Waves of Anxiety, through the Generations

Sometimes the most healing thing to do is remind ourselves over and over and over, other people feel this too.
Andrea Gibson

Stranany Cemetery, Michalovce, Slovakia, March 2011

My alarm goes off most mornings around 5:30am. I hear the familiar vibration, followed by a paradoxical “sing songy” instrument that I think is meant to be soothing. I immediately hit snooze and then proceed to do the same thing 10 minutes later, and sometimes 10 minutes after that, and so on. I know research says this is not a healthy way to start the day. According to headspace, “We add to our stress by starting our morning in a fight with our alarms, where we eventually concede defeat.” It’s a bad habit and I find myself often spending the next 20 minutes or so repeating mantras in my head in an effort to convince myself that everything is okay…That I am okay. That I am strong and brave and wise. These are also the same affirmations I tell my daughter most nights, hoping to instill what has often been hard for me to accept for myself.

What is anxiety really? It is distinguished by the American Psychological Association (APA) from fear, which is considered an “appropriate” response to “a clearly identifiable and specific threat.” Despite this distinction, I think it’s still fair to say that fear is at the root of most anxiety and that anxiety plays out in all of us to some degree. While society has made tremendous progress in terms of normalizing anxiety and other mental health conditions, it still doesn’t welcome these emotions at the proverbial “table.” It’s still taboo, for example, to talk about anxiety and depression at the lunch table, with your supervisor or at your child’s parent-teacher conference. And therefore, too many people suffer alone.

I’ve been in and out of therapy to treat anxiety for over half of my life. This is hard to admit and yet, I think important to normalize. And I know today’s youth are struggling at even younger ages. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth, for example, has only exacerbated an already horrific downward trend.

With the international climate aflame with strife and violence, I’ve been spending a lot more time thinking about Epigenetics, intergenerational trauma and their impact on mental health. The idea that environmental factors or traumatic events can affect your genes and the way “your body reads and responds to your DNA” is hard to wrap your head around. And yet, I’m seeing it unpacked more and more, not just through a scientific lens, but within the arts, spiritual spaces and even counseling settings.

Now working for a Jewish organization whose mission is to fight hate and antisemitism, I’ve been spending a lot more time thinking about my own family lineage. While I’m sure my anxiety can be attributed to multiple factors, both environmental and genetic, I do wonder if my nervous system is responding, not just to perceived threats in my own life, but to those real threats that my ancestors battled with and against for centuries. How long have ancestors from within all of our communities been fighting off threats such as hate and bigotry and how does this dynamic play out in our bodies today? I wanted to know more. And so, I turned to literature.

I recently finished the novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, by Jamie Ford, and am struck by how the role of Epigenetics is being explored through historical fiction as well. An Asian-American author, Ford unpacks the role of inherited trauma through the female lineage of Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to set foot in the US in 1834. Ford beautifully weaves together stories of Moy’s descendants, including a nurse in China serving with the Flying Tigers in WWII, a young girl quarantined during an epidemic of bubanic plague in San Francisco in 1900 and Washington’s former poet laureate, Dorothy Moy, who is raising a daughter and fighting for her mental health in 2045. In pursuing an experimental treatment designed to mitigate inherited trauma, Dorothy Moy intimately connects with past generations of women in her family tree. While the novel weaves in elements of mysticism and science fiction, it is beautiful and heart-wrenching and feels very, very real.

When I was living overseas in France in 2010-2011 in my late 20’s, I decided to take advantage of my proximity to Eastern Europe and explore first hand where my family emigrated from and why they might have left. I am the first person in my family (that I’m aware of) to have taken the pilgrimage back to the tiny town in what is now Eastern Slovakia where my family lived, before emigrating to the United States in the 1880’s. Thanks to Wikipedia and the stories passed down from my grandfather with whom I was extremely close, I know that my great-great Uncle, late Rabbi Joseph Hertz was born in Rebrín/Rebrény, Hungary in 1872. This town is presently part of the village of Zemplínska Široká in Slovakia. Hertz emigrated to New York City in 1884 a year or two after his older brother, Emmanuel (my great Grandfather) and their father, Simon came looking for better opportunities, in the face of rising antisemitism at home.

Joseph went on to become the first graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1894 and would go on to serve as a Rabbi in New York and South Africa. He served his final post as the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth from 1913 through two world wars and until his death in 1946.

