, yoga
·      A return to nature

Similarly, your trash cans are all filled with the same stuff. And the DUMP award goes to…

 Here’s my takeaway from your contributions. Much of what you are in the process of DUMPING, with the exception of things like masks and hand sanitizer, were ways of being or habits that you have long struggled with. Had COVID not forced your hand, or if it had lasted 3 months rather than 15, the struggle would have likely continued. You have broken old habits, and have had enough time to form new ones. This is the gift of a great disruptor, or of any significant transition. As painful as it is to endure at the time, we mostly come out on the other side healthier, with less clutter and with a greater understanding of who we are and what we need. It begs the question therefore; would it benefit us to periodically and intentionally initiate disruption in our own lives? Wow… that’s a big one.

Onto Ramble Four’s question. The first ramble, marking the beginning of the Emerge project, dropped on 3/28/21. The 7-day average for newly contracted COVID cases on that date was 1,972 with 30 deaths. Today, three months later, those numbers are 55 and 2. Restrictions have been completely lifted in the state where I live and there has been a 97.2% reduction in active cases. Do you feel like your re-emergence has been charting relatively with the decrease in numbers, and the elimination of restrictions?  Or do you remain worried and cautious?

This month we are simply going to check in. Where are you in your personal emerge journey? There are two questions in the contributions form this month, with the second being optional. First, so that I can compare your experiences in a concrete way, I’ve composed a few statements that may reflect your current experience. Please check up to 3 that apply and add your own if you don’t see it represented. The second question asks you to share some narrative to illustrate your response.

If you are new to the EMERGE project, welcome! Just fill out the google form below by July 23rd, and I’ll share back with you what we learned from Ramble 4’s question, along with the next question for us to explore in Ramble Five.

Thanks for joining me and each other on this journey.

Emerge - Ramble Three

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During our second month of emerging together you shared your thoughts around the question, ‘To what degree are you conscious that a window of opportunity is closing?’ Well, heads up. This is a long one. You resonated with this question and had much to say in response to it. As my mother always says in the subject line of her emails, Brew a cup of tea or pour a glass of wine, and settle in.

Many of you chose to question the question itself, which I LOVED! 

Michael: It's easy to think that the window may be closing but I'm afraid that's a cop out. If the window of one thing is closing, I choose to find another window that is open. 

Right? I mean, I randomly chose a six month time period for Emerge based on what we knew, and what we were told on the date I launched the project. Meanwhile, the ground shifts daily, and while the number of COVID cases and deaths are currently on a steady decline here in the U.S. this was exactly the case this time last year, and other countries are in the throes of a second deadly surge. So the concept of an ‘ending,’ a ‘window of opportunity’ closing, feels like a false construct. Which it is. Like time itself. Based on the roller coaster of the past 15 months, how could we possibly know what September will look like? COVID has reminded us, harshly, that we are not in control. Humans have had a long overdue ego check. Amen. 

Malcolm: Only uncertainty is certain. 

Lisa: I don't see it so much as a window of opportunity closing, but more as ongoing uncertainty. 

Kristin and Su take this one step further. Kristin:  Hum… this question stumped me. I don't see, in any way, the "window of opportunity closing." The process of evaluation IS just that, a process. And for me anyway, it isn't dictated by a 'maybe' deadline. It's about a serious framework of time to make considerations on which you base new, updated decisions. Even if those "decisions" change again in the future.

Su: As COVID has unfolded I have been wondering when there might be an "end". I'm starting to think that the real point is that opportunity is always there for the taking. We make our own opportunities. Before I lost my job I would have taken time to consider possibilities and planned to make a change. When I find and/or create new work for myself I hope that I will see it as fluid and changeable in a way that I wasn't able to see before.

While COVID may have put us in our place, perpetual uncertainty and not-knowing have always been constants. As humans, we impose deadlines or end dates to give us structure, and a sense of safety and direction. Trumpets sound...  we arrive at this month’s first polarity moment!!! Arbitrary timelines have many benefits, including giving us a way to organize our time, energy, work, and resources towards a given task. AND, they clearly give us a false sense of security so that when our best laid plans are interrupted, or even destroyed, we can be devastated. To be derailed as a result of a deadline that wasn't a real thing in the first place means that we have much work to do to embrace the fact that life continuously cycles between joy and sorrow and that this is how we learn and grow. Is this the ultimate challenge of living?

