What happens after 2020? The importance of connection, sharing experiences, learning, and growth.

Why can’t we just “move on” from 2020”?

Recently, holding my sick daughter as she slept, I was quite literally stuck (in the chair) with my thoughts and totally unable to distract myself with technology. While stuck, I couldn’t help but reflect on 2020 and what I (and we) have experienced and continue to experience as result of the challenges we've faced. Although 2020 is coming to an end, the challenges we are still experiencing and the impact those challenges have had on us are not. Even though the vaccine brings hope and light to a very dark and challenging time, the need to push through these final months of battle while we are worn out, exhausted, and overwhelmed by our circumstances still exists. On top of that, the impact of these experiences positive and negative on our lives are yet to be fully processed and the long-term impacts yet to be seen.

I wish we could simply move on to better and happier times. However, my past experiences make me skeptical that somehow things will just return to “normal” and we can carry-out as we were before 2020. In my experience, each challenge we face shapes us and prepares us for the next challenge and growth opportunity. Our lives are simply a continuous process of challenge, process/deal with the challenge, overcome the challenge, learn, and grow from the challenge, repeat… sometimes fast, sometimes over longer time periods but the cycle always repeats: Challenge, Process, Overcome, Learn and Grow. If we don’t complete the last step we will become stuck, repeating challenges and failing to learn from them. I believe we need to take time to reflect on and appreciate what we personally and others went through in 2020 and how those experiences impacted us and will continue to shape our lives in the future.

To overcome the challenges we still face in the coming months and get the greatest growth out of these challenges we must rally together, share and process our experiences, understand the impact of these experiences, learn from them, and achieve the growth necessary to prepare us for whatever challenge comes next.

Why is sharing our experiences necessary and important?

Behind closed doors…trapped at home, with limited social interaction, working remotely, groceries delivered or processed behind plexiglass, interactions with masks… all these challenges impacted our visibility to and understanding of the struggles and challenges people are facing in their lives. At work, we could see when someone seemed stressed, sad, frustrated, angry, or tired and could inquire, offer support, and encouragement. Video is better than nothing but leaves a lot unsaid if trust is lacking or time isn’t provided. In the community, we could smile at those we passed and see their smiles back, we could hug friends, and could socialize in restaurants and the like. We’ve lost our places of worship and our ability to freely socialize, meanwhile we have taken on more responsibility with remote work, distance learning, and a lack of childcare in general.

On top of these challenges, the social political world and unrest has been extreme – families have been divided over politics, people struggle to comprehend racial injustices/systemic racism, and the stress of the unknown due to the virus along with contradictory viewpoints on how to handle the virus. In the past we lived more in communities – the old saying “it takes a village” where people knew each other, supported each other, and learned from one and other. In today’s world we have lost many of these communities – we try to find them at work, church, or with friends but they are slipping away. We end up divided by different beliefs rather than united by common experiences. Now, in this completely transformed world I think we need to be sharing more not less. We need to move away from soundbites, memes, and inauthentic overgeneralizations. Rather we absolutely must find ways to connect around our shared experiences. Our country and our world need us to be individuals with our own stories who listen and respect the stories of others.

During the many months of social distancing, I read and researched many authors who are far more experienced, educated, and insightful than I. As part of this review, I learned about the innate human need for connection – biologically we are species that desires and requires human connection. Many referred to 2020 as a trauma we are collectively experiencing in different ways, and I believe a major source of this trauma is the disconnection. To process this trauma, and frankly just to continue to emotionally survive this trauma, I believe we need to connect and understand one and others’ experiences. And not just the experiences of famous authors, actors, leaders, and politicians but the experiences of regular everyday people and leaders (although arguably these individuals are also just everyday people). Together we can process what we have experienced and learn from each other becoming stronger, more capable people, who are better equipped and prepared for the challenge that will inevitably come next.