Every few years I go back and re-read aspects of his story and discover something I didn’t know before. In my latest reading, I learned that in 1920-1921 Rabbi Hertz was the first chief rabbi to undertake a “pastoral tour” of the British empire. His pilgrimage would take him over 40,000 miles and to over 40 Jewish communities around the world, including in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Canada. Just reading this is a reminder that the Jewish diaspora is wide and nuanced, built upon waves of complexity and layers of history, going back to biblical times.

My own personal pilgrimage to the village of Zemplínska Široká in the spring of 2011 took me to a small town that was completely wiped of its Jewish population at the turn of the century. To get there, I took a 10 hour night train from Prague to Košice, a bus from Košice to Michalovce and another smaller bus from Michalovce to Zemplínska Široká. I had arranged beforehand to meet a local historian in Michalovce who was kind enough to drive me to an old, overgrown and abandoned Jewish cemetery outside of town. I wanted to see if I could find the grave of my great aunt’s grandparents who were believed to be buried in that town (hence the photos above and below). While I didn’t find their specific tombstones I did find one with the same family name I was searching for (Friedman). It was remarkable to be that close to my own family story and yet to know so little about what they went through to pave the way for my family light years away.

And here I am in 2023, raising a family of my own in Middletown, CT. As I write these words I question if I am struggling with some existential desire to answer an unspoken cry from my ancestors. What am I in search of that they never found? What inherited trauma has been passed down to me that I must embody and then let pass through me, so that it doesn’t get passed down the family line even further.

How does inherited trauma continue to play out in our own bodies and become experienced as anxiety?

I’m not sure where this search will lead, but I know that I must take a pastoral tour of my own, to understand why and from where our pangs of unworthiness, fear and anxiety stem. I know I am not alone. And I know that the answer lies in 1000 different places.

When I wake up tomorrow though, and find myself at battle with my snooze button, I will try and be just a little kinder to myself and lean into the strengths passed down from generations of ancestors who were likely all just trying to do the same.

לְדוֹר וָדוֹר, l’dor vador, “from generation to generation”
An ancient concept in Judaic scripture generally interpreted to mean that we have a responsibility to pass on teachings from one generation to the next.

Letting Go

“Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you- all of the expectations, all of the beliefs- and becoming who you are.
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Sometimes the best thing we can do in life is to take our hands off the steering wheel and let someone else drive. There is a Yiddish expression, “Der Mensch Tracht, Un Gott Lacht,” which translates to “man plans and God laughs.” I have received a lesson in this wisdom over the last month. Less than two weeks before starting my new job, I had an absurd, freak accident which left me with a fractured ankle and what felt like an impossible situation to maneuver. Instead of planning my commute to work, I was planning a pathway to surgery and renegotiating a start date to allow for recovery. Life stopped. And the millions of little things that one moment had been in my control and seemed so important were suddenly whisked away.

Since surgery to repair my ankle, I’ve had to relearn how to go up and down the stairs. My daughter is now getting a kick out of me descending and ascending on my butt like she used to do when learning to become mobile. We are both learning to put on socks and step into shorts together. It is not straightforward. I can empathize with how tired she gets when trying to do it by herself and just wanting to give up and ask for help. Well, now we can help each other.

There have been countless lessons in this “pause” that have inconveniently inserted themselves into my life. I don’t even know where to start. For one, resisting reality or grasping for something different makes everything harder. When the Physician Assistant (PA) in the ER came in to tell me about the results of the x-ray, I was in disbelief. I started rattling off all the things I had planned for the summer and asking if I could still do them. I had plans to take my sister to NYC the next day for her 40th birthday…could we still take the train? Could I still participate in the sprint triathlon I signed up for in August? I had finally found the time to get my bike tuned up after years of it collecting dust in our garage. The PA looked at me funny and said, “well if you want to show up on the day of the race and see how you do, go for it.” (Instead my training of late has consisted of doing light ankle stretches and circles). Okay, so what about this concert or this trip or this baseball game or this adventure, etc? I immediately looked at what I was losing. Perhaps this is fair. There is a lot of loss. Not to mention, money and time and the incredible burden this places on my loved ones to pick up the slack.

But what of the gain? What do I gain from a setback?