Polarity moment number two! It is up to us to remain in a state of perpetual learning and self-improvement. AND, for some people, a disruption, such as one caused by a pandemic, an illness, the death of a loved one, or a youngest child leaving for college, is necessary or at least extremely helpful in creating the impetus and conditions for change. These people are more likely therefore to feel a window of opportunity closing.

Debbie:  At times I panic I might already be falling behind on seizing the opportunity to build my new direction up to the level I need. I’ve made very big changes this past year, but they are much slower than changes I made in my previous life. The paradox is I LIKE the slowness and I actually want that as one of the big changes I’m making in my life, but I’m worried the world around me will speed up again and not accommodate my needs.

Jennifer: Only in the last couple of weeks have I begun to feel a little haunted by this sense of closing. I am eager and anxious to sustain the gifts of the pause. I endeavor to trust in myself that I can bring a certain awareness, presence, discipline, and even resistance to my former state of being, the state of being called to constant performance and doing.

Beth feels the tension between the idea of a window of opportunity closing and the arbitrariness of the timeline acutely: I am very conscious of a closing window of opportunity. At times I have a romanticized view of our pandemic time as a family (have I taken this opportunity to be closer to my kids?), as a skill-acquirer (have I developed myself enough?), and as an employed person (what new knowledge can I take into my work life?). And the underpinning of all of these questions is “enough.” The closing window is a constructed deadline and this “enough” is a constructed quality measure. I am trying to let these constructs go. 

Jordan:  Ooooh, interesting question. I've been trying to "live in the moment" and not worry too much about the future, but how can one do that when the window is closing?!

The next three contributors focus on the larger societal system level - humanity. This time last year, I  remember saying to my partner “I’d love to think we will learn from this, but I’m sad to say I’m not optimistic.” We are by nature deeply egotistical and fearful, and therefore protect our own interests fiercely. I sense that we will get swept up in the relief, that we will go back to consuming, caring mostly for our own, and behaving in ways that deepen the divide between those that have and those that don’t, and those that can and those that can’t. I’m sorry. I know that’s dark, and I cannot tell you how much I want to be proved wrong. I am heartened by your contributions to this project as they show that we are becoming more self-aware, intentional and making incremental changes one day at a time. I am hopeful that this bite size, individual systems approach will impact the larger playing field. To close out, I am going to share the next three submissions verbatim, and then pose Ramble Three’s question.

Leslie: I am acutely conscious of it. Have been since about a year ago when - after a month of people seeming to be together in working to contain COVID and protect essential workers and vulnerable people - a large faction broke off, refused to wear masks or stay away from others, and deliberately did everything they could to spread a disease they believed was a hoax. What was behind it was so obviously the exploiter-class's need to obscure what we learned in the first months of the pandemic: that we can take care of everyone if we want, that there is enough to go around, that the world is not going to end if we reorganize in ways that will keep people fed, housed, and safe. We could have rebalanced work and life for parents. Instead, so far, we have allocated the burden of caregiving to women and punished them at their jobs for giving that care. We are more divided than ever. The only things I see that might change permanently are the growing awareness of workers that the owners need them more than they need the owners and the realization that health (mental and physical) and hygiene and manners are connected and crucial.

Su: I am more concerned about the window of opportunity for society to make critical changes. Collectively, we humans tend to rise to the occasion when times are tough and then settle back into old, familiar routines when challenges abate. I am wondering if we will be able to reimagine education, equity, justice, climate regulation, and work/life balance with the lessons learned from COVID in mind, and move forward with a sense that change is ongoing and essential for growth.