After spending my summer reading all of Brene Brown’s books (which I highly recommend and believe have forever changed my life in the best possible way) I have a deep respect for the need for empathy, vulnerability, and courageous leadership. Upon reflection, I believe many leaders fail to share the dark and challenging, yet very human side of life, leadership, and the challenges we face as leaders. Without this context and understanding, many feel disconnected from their leaders and those they see as successful. They seem out of reach, with success that can’t be replicated by others, and appear to have a better grasp on managing life’s challenges. If you were to look at only my work bio and accomplishments – you would miss a significant part of the picture – the human part where most of my life lessons and growth have happened. I guarantee the same is true for most people.

We each had a unique personal experience during 2020 – as a mother or father, grandparent, spouse, single, married, divorced, teacher, leader, doctor, lawyer, essential worker, or any of the various roles we serve. I believe woven throughout our unique experiences are common themes. The themes can serve to unite us around our common experiences and help us to both connect and share these experiences to improve our collective insights, growth, knowledge, and awareness as we continue to experience and process 2020 and its ultimate impact on our lives. We must understand our experiences, process them, learn from them and grow in order to make the most out of all these struggles.

What I am about to share is simply my personal experience and observations of 2020 and the insights I have had as a result. My experience is likely significantly less challenging than the experience of many others. I am blessed in so many ways with a wonderful workplace, a loving family, and the means to support my family. Although, I have also experienced significant challenges most of which I have not shared with but a select few. I hope by sharing a few of my experiences I might be able to connect with others and learn through this sharing.

Understanding each other’s experiences will help us to connect and process our own experiences.

Who am I and how did I enter 2020?

The challenges faced by all in 2020 were significant – the pandemic, the politics, the racial injustices, the systemic racism, the social/societal inequities, the lockdowns, social distancing, remote working, financial challenges, the list goes on and on. My personal challenges actually started prior to 2020 and provide the background for my mindset going into 2020. My prior challenges created my skepticism that we can come out of 2020 and return to “normal” and avoid future challenges as great as we faced in 2020.

First, a little background and “bio” on myself and my career:

• In 2010 I graduated with a law degree from Saint Louis University and became a member of both the Missouri and Illinois bars.
• For the past ten years, I served in variety of roles and later as leader at a small company named Experitec (an Emerson Impact Partner). I was also General Counsel and served in and/or lead talent management, marketing, administration, information technology, project coordination, customer service and order management. Currently, I have leadership responsibility for all the functions previously listed.
• During my tenure, Experitec has won the Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award the past two years and is nominated again for 2020, three Brandon Hall Awards (for High Potential Development, Performance Management, and Engagement), St. Louis Top Workplace three years in a row, and most recently achieved our highest engagement score as an organization yet! I am incredibly proud of what our team has accomplished over the last ten years and the type of organization we are for our employees.

If you were only to read my bio – and see the accomplishments – you would miss the most significant parts of my experiences and what was occurring while we were accomplishing all these successes.

2017 to 2018:

My challenges started in 2017, a year after the birth of my son when I experienced a series of significant health challenges – I developed chronic idiopathic urticaria (hives that won’t go away and they don’t know why), suffered two miscarriages, and was subsequently diagnosed with two autoimmune conditions Hashimoto’s and Autoimmune Progesterone Dermatitis (an allergy to my own progesterone). All this culminated in a major medical event a week prior to Christmas landing me in the ER with anaphylaxis (throat closing), fingers purple and numb, hives from head to toe, and angioedema (swelling of my face) requiring epinephrine and high doses of steroids.

What I learned:  In 2018, I learned to live with these autoimmune conditions limiting my activity, preserving energy, using supplements, and always getting sleep. These experiences helped me learn the need for wellbeing, work-life blending, and forced me find ways to be significantly more productive with my time. This experience taught me about finding the importance in the little things – appreciating small moments with my son. They also forced me to let go of the “social media mom” image – I could not keep up with special visits to pumpkin patches, family photos, Christmas cards, or other superfluous activities. I could only handle the basics and still be able to perform my job successfully. 