In the last month my mind and body have slowed down, literally and figuratively. I’m not able to think much beyond what is right in front of me. At any moment I need to know where my crutches are, what I need to grab in order to sit down, whether it’s time to ice or elevate, etc. I’ve been forced to slow down in a way I didn’t think was possible, and life has not imploded. It’s gotten a bit more confusing and there are additional puzzle pieces we need to maneuver but I’m able to keep up at a pace that feels more realistic.

So what happens in a couple weeks when I can start bearing weight again, when I can commute into work or go for a walk to the mailbox? Yes even getting the mail is a formidable challenge now. Will I start piling things back on slowly, until I can’t catch my breath? Truthfully, I probably will at first. But perhaps this time I’ll connect with the ease of keeping things a bit simpler. After all, it’s not what I’m accomplishing or checking off that dictates my worth, but instead it’s in the “letting go” that I stand to gain the most. Blessings for a smooth week ahead and may you embrace the bumps and cracks along the way.

Meditation on Change

“Open the window of your mind. Allow the fresh air, new lights and new truths to enter.”
Amit Ray

Aging is a funny thing. It happens constantly. In every moment. While we are awake and while we are sleeping. Most of these moments just pass by, unnoticed. It is a natural and inevitable part of life and yet we often fight it. Or at least I fight it.

The gray hairs that start to slip through, harder to hide. Wrinkles on my face. An increase in aches and pains when I don’t work out as much. Or when I do work out. I’m growing older. Most of us don’t have too many outlets to make sense of this process. Instead we buy our way into stopping the aging process. Try this beauty service. Use this jade roller. Meditate more. Eat lighter foods. All of these recommendations on their own are perfectly reasonable and ones we could likely benefit from, but taken together, they feel overwhelming and at times counterproductive.

Our six year old Portuguese water dog, Halligan (aka Hal), was recently diagnosed with aggressive liver cancer. He was given a prognosis of about 1-2 months, if we pursue treatment. And if we don’t pursue treatment then we are looking at weeks or even days. Of course no one can say for sure and the research is spotty but either way you look at it, we have very little time left with him.

How on earth do you process something like this? One moment he’s seemingly healthy, running 2 miles in the woods with us and the next we are talking about comfort measures and how we want to talk to our toddler about mortality. (Tips on this are welcome by the way.)

As I remain hyper vigilant to Hal’s symptoms, I notice that so many of my waking hours are spent in a state of subtle scanning. I think I’m channeling my ancestors and looking for a fire to put out or a threat from neighboring tribes. I’m almost always in problem-solving mode, planning out my week ahead or doing the math on how I’m going to get to my new job on time while “lightly” guiding my daughter through her morning routine. (She’s rounding 3 years old and the concept of “threenager” feels apt.)

As I prepare to return to work full time, I’m asking myself, how did this happen again? I took the last year a half to step back and find a sense of calm and balance from the the frenzied pace I had been moving at. And, yet, if I’m being brutally honest with myself, I think I’ve recalibrated bit by bit so that I’m still following the same patterns just a little less intensely. All of these behaviors I’m sure are adaptive and in place to protect me from unseen threats. However, they are still getting in the way of me being in the here and now.

In this next phase, as I return to work, I want to reflect on what I’ve learned since “Taking a Pause” 20 months ago. In no particular order…

Our relationships are sacred. Our partners, our children, our parents, our colleagues, our neighbors, our friends…They are primary and deserve to be elevated above all else. No work stress or drama or inconsequential, petty argument is worth jeopardizing the connections we’ve built with those around us.
Parenting is hard. Full stop. Give myself grace as the journey continues to unfold.
When I feel cynical, which I do often, try to reframe or consider a new perspective. How am I learning, growing, and stretching through this hard thing? What is another way to look at this moment?
Dream. Imagine. Rest. Allow myself space for rest and creativity. Having just finished Tricia Hersey’s, Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, I’m moved and saddened by how consumed many of us are by “grind culture.” The oppressive nature that white supremacy and capitalism have on us is dripping in plain sight and yet we can’t see it because we’re too busy grinding away. It’s in our blood and our social makeup, but it doesn’t have to be our fate. We can resist.
It’s okay to not have it all figured out. Multiple times throughout the past year and a half I thought about making major career and life changes. I researched schools, ministries, organizations, yoga teacher training programs, etc. I shadowed, I prayed, I asked for answers.

And…now….I find myself returning to something very familiar, to an organization for which I worked previously. I think my search and quest for change has ironically (or not so ironically) brought me back to where I started so many years ago when I first moved up to CT.

