Stressed Out? Start Close In
I’m stressed out. You? The overwhelm is real. The levels are many, they are intertwined, and they show the complexity of our times.
Hal B. Gregersen talked through the transition curve at the WEBCS conference. This curve is a way to understand what we are facing. It is that we are in three curves of being all at the same time. (see images)
- a curve of performance and learning, to get stuff done
- a curve of culture shock, as we live into the new COVID reality
- a curve of grief and trauma, as we process all sorts of loss
- these three curves overlap in an overall transition curve — a curve that helps explain the overwhelm and tensions we feel of ‘get it all done while navigating this new reality and processing your loss and grief’.
This complex time is a shard global experience that is hyper-individualized — we all have different lived experiences against these simultaneous curves.
And Dr. Gordon Neufled speaks about the stress of today as a direct result of being torn away from what our humanness reaches for in times of crisis — togetherness and connection. Right now, togetherness is not the answer, but our stress is caused by togetherness, which is actually the risk. Little kid runs to Nana for a hug, and is yelled at to ‘stop! don’t touch!’. And hearts are broken.
And so, how do we hold this stress? If we keep it, we become reactive. The fear grows. We may have a hard time managing the simplest requests from our kids. We may infer and assume the worst from our colleagues — “she just blinked twice during our Zoom call. I knew she didn’t like my proposal.”
One tactical solution is to ‘start close in’, inspired by a David Whyte poem. So, I invite you: “Start Close In” — simply take your next step… and the next… one step at a time. Don’t look at the top of the mountain, don’t look at the panorama, for now just take another step… Breathe. Let’s have a conversation on how you can take manageable steps along your journey.
