As we enter a period of renewal and change, Your Clear Next Step is committed to helping our customers make their businesses and workdays even better. We will be here to walk beside you, to listen, to connect, and to aid in your search for clarity. In doing so, we are offering a free, daily Zoom call, called Daily Connections, at 1:15pm (CDT) every weekday from 3/19/2020-5/1/2020.
These calls are a chance for us to share tips and discussion about relevant topics (working remotely, maintaining consistency in uncertain times, building relationships across geography, staying motivated, staying connected, etc) and network with each other to provide help and support during this time of change.
Thank you to everyone who was able to join us today! The next call will be Thursday, April 2nd at 1:15pm (CDT). Click here to join.
On today's call...
Sinikka shared a few tips about space to grieve.
I teach a lot of classes on change, and when we go through the change process, as we let go of “what was” and before we grab on to “what is” we experience feels like grief. This grief stage looks different for everyone, and for every change, but it looks something like this:
- denial – “it’s not going to happen,” “this can’t be happening”
- anger – mad that it’s happening
- bargaining – I’ll play along if I can control the rules
- depression – inactive, resignation, sad, hard to get out of bed
- acceptance – it’s okay
- David Kessler offered a new, sixth stage called meaning – what meaning can I gain, in what ways has my own experience changed meaningfully because of this loss ? Read more here from HBR.
We are all grieving for different reasons, and many of us for multiple reasons. So, what you can do?
For others:
- Create a safe space
- Listen, listen, listen
- Give grace - grief makes things take longer
- Let them know you hear them
- Stay grounded in the truth, present facts in a compassionate way
- Encourage them
- Invite them to help others
- Give yourself space
- Have grace - grief makes things take longer
- Voice your thoughts and feelings
- Ask for help
- Find a source that lets you stay grounded in the truth, listen with an open mind
- Allow yourself to feel and look forward
Here were some ideas and questions shared by the group:
- I was just listening to the Brene Brown podcast from yesterday, which happened to include David Kessler, who is a grief expert and was the one to add the new 6th step.
- We are all morning the loss of what we had, because while we don’t even know what the world is going to look like on the other side of this, we know it will be different. So how do you process that? Acknowledge it and remember that all our feelings are valid.
- Deal with your grief, because if you don’t it will own you.
- This grief seems to be hitting many of us all at the same time (within the last 48 hours)
- Even just earlier today I made a list of all the things I've lost over the last couple weeks (I'm not sure what to do with them) but it did just dawn on me that this is a loss.
- I think sometimes as we go through this grief process, we think we get to acceptance, but we haven't yet. So, it’s okay to feel like you’ve made progress and then get set back a little.
- I think it’s normal to go through the grief process one piece at a time. With the loss of a loved one, we might process our grief and feel better, but then we get to the first holiday without them, and then we have to process that piece.
- It almost seems like we’re stuck in the mud (or the water) at the bottom of our change process. We’ve left A, and we’re grieving it. And as we teach in our change management classes it’s easy to bring others through the change process if we know what B looks like and where it’s at. But at this time we don’t. So, it’s unknown and uncertain and it makes it even harder and scarier to get to the next step.
- For problem-solvers, it is frustrating and causes anxiety when the mind continues to search for the solution to the situation. The best coping measure is to take action and not expect to solve it.
- I think that we are all looking for our Clear Next Step! The truth is, in any situation, there is one. Maybe not exactly in the direction we would like to be moving, but the challenge is to find it.