Perhaps though, while I have come full circle in some ways, I have changed in the process. I have grown and surely aged (as is evident by my greys). And hopefully I’ve garnered a little more wisdom about what matters.

In this next chapter for myself and for all of us, may we go easy on ourselves and others. May we see the world for all its beauty and all its pain. May we stop for snuggles and cuddles and belly rubs and know the sky will not fall if we don’t send that last email. Perfectionism is dangerous and a form of violence and is perhaps the biggest threat of all to this messy and sacred process of living.

Sending love and blessings for whatever small or big steps lie ahead.

Can We Go Back?

“We are powerful because we have survived.”
Audre Lorde

It’s the spring of 2003. I’m a second semester senior at the University of Pennsylvania. I have maybe 4 weeks left before graduation and I decide now is the moment I’m ready to walk into my college’s LGBTQ+ Center. I had finally started to acknowledge my queer identity to a few close friends and was ready for a fresh start post-graduation. I was still applying for jobs and internships and wasn’t yet sure where I would land, but decided to make an appointment with the LGBT Center Director to get some advice on transitioning to life outside of Penn as a queer person.

Back then, being out as a college student was still daunting (and for many, it still is). I had essentially spent my entire college experience in the closet. It was easier to skim the surface of my social life as just a part of myself, exploring crushes and relationships with boys, but not going near my feelings for girls. I think part of me truly believed that if I pushed these feelings back far enough that they would go away. I thought I could will a different future for myself, one that placed me squarely into the range of “normal.”

It’s now 20 years later, and I’ve decided to bring my family back to campus for my 20th college reunion later this month.

I’ve lost touch with so many friends. And I have no one knocking down my door to see me again. Part of me wonders if my connections faded because of the “dual identity” I lived during my time there. I was like a fish swimming in heteronormative waters. Every once and a while, I would poke my head out and see that there were other pockets of possibility, but they felt impossible to bridge. I therefore never truly let people in to get to know me. Maybe I’m not alone in this feeling. So many of us are afraid, for different reasons, to let others in during these fraught years. And yet it’s still sad to me looking back that I was not able to open up (to myself and others) about what I was feeling and thinking and questioning as it pertained to sexuality and identity more broadly. I would likely have been met with empathy and support and realized there was a whole community of people with similar questions and life experiences.

It is largely for this reason that I feel compelled to step back onto campus 20 years later and reclaim my college experience as a queer person. I will be bringing my parents, my wife and my daughter and while I’m grateful beyond words to have them by and on my side, this pilgrimage is really a solo one.

To step back onto the Penn Quad and College Green as my full self. To walk proudly down Locust Walk and know that I’m not hiding anymore. It will surely bring up a swell of emotions, painful and joyous, but I’m prepared this time to feel them all. I will point out to my daughter the old gothic buildings where I took my first anthropology classes, the theatre world I stepped into as a college sophomore, and the tiny dorm room I lived in freshman year above the mail center in the upper Quad.

And I will walk her into the Carriage House, home to the LGBT Center, and watch her roam, free.

Here or Nowhere

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language…Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke

I picked up a book recently from a hospital Chaplain’s library called Here or Nowhere. The Chaplain who has become a mentor to me, told me to pick any book I wanted from her bookshelf to borrow. The small dusty copy of Here or Nowhere by Renée Hermanson (1984) caught my eye. It was a simple quote on the back cover that stood out. Hermanson, writing from a Christian perspective and weaving in biblical figures to help her unpack “middle age” and all its meaning, writes, “I spent many years waiting–for time to go back to school, for the children to grow up, for our finances to get better–and then discovered time was not waiting, but marching on. I believe we need to be reminded that, as Thomas Carlyle said, our ideal is here or nowhere. We must find God in our lives and our lives in God wherever and whenever we are.”

The search for meaning and a sense of “arrival” seem to be timeless inquiries. From biblical times through the present, we are all searching, looking for answers to life’s big questions. Why are we here? What is intended for us? What is God or the world or the universe waiting for us to realize and manifest? I’ve been fighting with myself lately around these questions. I’ve been asking myself, do I want to go back to school and pursue another degree or credential? I’ve been pondering a leadership path that weaves through religion and the spiritual. I’ve also been hit with the reality that I need to focus on a new job search, to secure a full/ “fuller” time position that will give my family some more breathing room and sustenance. While just a short year ago, I thought the answer was to leave my job to find more breathing room and be home with our young daughter, now I need to reverse the cycle and work more hours. Such is the ebb and flow of life.

