How it all began…
I arrived at my new gig in January 2020. And you know what happened next - the world plunged into a pandemic and suddenly we were all living in isolation, confused about what was happening, and uncertain where the fate of humanity was headed.
I found myself powering through lockdown like so many others. I was a newly divorced, single mom with two elementary school age kids - trying to manage in a small 2-bedroom apartment. And I considered us lucky!
Meanwhile, at remote work… I was hired as a communications advisor to our leadership at Federal Government Agency, HQ Washington, D.C. Among my duties was ghost writing leadership messages to a nervous federal workforce, trying to match the tone of our executives - tough but motivating - exactly the opposite of how I felt! I tearfully drafted messages, “… stay strong… we must persevere… remain mission focused!”
Whether the effects of isolation was a contributing factor or not, I will never truly know why multiple employees took their own lives that year - but I wrote those messages too. Notifications to the workforce of an employee death and the letters from our leadership to the families of the deceased. At the time, there was very little by way of support for employees who were struggling. Being a military veteran, losing people to suicide was all too familiar - so I volunteered to seek ways to address it.
It wasn’t long after my deep dive into suicide awareness & prevention strategies that I realized we had to get much further ahead - before people even considered taking their own lives! Thus began the research into resilience methodology. Enter one Dr. Jeff Thompson, author of Warr;or 21 a PhD Psychology from Columbia University and the NYPD’s first health and wellness coordinator. He was also a sworn officer. THIS was my introduction to mindfulness and mindful practices…
Lesson #1: Sometimes we don’t recognize stress because it is literally the state in which we exist. And you won’t realize that until you feel what it’s like to NOT be in a constant state of stress.