Stay Connected

 

As I write this it is half way through Mental Health Awareness Week, I'm actually not a huge fan of these various awareness weeks and days. But this week I've realised they aren't really for me (I'm waiting for the mental illness awareness week) and this years theme of loneliness is quite a good one. Not that long ago I ran a session for my team on mental health at work as one of them asked 'what is it?'. The presentation explained we all have mental health, every single one of us, but not all of us have mental ill-health. And although there are things we can all do to keep our mental wellbeing and health generally okay, dealing with stress, burnout, being kind to ourselves - sometimes there isn't much we can do about mental illness at least not to stop it from arising. There is plenty we can do when we're in it and ideally plenty of people and services to help us. 

What I see is that awareness weeks and days (like Time to Talk) are to help us all manage our mental health and wellbeing, low level, likely aimed mostly at people who haven't dipped in to mental illness. That said some of the messages will help those people too, but some of the messaging also makes those of us with an ongoing mental illness quite cross! It's also hard to watch companies piggy back off these days and capitalise on the growing trend to discuss mental health. We are not commodities and selling a hat or offering discount in mental health awareness week doesn't solve our problems. Funding access to mental health services and free therapy for longer than 6 weeks may. 

But loneliness is a generic topic and one that impacts us all, we can all feel lonely even when together. We can certainly feel lonely at work and isolated, whether that be because we're working from home or people in the office don't know us. My hero Brené Brown was recently saying when they returned from lockdown to their workplace they had 3 days of 'getting to know each other' - no work, just sessions that reacquainted them. The power of connection being clearly linked to productivity and performance. Now most employers won't have this luxury (although in the very fact we see it as a luxury lies the problem), but we could have microcosms of this in action. I'm not sure I've seen many understanding this though, or understanding that connecting as people at work is so important and our jobs as leaders, managers and employees is to support and facilitate this. 

For me this is terrifying. I don't like connection. I mean I like writing my blog, I like sharing my thoughts, but I get quite anxious even talking 1:1, actually especially 1:1 - I hate the phone, if I'm not prepared I don't like speaking publicly and frankly after 2 years of lockdown I was quite happy living a solitary life at home. Except I wasn't really. At all. That lack of connection put me back in to a dark hole I didn't think I was worthy of getting out of. A cage where I would peck around on the floor for scraps never imagining the cage could open and I would be able to walk out, let alone fly out. 

The root of my hatred of connection is that I don't think I'm worth connecting with. The work I've been doing this past year is to remind my that I am, that actually everyone isn't judging me and frankly if they do "what other people think of me isn't my business". Now I've popped up on to the perch right by the door of the cage and am thinking about what I will do when that door opens, where will I go, who will I see, how will I live my life the best it can be?

All the evidence shows that connection has a power to help us all - most especially those of us with depression and anxiety. The work of Johann Hari and his book Lost Connections really explores this and has helped me step out of my comfort zone and try my best to be open to connection. This doesn't mean increase my social media activity, in fact I've tried to reduce the number of people I follow or friends on Facebook so I get a richer content and more meaningful connections. I'm pretty rubbish at avoiding social media and actually I like it, especially Instagram nowadays so I'm not trying to avoid it all together. But I'm trying to make the interactions more meaningful, to learn something perhaps and once a day now I stop and reflect on how today I can be more healthy, connected and purposeful (thanks to Karen Walrond for that one). 

The point is keep it simple, we don't have to make grand gestures with our teams or colleagues or our friends. It doesn't have to be deeply personal or feel embarrassing, but it does have to connect us as humans. It will take lots of us (ME!) out of our comfort zones and (I'll be honest) feels pretty painful, but it also can feel great. When someone sees you or hears you. When you learn something you didn't know about another person. Or they accept actually they didn't know you and they're willing to listen. Meeting you where you are, not trying to fix or change you. Empathy...or what I now know is actual empathy, but that's a whole different blog! 

useful resources:

Mental Health Awareness Week | Mental Health Foundation

Accessing Joy and Finding Connection in the Midst of Struggle - Brené Brown (brenebrown.com)

Lost Connections – Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions (thelostconnections.com)

Why We’ll Never Be the Same Again (and Why It’s Time to Talk About It) - Brené Brown (brenebrown.com)