Hey Reader,
How are you?
No really, how are you?
I'm tired. And tired of being tired. Tired of so many things. And I'm not alone! This feeling is so rampant right now that there are scores of blog posts, articles, podcasts, and videos about it. The whole world is burned out on a level we rarely see.
After reading about this situation, and surveying our team at ConvertKit about it last year, I decided to focus our 2022 wellness programming on resilience and mental health.
We kicked that off a couple of weeks ago and launched our first activity of the year: Peer Groups. These will be essentially support groups with people who share a common concern or stressor.
I was really surprised at the response. So far this is the most popular wellness activity that I've ever done! We've had nearly half the team sign up.
Below is the post I shared with our team, including the groups we chose. They were all popular and several people chose to attend more than one group. I'll share more soon about the logistics of the groups and how they go in practice!
Here's the post:
Oh the 2020s….they’ve been…. sorry I just fell asleep. They’ve been fucking exhausting is what they’ve been. They’ve been sad, and hard and never-ending. Of course there have been moments of beauty in them too! Babies have been born, people have fallen in love or gotten married, dreams have been realized. But for most of us, the overarching feeling has just been heavy.
If you are feeling burned out, tired, stressed, bored, frustrated, sad, or just generally over it, you are not alone! The mental health impact of the pandemic is emerging and being quantified. There has been a rise in vehicle-related deaths and even violent crime. These have directly matched the timeline of the pandemic and the hypothesis is that they are the result of the social, economic, and cultural impacts of it. In short, people are losing their shit, whether it’s as simple as crying for ‘no reason’ or more significant mental or emotional shifts.
Many of us have felt impacted by the last two years, though for some of us, that impact has felt less clear. We may have felt - or feel - stuck and stagnant, without our usual processes for grief, our tools to break up monotony, and our social ties, as we navigate health and safety measures to limit exposure and keep our communities safe.
What this might look like on a personal level:
While it is true that none of us can end the pandemic, there are things we can do to help our brains and bodies process it (or the upheaval it may have caused), and change our experience of it.
To that end, the wellness program this year will focus on strength, resilience, and mental well-being.
You can look forward to activities that will help your brain stay healthy, or clear out stagnant or excess chemicals. We’ll also talk a lot about how our lifestyle choices affect our brains and the changes we can make to encourage better brain health.
An important note: You will see in everything we do this year that I consider mental health to be physical health. They are one and the same. The brain is a body organ, just like the liver or the lungs, and we should care for it in the same ways. I view anxiety (a brain health symptom) through the same lens as I do a cough (a lung health symptom). Just like you wouldn’t judge yourself or someone else for having a cough, or even a lingering cough long after a cold, we can’t judge ourselves or others for having brain health symptoms. But we can work on ameliorating them! And that is our goal this year.
The first thing we’re going to do this year is launch peer groups. These groups are meant to build community within our team around shared needs or concerns.
Each group will meet once a month and talk. That’s it! There will be no homework, no preparation, just coming together with people who share something in common with you and talking about it. This should not feel like an additional burden, we’re really hoping it will be the opposite!
We will keep the groups small to encourage connection and space for everyone to talk. We’ll equip each group with some general tips and guidelines for active listening and creating safe spaces.
So far we have 4 topics selected, but we’re totally open to other ideas if you have them.
This is for parents of kids of all ages. Virtual schooling, kids having fewer social interactions, having a young baby and not getting the usual support from a community, worrying about your kid getting sick, daycare is closed every freaking day. The list is endless. Parenting is challenging in the best of times, and the pandemic has complicated it in ways we couldn’t have predicted.
If you want to talk with other parents, share, commiserate and learn from each other, this group is for you!
Pandemic stress in general
If I get covid, will I die? Will I pass it to my immunocompromised friend or family member? Why don’t other people seem to care about each other? Why is everyone yelling all the time? I don’t feel safe, and I can’t totally say why. I feel anxious about gathering with people even when I understand the risks to be fairly low. I’m worried about the next variant, or what else might be around the corner.
If you have just felt enormous stress from the pandemic and want to talk to others who have felt the same, this group is for you!
It’s hard to make friends as an adult, and the pandemic made it nearly impossible.
If you feel more lonely or isolated than normal, or have just had a really hard time making or maintaining friendships in the last 2 years, this group is for you!
If you are just tired, not overly worried about covid per se, but just exhausted by all the stress and loss and negativity of the last 2 years.
If you feel a sense of loss for the things you missed out on in the last 2 years, but don’t even know what to do with that feeling.
If you are angry about the protests and social upheaval that seemed to lead to little change.
If you feel sad or exhausted but sometimes don’t feel entitled to those feelings because you haven’t lost as much as others.
If you feel emotionally exhausted, this group is for you!
To join a group, either comment here or let me know directly. Please also reach out if you have an idea for a different group topic.
I'm looking forward to our programming this year and hoping it can really make an impact for people. I hope your team can benefit from what we do as well!
Take care,
Elizabeth