There is a pending fear and excitement all at the same time about the prospect of more change ahead. There is a part of me that I think will always yearn for change and new opportunities to break free from what feels like the mundane and ordinary. I’ve realized I’m chasing something that is always going to be a step (or miles) in front of me unless I change my perspective. I risk now sinking back into the “if only” syndrome of my 20’s and 30’s. If only I had a partner, if only I was settled down, if only I had a child, etc. etc. But when that elusive “if only” becomes a reality, your dreams just morph into something further away.

How can I find wisdom and answers right here in the now, without trying to search for them? How can I release the pressure to keep searching and at the same time remain a seeker and stay curious?

I recently watched the movie, Women Talking (2022), produced by Sarah Polley. It chronicles a two-day period in which women from an isolated Mennonite community grapple with the decision of whether or not to stay and fight their attackers or leave their community. It is a profound depiction of women at their strongest and weakest moments, scared out of their minds about the violence (sexual, physical, and emotional) their children might face. I was struck by the character of Ona (played by Mara Rooney) who is sometimes teased for being too lofty or imaginative in her ideals. She allows herself to dream and float above the horrors her community has endured and imagine a better world for herself and her children. She is at the same time grounded in what’s real and what’s looming if the women don’t act and make a decision. In the end, when they have every reason to give up on their faith in God, the women lean further into their faith. As one female character wisely states, they must look further out into the distance beyond what is right in front of them (in an analogy to how she steadies her horses when riding her buggy).

I also recently finished re-reading the book, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (2007). It depicts the biblical character, Dinah who is Leah and Jacobs’s only daughter. Dinah is merely a footnote in the bible, depicted as a victim to a violent crime and sandwiched between the stories of her iconic father, Jacob and her powerful brother, Joseph. Her voice enraptures me and carries me back into Canaan and the land of my ancestors. I am struck by the lives the women lead, anchored in many ways by the “red tent” which is where they gather each month during their menstrual cycles. In the tent, they talk and dream and lament. They share their wisdom and woes and build meaning through their stories. The women are apart from the men in their community during this 3 day period each month. The men are forbidden to enter in fact. Similar to the secluded barn haystacks upon which the women sit in Women Talking (set in 2010), Dinah and her mothers gather strength from one another to go back out and face the world.

On the cusp of another spring and in honor of International Women’s Day, I am reminded that perhaps we can gather wisdom from the strong female figures of our past to make tough decisions. Can characters like Dinah and Ona who aren’t afraid to dream big in the face of incredible obstacles, inspire me to do the same? Perhaps big (and even small) decisions are not meant to be made in isolation, alone in the quiet of our minds, but instead in community with our sisters, mothers and family members of generations past. In this spirit and in the red tents of our futures, may we lean into one another’s collective wisdom to emerge stronger and refreshed for the journey ahead, knowing that here and beyond are often where the magic happens.

1 Year Later: Mindset Matters

“Perfection is the mountain that has no peak.”
Emma Norris

If you had told me last year I would be celebrating New Years Eve 2022 embarking on the joys of potty training I would have probably said, “that sounds like a cruel joke.”

Today we introduced our daughter to “big girl underwear.” Getting to choose among patterns including owls, mermaids, tropical fruit and trucks was a really BIG deal. In full transparency, I was dreading this process. It brings up in me all my angst around ceding control, embracing messiness (literally and figuratively) and transitions. Moreover, asking a toddler to give up a security blanket (the diaper), which is often all they have known since birth is a tall order. It’s scary and uncomfortable and not intuitive in the least. And yet, our children have to learn eventually (my older, wiser friends have promised me they won’t go to college in diapers).

As I reflect back on 2022 and what lies ahead in the new year, I continue to see my daughter and parenting as my biggest teachers. It’s been a year and counting since I started this blog. From the get go, I’ve struggled with issues of productivity and perfectionism. Through my research and writing I’ve come to see just how deep-seated these traits are in our modern culture and way of being. I touched upon this theme in one of my first blog entries, noting how tied up our sense of self-worth is with our notion of accomplishing and chasing that illusive something, whether it be a job, relationship or some idea of happiness.

