Grieving normality
Ted Hewett
Be excellent to each other ?? | Head of Employee Listening Programmes @ The People Experience Hub
I was angry. Like, really angry.
When I was younger I used to have a foul temper, and struggled to keep my emotions in check when I got hot-headed. As I've grown older (and potentially wiser), I found I left this side of me behind, but recently it's returned and honestly it's been really hard to deal with.
Possibly my favourite employee benefit of all time is our access to Self Space - on-demand conversations with qualified professionals. I've been using the service through work for just over 6 months now and it's changed my life. I dialled in to my first virtual session the other day, and we talked a lot about all manner of things and challenges.
The one thing that struck me was the idea that I was grieving. Since the beginning of the pandemic, everyone has lost something. It might be a holiday, or the routine of seeing your friends after work, or going to work, or your Saturday night out, or a new relationship... or it could be something far worse for sure.
A recent conversation with a good friend of mine was also about how the fact that people have it harder or worse than you doesn't de-value your own feelings, so when I could frame my own anger as one of the stages of grief for all the things I've lost in the last 10 weeks, it all of a sudden clicked.
Now, I'm not suggesting that we should all move to acceptance and be done with it, but I suspect that if you're reading this, you have been grieving your own loss in your own way.
And that's ok.
There's been so much talk about the "new normal" and what the future holds, but as I sit at my desk and think about it, I've come to accept my own losses and the things that the pandemic has taken from me. What I'm focussed on is the future - the opportunities that will present themselves for us to find new things to love and cherish, new experiences for us to get behind and care for in such a way that we'd grieve their loss too if it were to happen.
I miss the way things were before. I miss walking past the shard every morning. I miss seeing all my friends and colleagues every week. And that's ok.
If you've not thought about it before, take a moment today to think about the things that you're grieving. It's part of the process of letting go, and hopefully you can make more space for optimism once it's gone.
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Unlocking the power of employee accountability and purpose using strategic planning and communications that connect, engage and inspire | Employee comms | Consultant | Trainer | Mentor
4 年Truly authentic post, as always Ted. Really interesting about grieving our own losses. I think when we feel so lucky compared to the suffering of others we can beat ourselves up and not give ourselves permission to give space to our own feelings. Thank you for making us take a breath to reflect.
Talent and Recruitment Director
4 年Thanks Ted, I’d never really thought about the situation like that. Your post couldn’t have come at a better day. I’ve been really struggling myself the past couple of weeks, missing family, friends, work, colleagues, my daughters school routine, socialising and the gym. The gym has been my therapy for the last 6 years or so and as much as I’ve done PE with Joe Wicks almost every morning, rode my bike for miles and just recently started paddle boarding with my boyfriend - nothing really has given me the peace I got from an hour to myself with my headphones on in the gym. People have had it way worse than me and a lot tougher. I’m grateful for how relatively easy my lockdown has been. But it doesn’t mean I haven’t struggled mentally or coped better than others. Grieving my gym sounds ridiculous but I guess it’s possible.
Data Person
4 年Ted Hewett I am constantly in awe of how much you've put yourself out there and how often you've done it keeping in mind how it may help others, especially during these past months. Thank you for sharing this, and for writing about another way of thinking about what these past few weeks may have brought on to a few of us! ??
Designer for startups + VCs creating best-in-class digital products and raising over $150m in Venture Capital investment. Building OCTOBER - Design Studio for Startups and VCs ? Teaching people how to build apps with AI
4 年Love this man, hadn’t thought about it in this way too!
Helping people learn something useful
4 年Thanks Ted. That's a good explanation of some of how it feels just now.