Ashley: I will be happy if I can continue to maximize the opportunity for personal and communal growth over the next few months, while continuing to exercise the almost obligatory practicum of forgiveness for self and others during such a challenging time. These things are perennial and are the rock of solid ground that we all seek in our fragile humanity. They have carried me through life and the pandemic; and will carry me ever onward. In this sense nothing has really changed during the pandemic. The Work is ever before us. But the pandemic has perhaps in its own way served to sharpen, focus, and brighten us. In this we may be heartened, we who have, in fact, survived. 

Thank you Ramble Two contributors. Grateful.

We are going to have some fun with the Ramble Three question, or should I say exercise. KEEP or DUMP? Consider doing this one with a friend, spouse, or as a family. Grab a piece of paper and divide it into two halves. On the left hand side, list all the behaviors, ways of being, and habits that you have developed during COVID that you plan on keeping. On the right hand side, list those you can’t wait to DUMP. Once you are done, transfer them over to the google form below. It’s as simple as that. If you are a first time rambler, it’s never too late to join us.   

See you in June and thanks for rambling with me and each other.

Emerge - Ramble Two

Hi there and welcome to month two of the Emerge Project. If you are one of the 23 of ramblers signed up to share in this journey, thank you for your contributions to last month’s Ramble. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can join us at any time along the way. You can read more about Emerge here. Ramble Two’s question and sign-up form can be found at the end in this blog.

Ramble One asked you to consider, “In what ways are you experiencing a loss in effectiveness or vigor? What concerns or interests you about those losses?’

Your offerings were open and vulnerable. What follows is my best effort to capture the essence of your incredibly rich contributions. I now realize it will be impossible for me to encapsulate the full breadth of your experiences, so I will focus mostly on the shared experiences. There was a distinctly common theme among your responses - People are putting a lot of effort into being, or trying to be, productive, and people are exhausted. In almost every case, you talked about the ways in which the last year has opened new opportunities, has helped you to realize something significant, has invited new behaviors, hobbies, and ways of being into your life.  You are trying to make the most of an extraordinary situation with the hope that ‘when all this is over, it won’t all have been for nothing’. In the face of uncertainty, you have found safety, some control, and in many cases, meaning. You also suggest that these ‘gains’ might not have happened if it weren’t for an extended pause in the normal way of doing things. A productivity mindset has been helpful and I sense people feel grateful for that.

But. And. (You choose).

You might recall the Pema Chodron quote I shared about a year ago now. None of us is ok, but all of us is fine. Within, or perhaps underneath the realizations, reflections, and new opportunities, there is palpable exhaustion. For some, the fact that some people seem to be thriving only exacerbates the feeling that they are at times, barely surviving.

Susan – How is that my friends all seem to be baking, learning a new language, getting a puppy, all while losing 10 pounds with Noom? Some days, I can’t even get out of bed.

Clare – I find myself really quite envious of others who appear (at least online) to be full of effectiveness and vigor, it can make me feel even worse, like a failure.

Clare and Susan’s comments evoked the image of an iceberg. What are we doing that is visible above the water, on social media and in our small talk, and what’s happening below the surface? The iceberg metaphor is often used to suggest that what’s ‘really going on’ is somehow hidden from us, lurking in our unconscious or, if in our subconscious, perhaps submerged in shame. As it pertains to our question around loss of effectiveness and vigor, I like the use of the metaphor around what we show to others in the form of gain, versus what we might not show to others around the extent of our losses. Here’s what you told me about your gains and losses:

Does this metaphor resonate with you? What does this image evoke for you?

My takeaway - the need to be productive in ‘new’ ways has been critical to our coping and meaning making over the last 12 months. Pre-COVID activities that once allowed us to feel productive and accomplished are at best impaired, mostly diminished, and at worst causing damage to our confidence, orientation, and sense of self-worth.  The critical question I am left with is this -  Are the new ways of being productive balancing out the lack of productivity we are experiencing from areas of our Pre-COVID life? Should they? I can’t help thinking that it is in this gap, between the trying on of the new ways and the lack of interest, effectiveness and vigor in the old ways, where our anxiety, doubt, sadness, ambivalence, exhaustion, and sense of loss lie. There is something about that space that appears irreconcilable right now. The gap at times feels unbridgeable.

