My Mother's Gift

"Melancholy. Remembering. It was 11 years ago this very night. I still miss her. Love you, Mom."

That's what I just posted as my Facebook status. I'm thinking, "what an odd thing to share with 150 people, some of whom have little close contact with me." Yet, that's how I feel. It's who I am. And the part of me that used to be afraid for people to know who I really am is overtaking the fearful part. Just a little bit. Every day.

I was standing at the stove making dinner – a pot of goulash, one of Mom's specialties. I was feeling grateful that this dish that is allowed in the restrictive new diet I am living with. That led me to contemplate the odd concept that this insulin resistance is part curse, part gift from my mother.

Mother.

That's when it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I felt the ghosts of the emotions I felt 11 years ago tonight. I was making dinner that Monday evening when I picked up the ringing phone to my sister's sobs. She said, "Nila. It's Maria. Mom's down. They've taken her to the hospital. I'm on my way there." I just said, "I'll be there as soon as possible." I hung up the phone and fell to my knees wailing. I knew the moment had come. The moment I dreaded. I'd lost my mother.

Steve and I packed up our infant son and drove the 45 minutes northeast to St. John's Hospital in Anderson, Indiana. I remember walking through the sterile emergency waiting room, through the powered doors, making a right into one of the trauma rooms. The room seemed impossibly enormous. I only remember the walls, my father leaning against one, my sister against another. And, as if on an alter, I saw my mother on the bed, lifeless and cool. I smiled, put my hand on her and kissed her cheek. In that moment I felt her all around me, but not in that body. I was in her grace. And a rush of strength entered me.

The following week was a whirlwind. We made funeral arrangments, greeted many faces. And Mom was cremated on my father's birthday, that Saturday, May 2nd. I've always felt a certain sadness for my father that this act had to be on that day. They'd been married just shy of 50 years.

I've comtemplated that day a lot lately. Recently I was diagnosed with insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes, the disease that ultimately took my mother's life far too soon. I remember my mother's unspoken desire to have done more in her life, regrets over decisions she had made. As I consider similar thoughts in my own life, I am given the choice to follow the same path or to learn from my mother's journey, to fight for my health and my life and to make decisions that may be unpopular and painful for others, yet ultimately true to my own soul and better for all.

To my father, my brother and my sisters, my husband and my children: I love you dearly even though I might not say it enough.

Digital Technology Serves Humanity

I believe that oftentimes in our culture we forget what is the master and the servant. Take technology for example. My 11-year old son recently reminded me that technology is any material or tool that helps you get something done, even if that is a rock and a stick (images of MacGyver dance in my head). That's right, even the simple things we easily view as tools (our servants) are technology. Even paper and a pencil. What a great reminder that this thing I'm sitting front of isn't the center of my universe and it doesn't rule me.

My MacBook Pro, as beautiful as it is, is only a tool to help me get things done, like right blogs, plan schedules, think in fast mind maps, communicate, create presentations and so on. And we have to work this digital technology in with our own personal preferences and styles. I, for instance, would love to keep a calendar via the computer somehow. Yet, even with my iPhone, a Me.com account, and all the synchronization that is offered to me, I still find that a paper calendar works best. For me. I need the sensation of writing with a pencil. And I need about an 8.5 x 11 landscape format with the week laid out as days in columns, side-by-side. Anything different and I miss appointments and feel an odd sense of disconnectedness from my schedule.

You see, just because the digital technology is available doesn't mean you must use it. It's a tool, after all. And I'm the master of my life and the information that I need and want to move through it.

Bonus round: One of my favorite quotes perfectly embodies another area that I believe our culture has a tough time keeping straight in terms of what serves what...

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind its faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." Albert Einstein

Bronze Age spearhead photo by Wessex Archaeology. License: Creative Commons-Noncommercial-Share Alike.

Identities and roles - for people and business

This morning my Vistage chair (the fabulous Mike Donahue) led a discussion on identities versus roles. Since identity is one of my favorite topics (brand is, after all, a euphemism for identity) I was especially interested in the conversation. A synopsis:

Identity: It's who we are. Our essence. Our core. Our self concept.

Role: It's what we do. Our part. Our function in a business, family, community.