2018 to 2019

Then in October of 2018, I discovered I was pregnant with twins – suffice to say I was shocked and concerned about how my body would react given my allergy and losing other pregnancies. Saying the pregnancy was hard would be a vast understatement – for the first trimester I could barely get out of bed. The day after Christmas I slept 24 hours to recover and was still tired! I improved in the second trimester but by the third – I was big, it hurt to breath, walk, move, sleep. Then, an incident with my son’s childcare provider where she physically restrained and hurt him. I discovered she had been verbally abusive, and as a result he was traumatized and lashing out (and frankly so was I). We let her go 3 weeks before I was due and put him in school/daycare for the first time (thankfully he loved it!) but it took months for him to behaviorally improve. I worked until 37 weeks when I got sick– I waited until the last day they would let me at 38 weeks on June 27, 2019, to have a scheduled C-section.

The pregnancy was nothing compared to nursing and caring for twins while recovering from a C-section. I had a severe case of postpartum depression (they almost didn’t let me leave the hospital) and I was in denial but finally sought treatment. When lack of sleep and exhaustion along with insufficient milk supply became too much, I tried to introduce formula to my twin girls…God had other plans – after watching my girls’ projectile vomit multiple times after trying formula I discovered they had FPIES – food protein intolerance to dairy. In other words, they couldn’t have formula without getting very sick. I committed to stick it out with nursing and sought donated breast milk to supplement. I tried to return to work, I truly missed work, I love my job and the people I work with, I failed…repeatedly. I was just so exhausted, and my pumping/feeding schedule was intense. I made it through the year but much of it remains a blur of sleepless nights, exhaustion, and survival.

What I learned: Through this time, I discovered the powerful community of women and mothers that exists online. Three generous mothers donated their oversupply of breastmilk allowing me to feed my girls. Other women offered encouragement and support in some of my darkest moments during my post-partum depression. Fellow twin moms empathized with being overwhelmed trying to love two babies and still give a 3-year-old his much-needed attention. Working mothers provided support and coaching when I tried, and repeatedly failed to return to work fulltime after my scheduled leave. The Christian wives/mothers group who truly uplifted me and supported my need for faith encouragement and prayers. I was blessed with a wonderful workplace, boss, and especially team of employees who supported me during this challenging period of my life. And most importantly, my family – parents who stepped in to support repeatedly, sisters who offered support, and a husband who stepped in as the primary care giver and was (and is) extremely involved in sharing the burdens of parenting.

All these challenges prior to 2020 shaped who I was when I entered this new and challenging year. I had already learned some lessons which served me well in 2020 – about balance, family, online support, networking, compassion, and appreciating the small things. Most importantly, I had learned that challenges are the greatest opportunity for growth and the sooner we accept the challenge, process the challenge. and move to growth the greater our achievements can be.

My prior challenges equipped me with a greater understanding and appreciation for coping with challenges and the trauma that you experience due to them.

What did I experience in 2020?

Now the hard part, let me say at the outset I am going to do my best to share what I have processed, however, I am very much still “in the messy middle” trying to figure it out! I would love to say all the prior trauma and challenges gave me skills to make 2020 seem easy – they did not! For me, 2020 has been a rollercoaster of challenges particularly around the balance of being a mother, managing childcare, and being a business leader.

This was my life as I began the year in January 2020 – I was just beginning to get back into the office on a regular basis which I was only able to do by investing in Elvie (wearable) breast pumps. I could only go back to work because I could literally pump while I stood in front of a room training employees or sat in a leadership meeting discussing the plan for the year. I was finally experiencing a little freedom leaving all three kids with two babysitters to go out for dinner one night to celebrate the retirement of my father! That night would end up being the only “night out” my husband and I would have for the entirety of 2020!