There are 8 ramblers have experienced a dramatic change in their professional life over the last 12 months: 1 retired, 2 decided to initiate a long overdue job change, 2 were already between jobs, and 3 were laid off. I am one of them and have shared in my previous Rambles the struggle, and opportunity to reinvent myself professionally. Kristin, Su, Clare and Jordan all relate to the ambivalence around this unexpected juncture:

Kristin - But, are these simple life skills just passing time as I somehow wait for my previous "life" to re-emerge? I find myself forcing a daily agenda to get things done, albeit projects I have always wanted to understand. But when I stop and listen, it feels like a loss, a mourning for my previous accomplishments and makes me question my daily and future vigor. Honestly, do I even really want what I had (financially, sure)? What deep pride am I getting from my new-found skills anyway? Is there a new life balance that can give me satisfaction when much of my professional work has defined me?

Su - During COVID I lost my job. This was devastating as I realized how much of my sense of self was invested in my work.  Losing my job meant days of sitting with myself and a whole lot of time for reflection. Ironically, that is something I was craving before it was forced upon me. I have had to adjust my understanding of "work" and hope that this shift and time spent away from "work" does not result in atrophy...

Jordan - I have no idea what is coming next!!! That's both exhilarating and terrifying . A chapter of my life is ending. I will never even go back to my office under "normal" circumstances. At the same time, I don't think we can go back to "business as usual" and I know that I never will. I've been running regularly and doing yoga three times a week. This is something I did for myself during quarantine, and I want to maintain the discipline of this rigor. I never made time for myself before. I was fat and drinking a lot and unhappy. I've made a decision to remove the thing making me most unhappy (my job), so now I really have no excuse. THAT concerns me.

Clare – I am experiencing considerable ambivalence as to whether I want to go back to an old way of working or whether I can find a new way that takes more account of my own well-being on an ongoing basis.

Clare’s ambivalence around old ways and new ways serves as a pivot towards Ramble Two’s Emerge question. I feel like we are being encouraged and led towards a notion that by the fall of this year we might be able to travel again, children will be educated in-person, and offices may reopen etc. In other words, some resumption of normality. That’s 5 months away (not uncoincidentally the amount of months left in the Emerge Project). Is that enough time for you? Yes, we desperately want to travel again and finally visit loved ones more safely, but we also have a lot of unanswered questions and a great deal of ambivalence. Maybe we need to spend a little longer in this gap between old ways and new ways? If the signals and cues of our pre-COVID lives return in 5 months, might they cause us to cut short a once in a life time, (or decade at least) opportunity to make lasting change in our lives?
Here is Ed’s answer to the question, ‘What concerns or interests you about these losses’?

My concern is over not having made the most of the opportunities the pandemic has provided; and the possible regrets at the thought of not having done more in relation to my own potential, and the actualizations of others; the specter of being left behind in potential advancement post-Pandemic. I'm predominantly interested in making the most of the time and opportunities that are left during the remainder of the Pandemic, and the Transition which we are currently cresting. It’s imperative I realize the lessons of the Pandemic in the coming new normal, and make the most of the remainder of my life having just lived through an historic upheaval in the story of humanity.

So, Ramble Two’s question is; If you, like Ed, Heather, Kristin, Su, Jordan, and Clare, and actually most of the rest of you, are looking to make changes in your life based on what you have learned over the last 12 months, or at the very least, have more clarity about what you might need and want moving forward, to what degree are you conscious that a window of opportunity is closing?

I hope you will add your thoughts on this by contributing to Ramble 2. Click here or on the green button below to fill out the google form.

Thanks everyone and see you in a month.!

EMERGE- Ramble One

Welcome to the Emerge Project!

Today’s Ramble is the first of six monthly conversations. (If you are new to my Rambles, click here). I don’t know what this extended conversation is going to look like, but I do know I can’t have it without you. I am looking for people to join me on the next six Rambles to chart and document our individual and shared experiences as we tenuously and tentatively emerge from COVID. Here’s why.