Gradually, I’ve spent this last year slowing down and scaling back what is possible to produce or accomplish. Through this process I’ve recognized how habitual my “need to please” is. Whether it be through seeking validation on a parenting choice or trying to fit my life into a perfect mold of what I think it “should” look like, I continue to put increasing pressure on myself to “get it right.” Contemplating the next right move professionally, personally and spiritually consumes my thoughts most days. Making a decision about what preschool to send our daughter to next year has been like asking me to choose just one sushi roll off an entire menu. Impossible! You can’t make a perfect decision. There is no such thing and even if there was, it won’t live up to the ideal I have conjured up in my head.

At the end of the day, most of this pressure is self-imposed. We want to “do right” by our loved ones and set ourselves and them up for success. And, yet, we have to balance that idea of success with the excruciating truth that life will be hard. We will fall down, a lot. We will have “accidents” (pun intended) and there is no prescribed school or methodology that will shield us from this truth.

Perhaps then our growth comes from learning to relate differently to our pain and worries. How do we respond and react when things get hard and there is no template for how to move forward? How do we hold compassion for ourselves in the process?

Can we begin by accepting that we don’t know all the answers, nor should we? We do not need to decipher every possible outcome and algorithm when making a decision. Instead, what would it feel like to connect with humility to the messy, tangled process of living itself?

In this New Year, may a “good day” or a “good choice” be measured not by what we’ve accomplished, but instead by how we’ve related to ourselves. Did we revel in picking out the best pattern of underwear (or socks) in the morning and then remember to laugh at our bumps and “boo boos” along the way.

To all my friends and readers, happy 2023 and happy stumbling.

My Ordinary “This is Us”

“Joy comes to us in ordinary moments. We risk missing out when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.”
Brene Brown

Baby Randall, Milo Ventimiglia as Jack, Baby Kevin, Baby Kate, Mandy Moore as Rebecca.
*NBC/Ron Batzdorff/NBC*

I know I’m a bit behind, but it’s still hard for me to accept that the show, This is Us wrapped its final season. For six years, beginning in 2016, I followed members of the Pearson Family (namely twins, Kate and Kevin, adopted son Randall, along with mom, Rebecca, and dad, Jack) along circuitous life journeys that played into every possible emotion and scenario a young family could experience.

What makes this show especially unique is that it slips back and forth in time, showing the characters at different ages and in different years within each episode. Over the six seasons, you get to know the characters in real time as they age and grow, experience major set backs, and then get back up on their feet and plow forward. Creator, Dan Fogelman, along with his brilliant writers and producers, weave together stories that pull on every heart string you’ve got while telling powerful truths.

I guess I have a thing for family dramas, particularly ones that highlight imperfect characters, in whom I can see myself and those who so honestly reflect the world we are living in. NPR’s Eric Deggans sums it up perfectly, “In other words, the drama on This Is Us comes from small moments between characters living everyday lives.”

As a way of framing this post, I want to clarify that I’m not attempting to write a formal review or critique of the show. I’ll leave that to the experts! Instead, I want to share a few themes and narratives that were particularly resonant with me and my current roles as mom, wife, daughter, sister… trying to navigate life the best I can. I see this post as an homage really, to a show that has made such an imprint on my heart during a time when I needed its company.

The season finale, which aired on May 24, 2022 largely centered around an ordinary Saturday when the siblings are in their pre-teen years, living in the suburbs outside of Pittsburgh. When their plans are canceled at the last minute, they find themselves with an entire day with nothing scheduled. Mom and Dad are thrilled at the prospect of a quiet day and two of the three kids are bored out of their minds. Kevin and Randall sit on the couch checked out, making fun of their sister, Kate, who genuinely wants to spend time with her family. Kate has proposed a litany of family pastimes to keep them busy– puzzles, watching old videos, and playing an old pin the tail on the donkey game found on a bookshelf.

And what starts as an awkward “forced family fun” day turns out to serve as a microcosm for what the entire show is built on…appreciating the small moments, while they are happening. Little do the kids know, but just a few years later, their father (Jack) will suffer a fatal heart attack after a brutal house fire in the middle of the night. Jack will live on as a hero within them for decades to come and inform many of their life decisions but they will never have those small, fleeting moments back.

My wife and I recently decided to forego a 3 day exotic family camping trip we had planned months earlier and instead settled on a 3 day staycation. On a rainy summer Wednesday we trek up to Mystic, CT, to visit the aquarium. Our daughter revels at the Beluga whales and the proud penguins while her eyes loom large over whiskered sea lions and voluminous sea turtles. Before heading home we stop at a diner off the highway and order two salads and a grilled cheese. Our daughter is thrilled to hear that her lunch is accompanied by a complimentary ice cream scoop, which she mostly gobbles up and refuses to let us taste (we are still working on sharing).