• When the pandemic first hit – things didn’t really feel all that different for me – I had already been forced to work remotely for a few months, now everyone else was also remote! My husband and I had plenty of toilet paper and hand sanitizer (thanks to a happy accident when I purchased four huge bottles by mistake in the middle of the night while nursing and shopping on amazon – a bad habit!). Our business had the technology and infrastructure to go remote quickly for most employees. We had highly engaged employee owners who easily took all their equipment home on a Friday and began work again from home on Monday. I had a good partnership with my boss the new CEO/President of Experitec and although the reporting relationship was new, we were working well together.
• In the beginning - for my family, like many families, the biggest challenge was childcare. My 4-year-old son’s school closed and would remain closed until late May. Then, my new childcare provider for the twins got sick and was told to quarantine for two weeks. My husband and I juggled all three kids while working the best we could. As leader of IT, TM/HR, and Legal – I had a lot of work to do when we went remote – establishing an emergency response team, writing up our policy, ensuring we had VPN access, developing communication plans, training employees on Microsoft Teams, and just keeping the business running in general. Amidst these changes, I took on two completely new areas of the business – Order Management and Project Coordination. I had to learn new areas, maintain my current areas of responsibility, and all with twin 8-month-olds and a 4-year-old at home! Chaos doesn’t even begin to describe the stress and feelings we experienced.
• During this time, I felt personally responsible for the teams I managed, for understanding their challenges, supporting them, ensuring I could fill the gaps when they were challenged with circumstances at home. I also had three employees go out on maternity leave in 2020 – that is three people who were out for 12 weeks and then had to manage small children/babies at home in a pandemic. We supported one and other and empathized with the challenges we were all facing. Everyone did their absolute best given the circumstances. The stress, feeling of being overwhelmed, exhausted, and sometimes just lost were frequent.
• Throughout the year, I experienced so many leadership and personal challenges which I believe have truly transformed me as a person. I experienced conflict in discussions where viewpoints on the pandemic had become political. I struggled in leadership discussions with sharing my true beliefs or feelings given my background/family structure is different than the rest of the team. Being a female leader with small children, delicately balancing the challenges at home, trying to keep a strong fa?ade that things are under control and you are doing “ok”. Occasionally, I failed to keep this up – things were extremely hard at home and when you work at home, you don’t ever leave those challenges behind. Even when I had childcare, I could hear the babies crying above me – as a mom you want to go to your crying babies – as a leader/manager I knew I couldn’t. I could hear my son’s meltdown not understanding why he couldn’t go back to school and why he was stuck at home every single day. My heart broke while I was torn in two each and every day between parenting and working.
• During the summer, things got better for a while – my son went to summer camp (which was so good for him) and my childcare provider was taking care of the twins. We were able to go to my parent’s lake house for a few weeks over the summer which were much needed breaks. The stress of whether to re-open the office and how long this situation would work still lingered in the background. My family wouldn’t see us during this time in order to protect themselves from possible exposure. I have multiple high risk family members in my inner circle – my parents are over 60, my grandmother was 89 (now 90), my aunt lost a leg in 2019, and my brother-in-law has asthma. My sister, a pediatric nurse practitioner, ultimately chose to quit her job in order to protect her husband from potentially getting exposed.
• At the end of the summer and the beginning of fall, cases began to climb. This was when my son’s school communicated one of his teachers had tested positive for COVID-19. The same day my son came home with cold symptoms and I later came down with the same symptoms. We both had to get COVID tested and I agonized over the fear I might be sick and how my autoimmune condition would respond. I should have mentioned – technically I am high risk as well – although it’s hard to think of myself that way. Thankfully – we were negative, and it was simply a summer cold. However, we made the decision to pull him out of school. At the same time, we were forced to part ways with the childcare provider for our twins – she was 25 and wanted her freedom to do as she pleased, and we couldn’t afford to take that risk. We went through agonizing decisions to figure out what to do – debating whether my husband should quit his job.

Ultimately, we committed to a strict pod where we would not come in contact with anyone outside our group which included my parents, my sister and her family, my grandmother, and my aunt/uncle. My parents watched the twins and my sister would take my son and do school with him and her two young children. This has been our childcare since August – it has not been easy – my parents are exhausted – my sister is exhausted – we are exhausted – everyone is exhausted. My husband and I work all day (and sometimes at night to make up the lost time), then care for children, then try to get through all the household items at night and on the weekends. There are no date nights, no time away, no movies, no zoo visits, no trips to the store, no parks, no vacations – just many days at home. I am sure this description seems long but this is really only a small part of what we experienced in 2020 (I have left out things even more personal) but it provides a picture of the roller coaster.