I am concerned that we will get swept up in the relief. I mean, we are human after all. I imagine that the return to the fundamental elements of our lives; reuniting with loved ones, travel, and the simplicity of sitting with friends in a restaurant, will have the pull a powerful drug. I cannot wait to see my besties over brunch, to entertain friends in my kitchen, and most of all, to visit my family in England. The anticipation of the relief is palpable. But. The term ‘back to normal’ is bounced around amidst a flurry of qualifiers. It means different things to different people. Many reject the idea that we could return to ‘normal’ even if we wanted to, and some (I am one of them) believe strongly that we should not.  Others long for a return to the way things were.

Each of the six rambles will pose a powerful question to encourage you to explore and monitor your emerging experience as it evolves. I will gather, curate and collate your contributions, and distribute them back to you the following month via my newsletter, along with the next Ramble and its attendant question. You don’t have to contribute every month, but it would be wonderful to have you along for the entire journey. Hopefully, at the end of the six months, you will have felt the support of other contributors through the sharing of their stories, and have taken steps to translate your COVID 2020-2021 learnings into lasting change.

One note, I really do want you to focus your thinking and responses on you. We find that hard, and for good reason. One of the seemingly universal takeaways from living through COVID is that human connection is essential. Technology is king in the modern age, but as it turns out, it is not enough. If you have children, close relatives, dependents, spouses, friends, colleagues, it is hard to consider your emergence separate from the interdependent relationships that greatly impact your daily life. And yet we are the sun in our solar system, the planets orbiting around us. Eleanor Roosevelt summed this fundamental truth up so succinctly when she said, “Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are, and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your own child’s.”

To join the EMERGE conversation, please fill out the google form by clicking on the button at the end of this blog. In addition to your name, email, and a question about confidentiality, there will be space to respond to the Ramble One question, which focuses on recovery. Before we can move forward, it feels necessary to examine what has been lost over the past 12 months, what has laid dormant, or even atrophied. The definition for the word atrophied took my breath away... Ready?

Atrophied - having lost effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect.

Yup. So, as we begin our conversation, my first question to you is:

In what ways are you experiencing a loss in effectiveness or vigor? And, what concerns and/or interests you most about these losses?

Ready to emerge? Just fill out the form, lace up your walking shoes, and let’s Ramble!

How are you coping?

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This month I read a new book and have reacquainted myself with a past favorite. The main purpose of today’s blog is to share those two resources with you, as I have found them deeply helpful in reconciling a fundamental contradiction that exists in my work as a transitions specialist. The time between what was and what will be is one of great learning, activity, exploration, and experimentation. And, transitions are a time for retreating, reflection and rest. I’m realizing that this polarity presents a dynamic tension that embraces the spectrum of ways in which people are coping during COVID. 

I’m noticing that three dominant narratives for ‘coping’ have started to emerge and converge.

1)  Meaning making.  COVID has to be happening for a reason.  “If we have to live through this, then we’d better learn something from it and come out better on the other side.” “If it hadn’t been for COVID, I would never have...” “COVID has reminded me how much I …” For meaning makers (and I am generalizing of course) living through the time of COVID is to some degree distinct from ordinary existence, an unusual window of time to leverage. They may generatate enough energy to externalize their learnings and even take action to make lasting changes in their lives. Is this you?

2)  It’s meaningless.  Living through the time of COVID is just part of the ebb and flow of life. It’s totally random. “It is what it is”. “I’m just taking one day at a time.” “It’s out of my control.” These people may turn inwards, adapting their behaviors and daily actions in small ways to manage. They may step back, slow down, reflect. Is this you?

3)  That both 1 and 2 are true, valid, and helpful. One day you are energized, generating plans and ideas, and the next day you are in bed with little or no motivation to get out of it. Is this you?

What’s unfortunate is that society is much more likely to notice, accept and reward the meaning makers. ‘Good for you!” We label this behavior as resilient, courageous, strong. And don’t get me wrong, it is all of those things. However, we are much less likely to be comfortable, let alone celebrate, the need or choice to retreat. We don’t live in a culture where inviting grief and sadness in is accepted as necessary and productive.

