The Great Turn On

A colleague of mine recently posted a photo on social media with the caption, “I am going through a lot right now. I feel off.” The photo was of a half-full parking lot leading up to a corporate office building. It was his first day back to the office full-time after an almost 2.5-year COVID-induced hiatus. He had walked through this parking lot hundreds of times before, but this time felt, as he put it, “off.” Something tells me his experience is not unique. I think many of us have had similar reactions to our return to the office… like something is missing… not quite right. I liken it to watching Dorothy go back to black-and-white Kansas after spending time in Technicolor Oz. We might be doing the same things as before, however those things lack a certain luster or dimension that we’ve come to expect and enjoy. We wonder if it’s just a matter of getting back into our rhythm. So, we give it some time. Yet, days, weeks, and months later, it still feels “off.” What’s going on?

As challenging, overwhelming, frightening, and exasperating as our time during the last few years was, I believe it awakened something powerful in many of us. The abruptness of the shutdown of our offices woke us up to the reality that life shouldn’t end the moment we begin work. Practically overnight, our two worlds—our home life and our work life—became one. And even though it felt uncomfortable for these worlds to collide (especially in the middle of an important Zoom meeting), something about it also felt very, very right. We traded in our tailored clothes, fashionable shoes, and layer of makeup and hair products for the comfort of feeling and looking like (gasp!) ourselves. We traded in an hour of commuting in traffic for breakfast with our families, extended walks in nature with our pets, and a few extra moments to take in our worlds. We traded in days of pretending to be perfect, confident, and unaffected for days where our messy and emotional humanness was on full display. We traded in a false, compartmentalized, ego-driven version of ourselves for one that is honest, full, vulnerable, and embracing of what I’m referring to as “spirit.”

In my knowing, when we feel that something is “off,” that is our spirit talking. People may call it different things--intuition, gut feeling, instinct—however, it’s all connected to this invisible, intangible energy that connects all of us to ourselves, to each other, and to the universe. I believe that when the pandemic shut down most of the world, it turned “on” our spirit in new ways and sparked a connection to a fuller version of ourselves. This version of ourselves could innately find beauty in the imperfect, meaning in the mundane, wonder in the absence of distraction, and purpose in the company of our most authentic selves. It brought a sense of belonging that transcends what we’ve experienced in the past. And now that we have experienced this belonging – we can’t un-experience it. The genie is out of the bottle, and it won’t go back in. We not only want more spirit in our work; we need it. I believe it’s this “Great Turn On” of spirit that’s motivating people to be so turned off from work in the Great Resignation. And it’s on all of us to create a better path forward.

Over the coming weeks, I am going to share more about what we can do as a collective and as individuals to infuse our offices, cultures, and habits with greater spirit. For now, I’d like to hear from you: What does spirit mean to you? How did you find your spirit during the pandemic? And what do you think are the greatest obstacles to harnessing our spirit in the workplace?