It is such an ‘ordinary’ day, and, yet, as I write this post and think back to sitting at this nondescript diner I realize that, this is it…short, sweet, simple moments of connection.

Rebecca, the mother and matriarch on This is Us looms larger than life and serves as the anchor throughout the series. Like everyone else, she is imperfect, human and trying to figure things out along the way. She carries her family through endless trials including Jack’s death and raises three beautiful humans who go on to do the same for their families (the show seamlessly spans 4 generations). Rebecca and the entire family get thrown another curve ball mid-way through the series with her diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s. This curveball, although devastating, ultimately heightens the everyday themes of time, space and memories in beautiful and unexpected ways throughout the remaining seasons.

As Rebecca’s disease progresses ever so slowly at first and then more quickly towards the end of the series, I find myself floating back and forth in time in my life as well. While devouring the show each week, I can’t stop asking myself, what really matters? When my life and all the people in it are one day laid out before me as they are for Rebecca in a final metaphoric scene that takes place in an old-fashioned train car, how will I feel, what will I be thinking, what will I be regretting, what will I be most proud of?

Within this melancholy scene that parallels Rebecca’s final moments in life, I am smiling through my tears. I may have to flex a muscle, but in doing so I can see that it is within my power to stop grasping for things to be different. Like the Pearsons’, my life is messy and filled with ups and downs, regrets and yearnings. I may not have the next chapter (or two or three) figured out but neither did Randall, Kate, Kevin, Rebecca or Jack. Their lives are messy, filled with pain and loss, but they have one another. And that is more than enough.

As a closing thought, may we all lean into the ‘ordinary’ days and moments–and the people who fill them–and appreciate knowing that often, this is it.

Seeing Burnout with New Glasses

“Shouting ‘self-care’ at people who actually need community care is how we fail them.”
Nakita Valerio

Some days I still wake up and ask myself, how did I get here?

It’s been over 6 months since I left my full time job and yet if I close my eyes I can still feel that gripping sense of isolation, fear and exhaustion that I was living in for too long. It was a feeling of being stuck inside a toaster machine, being burnt on both sides and yet not sure if anyone could see me. There was a smell of burnt toast in the air but it was one that we were all breathing in and so it just felt normal.

Most days I told myself the answer was to actually work harder. I preferred to spend a few extra minutes responding to emails and to stay another hour in the office after everyone left to soak up the quiet, uninterrupted time. I reveled in the moment that I could pop online late at night or on a weekend and “get ahead” of the next day/week without the sinking feeling that “to dos” were simultaneously compounding in my inbox.

And believe it or not, this worked for a while. My excessive drive to perform was fueled by the immediate satisfaction I received when a colleague would respond late at night to thank me for my hard work or when I was able to climb the proverbial ladder of adding the word “Assistant,” “Associate,” and then…drum roll…. “Director” to my title. Perhaps I was on track to something great. But inside I felt completely beholden to a cycle that wasn’t actually getting me anywhere. I was on a track headed towards burnout and was unable to see clearly what was falling apart around me.

Six months later and I am still that same person inside. As I’ve written about in previous posts, I still hear on a daily basis that same inner voice lamenting that I’m not doing enough, not accomplishing enough and not worthy of praise or validation. I have, however, noticed a few stark differences in my mindset day to day.

One is that I’m less attached to labels than I once was. I remember going to a conference in between jobs about 10 years ago and feeling mortified that I had no larger company affiliation on my name tag. I think I had written “Higher Education Professional” under my name but not having a specific university or organization to back me up left me feeling extremely self-conscious. It felt wildly taboo and in many ways confusing to not have my identity tied to a job, profession or employer. I felt exposed and almost desperate to land a position so I could cling to an identifier.

Fast-forward 10+ years and now we finally have language for those individuals who are intentionally choosing to step back from their careers. LinkedIn’s new “career break” feature may be almost revolutionary to the average person who in earlier years was riddled with shame and guilt for stepping back from the rat race, whatever the reason may have been.