My first resource suggestion is the work of Pauline Boss, author of Ambiguous Loss – Learning to live with unresolved grief. I first heard her interviewed by On Being host Krista Tippett in 2016 in an episode called “Navigating Loss without Closure”. This groundbreaking work named the experience of grieving when a loved one is not dead but missing, or absent through an illness such as dementia, or alive but no longer in your life, like a former spouse, or estranged sibling. Under these circumstances, we are denied the opportunity to resolve the loss by performing the traditional rituals. Instead, sufferers of a missing loved one for example live with the ambiguity of ‘they might come back, or they might not.’

(In the West) we don’t like suffering. It’s a more Eastern idea that suffering is part of life. Our idea is that suffering is something you should get over… or fix it or find some solution for it… But here’s the crux: Now and then, there’s a problem that has no solution. Now and then, there are problems that don’t have a perfect fix. And then this idea of holding two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time (they might come back and they might not) is very useful for stress reduction. (Boss)

In regard to coping with COVID, life might return to the way it was, and it might not. We might finally be able to visit family in the summer, and we might not. Yes, it’s incredible that a vaccine was generated so quickly, but we know that the vaccine is not a cure. There is no known solution. Meanwhile, the losses, in every sense of the word, are piling up and we are grieving while coping.

I am ultimately a meaning maker but this past year I learned to put my armor down, (thanks Brene Brown) finally registering that my self-worth is not predicated on how busy or stressed I am. When my job ended unexpectedly and painfully pre-COVID, I made some travel plans (which never happened) with the intent of returning to launch an active job search in the summer of 2020. If it weren’t for COVID, LJN Advisory, my coaching and consulting firm would not have had the time to take root, to render some results from my months of networking and marketing. To be around long enough for it to look more like a hard turn rather than a temporary plug in my career.

AND, If it weren’t for COVID, I would never have allotted 10 months to rest, reflect, to take the time to deeply consider what I wanted and needed. I could easily have rushed back to what felt familiar and safe. I had plenty of days when I didn’t open my computer, felt the loss of my security and identity keenly, and struggled with motivation. I had a steadily ascending career trajectory for nearly 20 years. How am I here? How is this my life? It made no sense, but in my heart, I knew that sitting with that truth was part of my coping.

If something is nonsensical, totally without logic, without meaning, as many of these terrible events are, then I think we have to leave it there. But I think we have to label it as “It’s meaningless.” I can live with something meaningless, someone might say, but what I’ve found is, as long as I have something else in my life that is meaningful. (Boss)

The second resource, Wintering – The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by English author Katherine May, has kind of blown my mind to be honest. You know that experience when you feel that a book was written for you and that you happened to stumble upon it at exactly the time you needed it? Again, I first listened to May interviewed by Krista Tippett in January. I ordered the book which I devoured in a single sitting.

May focuses on how treating the space between two worlds as a time of nourishment is absolutely essential to our human experience. She defines Wintering as “A season in the cold… A fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of outsider.”  May reminds us that most animals in seasonal countries prepare for several months for the onset of winter, for an extended period of darkness and cold when resources are scant. Humans don’t just lack preparation for winter, we fight to keep it at bay, chasing the sun and worrying that we will be seen differently or even weak if we show how lost, sad and unmotivated we are.

In our relentlessly busy contemporary world, we are forever trying to defer the onset of winter… An occasional sharp wintering would do us good. We must stop believing that these times in our lives are somehow silly, a failure of nerve, a lack of willpower. We must stop trying to dispose of them. They are real, and they are asking something of us. We must learn to invite the winter in. We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how.

And here in this final quote from May, is our polarity again, the value of holding up and living with two seemingly opposing truths.

In our winter, a transformation happened. We read and worked and problem-solved and found new solutions. We changed our focus away from pushing through with normal life and towards making a new one. When everything is broken, everything is also up for grabs. That’s the gift of winter. Change will happen in its wake whether we like it or not. We come out of it wearing a different coat.

