Collective grieving
I have been on the verge of tears the last couple of days over the crisis in Ukraine. Shock, outrage, grief all swirling inside me like a poorly assembled soup. An acute sense of helplessness and cognitive dissonance as I write performance reviews while civilians are bombed.
This morning our design team had resilience training. Two key takeaways
Identify what is within and outside of your control and shift your focus to those things.
Define success in the right way. That means defining it in a way where it is within your control, often times by actions you can control as opposed to results that you can’t. E.g. unhelpful definition of success: win this game, helpful definition of success: train harder
Here’s an emoji-diagram to illustrate
There are so so many things outside of my control. Putin. War. Hate. No amount of doom scrolling is going to make it better. What’s within my control is the money I can donate, the friends I can reach out to and be there for, the love I can advocate for in the face of so much hate. I can do my best to take care of myself so that I can show up for those around me in this time of collective grieving. I can withhold judgement for however I need to grieve so that I can do the same for others. Maybe for you that’s focusing on work, or watching movies, or having a picnic with your family in the park. We are all grieving in our own ways.
Even after shifting my focus tho there are still so many feelings left over. The gap between what I can control and the suffering in the world is too vast. What’s within my control feels woefully inadequate. For the rest of those feelings, the kindest thing I can do for myself is to hold space and time for them. I’ve taken a couple days off to be present with them. I cry when I feel like crying. Sit under the dappled light of a big tree appreciating how beautiful and peaceful it is. Laugh at tiktoks when I need a distraction.
I hope that all of you are taking care of yourselves. We’re all in this together.