Why did I write this and what should you do after reading this?

Before I get to what I learned from the challenges, I want to address what I am hoping you do after reading this. When I write, I use a method called Oratium to put together my messages. One key component of an Oratium message is to always include the action you want your audience to take as a result. I did not just share all of this to document my life experience (although I did find it quite therapeutic and would highly recommend it) but rather to first demonstrate the commonality of our experiences whether we are sharing them or not, and more importantly emphasize the human side of 2020 and need to reconnect and share our experiences and resources to build completely new “communities”. I ask you to look for ways you can connect with others, share your experiences with others (including me if you are comfortable), to share your resources, insights, and learnings freely with others, and to learn from these connections. We truly can make this world better, but it all starts with ourselves and improving how we connect, share, process, learn and grow from the challenges we face. 

What have I learned from these experiences and how have they impacted me?

This is my story and experience, it has been a long hard year (and years prior) – I have learned a lot and been impacted by a lot. I could just share the positive impacts – but I think it is important to share the real impacts not just the positive ones. As I write this message, I am still in the middle of all the challenges – I am still learning and growing – and therefore, these are simply current insights and not conclusions.

Relationships:

I have learned so much about my need for relationships. I took the relationships I had for granted. I didn’t have many (given my many years of challenges most people drifted away) but the few I do have were now even more limited. As a result, I have learned how complete strangers or people you haven’t talked to in years can make a tremendous difference. In one of my darkest moments, I posted on social media the darkness I was experiencing on a particular day. The outpouring of support I received, and messages sent to me with support, empathy, and advice made a huge difference. They most literally saved me that day. We can easily underestimate how seriously a person might be struggling and how a little connection can make a huge difference. Since this experience, I have purposely joined and actively participated in a number of social media communities. I participate in order to provide the same support I received to others in need – to encourage other twin moms at different stages of the incredible and challenging twin journey, to support other working mothers who are trying to overcome challenges, to connect with female leaders trying to navigate bias in the workplace, to connect and learn from other leaders, and just to support others in general. My Commitment: I am committed to continuing to strive to build new relationships, to provide support/coaching/guidance for anyone who asks, to leverage technology to grow my circle in ways I never thought possible, and to always start with connection.

Empathy

As a major part of the need for relationships, has come a much greater appreciation for the importance of empathy in our conversations and discussions. For example, racial injustice issues prompted me to reach out to learn more about the life experience of others. Connecting, learning, and having empathy for their experiences allowed me to develop a greater understanding than otherwise would have. Starting with empathy when I encounter anyone struggling positively impacts our interaction and growth through the experience. I haven’t always been successful, but I have worked on myself significantly to try to be more empathetic. My Commitment: I am committed to leading with empathy whenever I encounter a person struggling and being open to talk about the hard feelings that occur when we experience challenges in our lives – even when it makes me uncomfortable.

Balance

I have struggled with balance – I truly love most of my job - I love seeing people grow and develop, leading our business, my team of leaders, the team I work with every single day, and solving problems using technology. Because I love my job so much – it's easier to work sometimes than face the challenges at home. Without my typical support (childcare, etc.) there is more work to do at home which means I have to find time for this extra work. And...because we can’t go out – the boredom of playing the same kid games, walking the same neighborhood block, etc. becomes overwhelming and leads me back to working. My Commitment: I am committed to continuing to cultivating habits to improve my balance and ensure my focus shifts to my family when I deviate.