I think it was Pauline Boss who said that no matter how you are choosing to cope, the most important question to ask yourself is “What are you learning about yourself and what you need?” The simple power of this question is at the heart of both women’s work. I hope you find these two interviews as revelatory and comforting as I did. If so, pass them on to your loved ones.

Pauline Boss - Navigating Loss without Closure

Katherine May - How Wintering Replenishes

Does your resume tell a story?

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I have several coaching clients who are in career transition. These are amazing individuals who have been doing a type of work for most of their career, and now they want to do a different type of work. Perhaps in a different sector, field, or at a different size organization. For some it’s a shift, for others, a hard turn.  It is not a coincidence that most of these clients are in their late 30’s or 40’s. They have spent the first part of their working life acquiring education and skills, proving their competency, establishing core values, and climbing the organizational chart. Now they are looking to pivot, to find work that aligns with an emerging desire to make a difference in the world, and most significantly, to create the working conditions under which their success is measured by their wellbeing.

Our work life, like your relational life, has its own natural rhythm. The task is to find the connection between the change in your work or career and the underlying developmental rhythm in your life. William Bridges.

In the past, the resume has functioned as a list of things you have done in the past. However, if your resume only represents who you were, it is unlikely to get you work that reflects who you want to be. Assuming you know ‘what’ you want, (the meat of the work of a career transitions coach and client) it is vital to build a resume that signals those desires to the potential employee. If you don’t, they might assume you are looking to do the work you’ve already done. Right?

In our informational and creative age, here are three things employers care about:
1)  What motivates you?
2)  Do you have an adaptable and developing mindset?
3)  Do you understand how your attributes and transferable skills will meet the unmet needs of the organization?

Here’s three things the 21st century employer cares much less about than they did 20 years ago. Bridges refers to them as the 3 E’s:
1) Education – Unless your education is vocational or industry specific, it just doesn’t carry the same weight it used to. I know… it’s painful to think about. Employers want to see you have it, but they are not as interested in where you got it, or what you studied. Additionally, in recognition of the systemic barriers that prevent BIPOC from having equal access to higher education, some socially responsive organizations and corporations are removing degree requirements from their job postings.
2) Experience – By this I mean, how long you have been in the job. It’s the difference you made that matters, not how long you were there. In fact, because adaptability is so valued today, a long tenure at a company can work against you.
3) Endorsements – a referral or recommendation can be helpful in getting your resume read or even an interview. But there are often power dynamics between the employer and referrer (they went to Harvard Business School together and frequently trade favors) that could result in a courtesy interview situation. Most importantly, only the employer really knows what attributes are required to get the job done. And, emotionally intelligent employers are looking to understand a candidate’s areas for growth, and referrals seldom go there.

You can’t rely on your cover letter to sell yourself. What if they don’t open it? If that possibility fills you with horror, that’s an indicator that your resume isn’t telling your story.  How can you structure the first page of your resume to read like a snapshot of who you are as a human being and professional? Here’s my 5 suggestions to ensure that your resume tells the story of who you are, what matters to you, and the difference you can make. Your resume should:
1) Reveal your core values through achievements and milestones - You don’t have to list everything you have been responsible for in your previous positions. It’s boring and they will scan over it. Focus on selected achievements and milestones, big or small, that were meaningful to you and impactful to others and to the organization.
2) Codify your professional identity - How would you answer the question, ‘What do you do?’ Create a heading that succinctly articulates your whole professional identity. For example, mine is Coach. Consult. Lead. Search.
3) Promote your potential - Be future oriented! How could your cumulative skills and experiences transfer to the position and help the organization move things forward.
4) Illustrate your whole-self - There’s no such thing as work life balance. There’s just life. “I am myself for a living.” (James Taylor). The things you love and value in life can be valuable assets to an organization.
5) Document your career evolution - Show ways in which you have invested in your development as a professional, by taking risks, failing, falling and getting back up, moving to a new company or place, surfacing stronger after a challenging organizational transition, taking on new responsibilities that are out of your lane, seizing training opportunities etc.

