Hello Friends,

Yes, I know this is late. I mean, it’s February now and if I was on my “A-game” I would have sent this to all of you in December. But COVID. And Holidays. And my kids returned to distance learning for 10 days. And, if I really practice some self-compassion, it’s ok to be tardy because some thoughts are valid even when they are late. So, here we are in February setting some ground rules for this year.

1. Set some boundaries. Decide “what’s OK” and “what’s not ok” and be prepared for this to feel new and awkward. Some of you might be great with boundaries while others are still learning. Know that some people are heading into 2022 like, “Screw this, I’m over COVID” while others are like, “This is never going to end,” and still others are like, “Hope is on the horizon, but we’re not there yet.” Where do you fall? What boundaries do you need to feel confident and protected? For instance, be ready to talk about whether you’re ready to give hugs, high fives or fist bumps. Own whether you’ve returned to work, you’re scared to, or you’re appreciating the new normal of a hybrid model. Begin to think about and express your boundaries – clear is kind!
2. Be ready for some tough conversations. Everyone is hungry to “return to some semblance of normal.” But what that means for you may be vastly different than what it means for others. You don’t have to justify your position. You don’t have to be defensive of what feels appropriate for you. If you’re still hunkered down because your risk tolerance is low and your concern for infection is high, that’s ok. If you’re beginning to dip your toe into the waters of gatherings and dinners out, that’s ok too. Just know that when you bump into others who are from another camp, that might be hard or shaky – be willing to sit with hard conversations.
3. Respect where other people are as a way of showing kindness. See number 2 above – it’s normal for us to be all over the gamete in terms of socialization, risk, and health. Let other people find their way. You never know what someone else is carrying.
4. Your personal life and your professional life can be separate. The past two years muddled those two together out of necessity and process. Let’s begin to untangle the two. Separate home life from work life so you can begin to find greater balance. Create physical space and emotional space. When possible, leave work at work.
5. Have some rules and expectations for your children’s mental health for 2022. Let educators know. Let policymakers know. Talk about this as a family. Re-visit themes of mental health with your children. So many of them are fragile right now.
6. Acknowledge how you’re feeling as we enter year three of navigating a global pandemic. Are you angry? Confused? Overwhelmed? Resigned? Talk about the space you are in with other adults that care about you. They are having big feelings now too. You’re not alone.
7. Establish some norms and expectations to have a sense of predictability at work and at home. Revisit these every few months to see how they feel. The lack of predictability over the past 2 years has created a huge sense of vulnerability. Let’s begin to create some structure where we can.
8. Fear is not a good advisor. Get information from established resources and trusted advisors. Make decisions from a place of knowledge versus stress. We live in a polarizing world where topics can feel highly politicized or black-and-white. Rarely are things that clear. Find people and advisors who know you and whom you trust.
9. This is not over. While so many geographic areas, settings, organizations, and spaces are seeing some reprieve, many are not. Be gentle with healthcare organizations, educators, and service providers. They were the first hit by this pandemic and will be the last to recover.

Geez, when I was brainstorming these ground rules, I used my voice memo app on my phone. I didn’t realize I only had NINE rules and now I feel incomplete without adding one more to have a solid 10.

10. Embrace imperfections. Enough said.   

Be well, my friends. Reach out for help. Tell me more about your ground rules for 2022 or what I missed. I love hearing from you.

Want more? My Provider Retreat is coming up in May — registration is open! Learn more and register here.

With compassion,

Dr. Amy

Friends,

As we enter the month of December and all-things holiday merry-making, I want to remind you that it’s ok to feel overwhelmed. Almost 2 years into a global pandemic, I know most healthcare providers are still reeling from what they’ve been through. If you’re like me, it’s as if the last two years have been an eternity. So, just a short reminder from author Brianna Weist that self-care is often unbeautiful. It’s not about eating better, sleeping more and exercising – but often about tough choices and creating boundaries. It’s certainly something to ponder as we enter the holiday season of mounting obligations.

Here you go:

Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing.

It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.

It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.

A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.

True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.

It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.

It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.

It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself… and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.

It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.

It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it.

-Brianna Wiest

Grateful for you in all the ways you show up – for yourself and for others!

Dr. Amy