Difficulties arise when our roles are not congruent with our identity. For instance, if you see yourself as a warm-hearted, relationship-oriented person, but your job requires you to stay relatively isolated in an office making strictly logical, calculated decisions, the stress could wear on you to the point that it leads to depression. You have the choice to work to make your job more congruent with your identity or to find another job that is more aligned with who you are.

In my own case, when I turned my firm over to new owners after 13 years at the lead, I hadn't factored into my life that I had absorbed "President" into my identity. And so I was taken by surprise when I found myself grieving the loss of that part of myself. I had to come to grips with the concept that my role had changed to employee and seek different avenues for offering leadership.

The concept of identity and role is also central to my brand work with businesses. I believe that brand begins with "who" a business is (identity) and the operations, marketing, and production (roles) flows from the brand essence. These two parts in complete alignment - the identity and the roles - form a confident organization that is poised to deliver and build trust.

Big changes bring emotional responses: the stages of grief

Since I've been talking with a lot of people dealing with layoffs, major work changes or the anticipation of change, I've found myself talking about the inevitable emotional states we tend to experience with change. Seems like good information to share on a blog, so here goes...

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was the pioneer of psychological work in grieving. Her work had started around the grief associated with death and dying, but psychologists since have been able to show that Kübler-Ross’s “five stages of grief” is applicable to any significant change in a person’s life, including work. The theory is that sudden and (largely) unexpected change in one’s life will nearly allows be followed by these five stages (emotional responses):

1. Denial: I feel fine. This can’t be happening.
2. Anger: Why me? This isn’t fair! How can this happen to me? Who is to blame?
3. Bargaining: All I want is (to see my children graduate, to get enough...). I’ll do anything for (some period of time).
4. Depression: I’m so sad. Why bother? What’s the point? Why do I need to go on?
5. Acceptance: It’s going to be okay. I can’t fight it, I might as well prepare for it.

These stages are said to typically happen in order, but in differing levels of intensity depending on the individual or the situation. Some, including myself, believe that the order may change and some of these feelings may happen simultaneously. For instance, you may say that something that happened doesn’t affect you at all, but feel anger or sadness of unknown origin. You may transfer your anger to something or someone else to avoid seeing the reality of your own humanness.

This is only one model, of course. Kübler-Ross’s is simply the most well known. Most important is to recognize that you may experience a range of emotions. Allow yourself to work through them rather than denying them. Get support, even if just writing in a journal or talking to a friend. And put off big decisions until you feel you’re returned to a normal (for you) state. In that state you can put both your logic and emotions to work in making lasting decisions.

Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model
Psychology classes from long ago and therapy over the years

Layoff Survivor's Guilt

For the first time in my life, I've been part of a "right-sizing" situation. Last week, my firm took steps to control our costs. Among other smart actions, two people were laid off. I had no idea how tough it would be. I'm sure it's not nearly as difficult for me as for the people who lost their jobs. Still there is definitely a set of emotions that go along with watching people you've labored beside go home from work for the last time, not because of their own performance, but for purely financial reasons. And my coworkers were treated with dignity, not handed a box for their stuff and then escorted to the door like other friends of mine who have recently lost their jobs.

Much has been written for those who have been laid off. Little attention is paid to those left behind because even though they have likely taken cuts in pay or benefits - or taken on an extra load of work - they at least have jobs. But the emotions experienced by the survivors is real. For me personally, there has been a certain amount of questioning why I wasn't chosen and worrying about the emotional health of the newly unemployed, wondering what I can do to make it easier for them.

Enter the term "layoff survivor's guilt." CNN recently posted an article about dealing with layoff survivor's guilt. Time Magazine had one titled After Layoffs, There's Survivor's Guilt. Businessweek posted another article directed at senior managers about stopping survivor guilt.

According to a few articles I've read, besides survivor's guilt (why him and not me?), there are at least two other specific emotional responses to surviving layoffs including survivor's envy (wishing you'd been cut, too) and emotional contagion (picking up and displaying the negative emotions of others).

My former coworkers are talented and smart people who will surely create opportunities out of this situation. They'll land somewhere new and create new works bonds. And, when the economy recovers (and it will, even if not as artificially robust as before) the euphoria of success will wipe away the pain of the layoffs.