Personal Self-Care - Lessons from Apple's Severance

Severance…

When I was in graduate school for my masters in counseling, I took a Career Counseling class. At the time, I was only taking it because it was “required.” I was much more interested in “real” counseling than something like career counseling…….

But, something that my professor, Dr. Lee Covington Rush, said stuck with me. “When people are miserable for 40+ hours a week, how could that not impact their mental health?” I would argue that the inverse is true as well. If we’re struggling with our mental health outside of the office, it naturally impacts our life within work as well – making struggles we’re facing in the office feel even bigger. This was true over a decade ago when I was in school and it feels even more pronounced today.

Severance is an Apple TV original that came out in early 2022. I’m still in the middle of the first season but I’ve been struck with some parallels between the tv show and our necessary and intentional focus on healthier teams and healthier work environments.

The premise (which is revealed in the first episode so it’s not a spoiler for me to share) is that some individuals (seemingly) choose to undergo a procedure to be “severed” so that they don’t have to think about work when they’re at home and they don’t think about home when they’re at work.

Within a hypothetical framework like this, either the stress of home life is so bad that one clearly wouldn’t want to know about it in the office or the office is so stressful that they wanted to stop taking that stress home.

In reality, we’re holistic individuals. Struggles that we’re facing in one area impact the other areas.

It’s important to think of intentional patterns in all environments, to hopefully lend itself to a stronger and healthier life/work integration.

Here are three things that may be helpful when your mind, body, and spirit are giving you ??

WARNING ?? messages. Obviously there is always more that we can do, but sometimes taking the first step toward health and wholeness is the hardest…

? 1. Sleep. Ensure you’re getting enough sleep. It’s not lazy to sleep. It helps to refuel and refresh you. (I struggle with feeling like it’s lazy to prioritize sleep so I personally need to be intentional here…)

? 2. Move. At work or at home, there’s always more to do. If you’re not being intentional about stretching and moving you’ll be less productive and more sore. Can you block in a lunch break at least a few days a week where you take a 10-15 minute walk as part of your lunchbreak? If you’re in a meeting with a few other people and need to reimagine a challenge and come up with a new solution, what would happen if you stepped out of your office and walked/brainstormed for a few minutes? I’ve learned from my friend and colleague @Miriam Skrade how helpful this can be!??

? 3. Prioritize. Sometimes it feels like the weight of obligation and priorities are crashing down on you. Work with your supervisor to ensure that you’re always clear on your priorities. Work with your team to ensure that you’re all on the same page and aware of the focus. Do this at home as well. It may feel like a never ending to do list but even within that list, there are things that we should stop, start, grow.

??***I recognize that these are all areas that I need to personally work on……. Your list may be similar or it may be different. ??

What areas are important for you to personally prioritize***