I know it has been a while since my last blog/first blog for 2022. I have definitely been in a #transition phase returning to the UK after 3.5 months caring for my mum in Australia (she's doing very well by the way).
Readjusting has meant:
that I have had low energy (but not exhaustion),
that I'm very happy to be home (but missing my Australian friends, family and beaches),
getting back into the day job (whilst trying to study and run Full Frame Coach),
being grateful for being away from humid sub-tropical weather and sleeping under a feathery duvet again (but wishing there was a bit more sunshine and ocean swims)
catching up with loads of people, some of whom I haven’t seen since February 2020.
I’ve been back for five weeks and it feels like months. Did I mention I’m tired?
This does seem to be a theme with people I’ve been in conversations with recently. One of the theories we’ve come up with is that because it’s nearly two years since the UK government declared its first lock down, it’s a mental, physical and emotional milestone that is worth giving credence to – for all that we have lost, all that has changed, and some of the gains we’ve also made.
This milestone coincides with the mood that we have to learn to live with #covid rather than constantly trying to fight it. Future covid variants may well tell us otherwise of course. And for me, I’ve socialised more in the last five weeks than I did in any five months during the pandemic! Whilst wonderful, it’s also tiring.
The word that friends, colleagues and coaching clients have spontaneously mentioned, is that they are at a #crossroads. That 2022 marks the time to really consider what to do with careers, with living arrangements, with study, with health concerns. I find it fascinating that so many conversations have featured this word and we’re only two-thirds through February. Is this a sign of the collective unconscious needing to take a step back in order to work out how to step forward with our 'new' day to day lives?
I wonder if we need to be more collectively conscious of rest and rejuvenation during the working week and outside of it too. One of the benefits of the Christmas season at work, is that we get a good two weeks where society is in the same kind of energy zone. However you might celebrate the festive season (or not), we do all know that you’ll either a) get hardly any emails at work or b) it will be all hands to the commercial pump and then a rest will come later in January. What would more considered periods of rest and rejuvenating activity look like through the working week, and the seasons throughout the year?
So what can we do in 2022 to help each other identify the crossroads and the transitions? How do we make time for real rest and rejuvenation to work out what to do next? I’d like to think that we could all initiate conversations like these so that we carve out time to think and be open to ideas. That the governmental and organisational push to return to the office is met with sensible conversations about what drives that push and is it a real business need? If it is a business need, then it has to be an employee need surely. After all, a business' biggest and most expensive asset is usually its workforce. What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear from you.
And if you would benefit from coaching conversations to understand your crossroads this year, feel free to get in touch for a free 30 minute discovery call, with no obligations.
Don’t know what a ‘coaching conversation’ means? Why not take a look at this short video from the International Coaching Federation to find out.
Love Liz x