In an effort, however, to take baby steps back into the world of work, I recently began a new part time job in retail. I wanted to do something radically different from the office managerial positions I’ve held for the past 20 years, while also caring for my young daughter. It’s been an interesting life experiment and after fumbling through a spotty onboarding, I can say with confidence that I’m happy to be there. Happy to be in an environment that necessitates being almost 100% in the moment. Happy to interact with customers and help brighten up a moment in their day and then to leave most of my stress at the door at the end of the day. It’s a darn shame that folks in retail are grossly underpaid as they are working just as hard, if not harder than anyone I’ve seen in previous roles. And they are carrying a huge weight on their shoulders that for some starts at 4:00 in the morning with shipment processing and ends at 9 at night with store closing procedures.

One other thing I’ve noticed as I peer out from under my slightly tinted rose colored glasses is that the managers in retail are just as harried and stressed (if not more) than I was a few short months ago in the non-profit world. They are combatting upwards pressure, benchmarks, sales demands, conversion rates and toxic bureaucracy. They are tired, overworked, underpaid and understaffed, just like the rest of us.

Initially my reflections while writing this post led me to think that the challenge in finding the “right” job landed squarely with the individual employee’s mindset. What narratives and stories are we telling ourselves that frame our experience on the job? What is reasonable to expect of ourselves and how can we temper our inner critic?

This may all be true, however, in doing some further reading and reflecting (including with my sister, whose current role focuses on workplace culture and mental health) I’ve shifted my thinking a bit. Perhaps the mitigation of burnout and promotion of employee well-being may have more to do with an organization’s commitment to “community care” than individual responsibility. In other words, what are the company’s culture and workplace conditions and how do they manifest themselves in ways that support the well-being of all their employees, both on and off the clock? How are colleagues and managers alike looking out for one another and promoting values such as empathy, boundaries and rest?

This is clearly a very nuanced question and perhaps the topic of an entirely separate blog post. But as we hear a push in this country towards focusing more dollars and time on mental health, I think we need to look at organizational structures as a whole (schools, businesses, religious institutions, etc.) and ask how we are building those organizations so that everyone feels seen and cared for as individuals within a broader community.

The Journey Begins

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

post

I’ve been asked many questions in recent days. “What the heck are you doing? Why did you leave your job? What are you going to do now? How are you going to make this work financially? When are you going to start looking for another job?…” All of the questions are well-meaning. I can’t help but wonder though, is there a deeper meaning behind them? Is there a subtle judgement laced behind some of the questions? It’s okay. I’m asking myself some of the same questions.

There is a judgmental voice within that I’ve been trying to quiet for much of my life. It continues to rear it’s ugly head and did so with gusto last week on my 40th birthday. The questions and doubt were swimming around me… “you’re pathetic. unemployed and 40. You have nothing to show for yourself. Your accomplishments are null and void.” I can be pretty vile at times and with the advent of my 40th birthday I turned on myself.

When I take a step back though, and give myself just a little bit of room to breathe, I can see a light. A clearing. It’s still a bit hazy but I can see that I took this leap of faith for one of the most dignified reasons there is. I decided to leave my full-time job and insert a pause in my career for the sake of my family and my mental health. The last 3 years, since fall 2018 have been some of the most magical. And yet, at the same time, I’ve experienced some of the most challenging feats of my short life, trying to juggle what some say is “having it all.” A young marriage, buying a new home, the birth of our daughter. When I peel back the layers though, it’s been a much more nuanced journey.

From navigating the fertility process as a same-sex couple, a high-risk pregnancy, the mental toll we’ve all endured through the pandemic, the birth of our daughter in July 2020, a rippling postpartum anxiety and depression, the transition back to work over the last year, juggling a full time job and motherhood and what I am realizing now has been a slowly simmering state of Burnout.

I don’t think I’m unique. I know there are millions of other new moms (dads and caregivers) who are trying to navigate this balancing act. With this blog, I am hoping to document and reflect on the meaning behind taking a step back from the 9-5 grind while trying to raise a young child and preserve a family that has been tested through the waves of a pandemic. I realize I am fortunate to be able to take this leap of faith. Most women (and new parents) in my situation are not able to leave their jobs.

I hope that in taking this pause to be home with my young daughter and heal from what I’m realizing are years of running on empty, I can provide a glimpse into the benefits of slowing down. I will share stories, small moments, reflections on the past months and years leading up to today and will not be afraid to ask some hard questions of myself.

I invite you to join me on this journey, keep me company and let me know what you’re thinking. Let’s explore the art of taking a pause…