Overhauling your resume is a necessary step along the journey of any career transition. There is a great deal of reflection, reimagining and exploring to be done before you start. Again, if you know what you want, what you are good at, what matters to you, and the difference you want to make, it will write itself. I’ll leave you with the words of management consultant Peter Drucker. Good luck, and you know where you find me if you’d like to partner with someone to write your story.

Successful careers are not planned. They are the careers of people prepared for the opportunity because they know their strengths, the way they work and their values. For knowing where one belongs makes ordinary people, hardworking, competent but mediocre otherwise, into outstanding performers. Peter Drucker – Management Challenges for the 21st Century

Keep moving…

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I don’t know about you, but I experienced sadness over the holiday period, and especially on New Year’s Eve. Part of this was not being able to celebrate with friends and family in the usual way, but mostly, it was the realization that 12/31/20 was just another day, and that 2021 was going to arrive with the same concerns and obstacles that have consumed our 2020 experience. COVID numbers are on the rise, and then domestic terrorism was added to the growing list of co-occurring pandemics. I certainly felt an exhale following the safe inauguration on Wednesday, but we have so far to go and so much work to do. We have to keep moving.

This is considerably easier said than done. I have found myself suffering from a syndrome I am calling, ‘Everything will be ok once…/I’ll get to it when…’ Have you found yourself saying…..?

After the election is over, I can…
Once we are through the holidays, I’ll…
I’ll get to it in 2021
I can exhale after the inauguration…
Once Trump is out of office things will be…..
When I get the vaccine, we can…
Once the pandemic is over, everything will be….

Whether you consider yourself a procrastinator or not, let’s cut ourselves some slack. This has gone on way longer than anyone thought, and we all want our lives to resume in an informed and fulfilling way. We want to see loved ones, travel, and desperately need to feel safe and secure. It’s been tough to stay motivated enough to complete even the simplest tasks, like getting out of bed, let alone rallying the energy to achieve more aspirational items on your to-do list.

Two people encouraged me to keep moving this past week. Firstly, Dr. King, whose wisdom flooded my social media feed this past Monday:

If you can’t fly, then run.
If you can’t run, then walk.
If you can’t walk, then crawl.
If you can’t crawl,
but by all means, keep moving.

Secondly,  his urging message reminded me of a book a friend and colleague recommended to me last summer, Keep Moving– Notes on loss, creativity and change by poet Maggie Smith. The book reads like a journal of daily encouragements for us to see new beginnings as opportunities for transformation, and to celebrate the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. In this 7 minute interview with Smith (click here) she tells us that as part of her grieving process, she would “Try on hope every day like a garment”.  Smith goes on to share that meditating on hope felt ‘itchy’ and ‘oversized’ at first but with intentional daily practice, became more comfortable over time.  

“Stop waiting on some grand permission to change your life. The universe is to going to tell you it’s ok. Tell yourself it’s ok. Keep moving.” (Smith)

People often ask me what the difference is between transition and change. I have many answers to this question, but as it pertains to the subject of today’s blog, I would answer in a couple of ways. One, that transitions happen over a period of time. By paying regular (daily?) attention to our inner realignment, we can incrementally close the gap between who we are, and who we want to be. And, as Smith said in the quote above, no-one is going to make the transition for us, only we can do it. Here’s another of her gems:

Think of grief, anger, worry as bricks or planks of wood. Stop staring at the materials, half believing they were delivered to you by mistake, half-expecting a truck to haul them away. Accept that these are your materials right now. Start building. Keep moving.

2020 was a herculean disruption in our lives, and 2021 is following suit. But the call to action, to ourselves as individuals, our loved ones, neighbors, communities, organizations, our nation, and the world, is ongoing. As William Bridges, author of Transitions said:

Opt for the turtle, forget about the hare. At the same time, do keep moving. The transition that bought you to this place cannot be undone.

As a transitions coach and consultant, my work is to encourage people to keep moving, serving as a positive accountability partner in my client’s personal and professional journey.  If you are suffering from the “Everything will be ok once/I’ll get to it when’ syndrome, here’s my advice:

1) Be kind to yourself. You are in good company. 2) A little bit every day goes a long way. And 3) Keep moving!