Health

Despite loving my job, I have struggled in some areas – navigating the quickly changing legal world, determining safety practices, and making really difficult leadership decisions related to budgets and workforce reductions. The stress of leading people through these challenges had a significant impact on my overall health and wellbeing. More specifically – I have leaned heavily on carryout food (not enough time/energy to cook) and comfort food (pizza, Mexican, etc.). After Halloween, sugar got its claws in me. Working from home meant spending most of my day in my bedroom/office (note: a person shouldn’t spend all their hours in one room). My movement was cut down dramatically without an office and meetings to walk to. All of this has impacted my overall level of fitness and health. I keep saying I will change it – but I have become a professional at making excuses. I have not made any commitments in this area yet.

Performance & Growth

The most powerful lesson I learned is how extraordinary performance and growth can be when faced with significant challenges. You’ve likely heard the diamond analogy previously, diamonds require tremendous pressure – I have been amazed to see the greater the pressure, the stronger our response, and then the more significant the results (performance and growth). Using this time productively – spending time learning about myself, reading/researching, and continuing to improve my performance as an employee, leader, mother, wife, etc. I have achieved more than I believed possible. I have learned about empathy, human connection, performance, accountability, grit, parenting, and relationships. Amidst all the chaos and challenges, I have seen employees I work with rise to achieve more than they ever did before. I am tremendously proud of the team of people I work with every day and all they did in 2020 despite the challenges. My Commitment:  I commit to continuing to focus on improvement so I can keep enhancing my performance as an employee, leader, mother, wife, child, sister, friend, and person. All I have learned led me to begin a project to fulfill a long-time dream of mine – to write a book. I have made many excuses in the past (not enough time, not enough skill, not famous enough, not educated enough, not smart enough) but have determined I am the one who can decide that I am enough, just as I am, and I will write what has helped and continues to help both me and those I work with achieve extraordinary performance in this challenging new world.

I am the one who can decide that I am enough, just as I am!

Conclusion

I wrote everything above before Christmas and on Christmas I thought to myself what a wonderful day. Truly, we had an amazing Christmas Day everyone was healthy, the kids played, we opened presents, ate breakfast/dinner, watched Elf and we enjoyed being together. I thought to myself maybe, just maybe, this is a fresh start…but deep down I knew better, I knew from my past four years that inevitably there would just be the next challenge. And so while I enjoyed the moment, while I enjoyed my children, while I laughed and I smiled and tried to live in the moment without experiencing the foreboding joy (fear of what comes next) deep down it was there and I knew there was going to be a next.

The next day my uncle who was struggling with health issues went to the emergency room and is experiencing a significant health crisis. The details of this situation are not mine to share here but as a family we care for and support my Aunt and Uncle – and this just represents the latest challenge. Every year at Christmas 2017, 2018, 2019 – I said next year will be better – next year things will be good – and every year are just new and different challenges. With each challenge we must determine how we will process them, address our feelings, solve the issues, overcome them, and ultimately learn and grow from them so that we will be prepared again to face the next challenge that will inevitably come. As 2020 comes to an end, I refuse to once again say "Goodbye 2020, 2021 will certainly be better" instead I am going to say:

Thank you 2020, for all you have taught me and the growth that has occurred as a result of the challenges I experienced. You have better equipped and prepared me for whatever 2021 brings and I will continue to learn and grow and persevere no matter what the new year brings!

As I said at the beginning, I believe creating connection and sharing our experiences can help us better learn and grow from these challenges. Recently, I reached out to another working mother who was struggling with a decision to ask for an opportunity to be considered for promotion. I shared with her my experience and offered my support – her response is what prompted me to write this – she needed that support, guidance, and inspiration to push forward and ask for what she very clearly wanted. I think in some ways we all long to better know the experiences of others so we can learn and seek inspiration from them. I hope you all are able to take a nugget of insight from this message as you think about your own experiences in 2020 and what is next in 2021. I am happy to connect with anyone who wants to connect and share experience, knowledge, or resources.

I truly wish all of you a Happy New Year and no matter what happens in 2021 it can and will bring us opportunities for learning and growth! 

If you liked this article please take a moment to like, comment, or share the article and consider connecting with me or sending me a message sharing it's impact on you.