Well-Being, Women & The Workplace
SPOTLIGHT ON OUR IMPERATIVE (January 2021) New Year’s Edition | Beauty & Beast in Business Quarterly Publication
The imperative for well-being is one of the most critical discussions in which we (women in the workplace) must engage, honor, and prioritize.
However, when I started out in my career over twenty years ago, well-being was not a topic of conversation in Corporate America. To be candid, nor did I fully appreciate or prioritize my own well-being for far too many of these years. Through motherhood, a diagnosis of ADHD as an adult (shortly after the birth of my second child), career pivots, increased personal and professional responsibilities, health crises, my life forced me to hold up a mirror and embrace my own well-being journey.
This did not happen overnight. I didn’t wake up one morning and, over coffee, recognize that I needed to reframe my relationship with self-care and well-being. Instead, my well-being journey has been gradual, evolving with age and with perspective. Though there have also been sudden bursts of growth in my well-being journey, through the crises and curveballs that life throws our way at times.
We each have different lived experiences, so each of our well-being journeys will evolve in its own unique path accordingly. Yet, at this moment in time, we are experiencing a “collective burst” on our well-being journeys. Our elevated levels of stress and trauma living and working through a global pandemic are compounded by our societal reckoning of the devastating impact of systemic racism and social injustice within our country, our industries and our communities. Feeling the pressure to “always be on”, hovering on the edge of burn-out, BIPOC women (or women with BIPOC family members) continuously experiencing race-based traumatic stress, navigating the logistics and the mental load of the “double-shift” of working and parenting from home; our concerns as women in the workplace are many, overwhelming and valid.
Therefore, the time for honoring and prioritizing our well-being is now.
One of the most important immediate actions we, as individuals and as colleagues, can take is to normalize that “its okay not to be okay.” We can acknowledge, when we greet friends or family members on the phone or at the start of our workplace meetings, how we are truly doing. In other words, we can say that we are “not okay.” This does not require a grand announcement with an oversharing of details; we can simply say something along the lines of, “I’m here but I’m having a tough day.” The core objective is to normalize our emotions, including: feeling sad, overwhelmed, scared, frustrated, angry, or any myriad of other emotions. The additional weight of having to pretend to be “on”, that everything is okay, is exhausting and often further disengages us for an even longer period of time.
We also need to be intentional in reminding ourselves of this as well. Our emotions and reactions to our lived experiences are real and valid. So, we need to be mindful to check in with ourselves just as we check in with our friends, family and colleagues. We need to give ourselves space, to focus on what we can control and to honor what we feel.
Collectively, as we look ahead in this new year, let us be mindful to extend ourselves and one another grace in our well-being journeys and to normalize that it is okay to be human.
Follow Megan Stewart Hodge’s new series WELL-BEING, WOMEN & THE WORKPLACE in Beauty & Beast in Business’ Quarterly Publication at this link.WELL-BEING is defined as: “the state of being healthy, happy or prosperous.”
To reframe that definition, WELL-BEING is multi-dimensional:
contemplating our Family, Community, Organizations, Industry and Society
and
reflecting our Physical, Mental & Emotional Health, sense of Psychological Safety, Belongingness, Social | Spiritual | Intellectual Fulfillment, Economic Fortitude
in our Personal & Professional Journeys.
Author: Megan Stewart Hodge
Megan is the founder of Cultiver LLC, an advisory practice focused on fostering cultures of inclusion, and a career coach to rising female executives. She is featured as an inclusive culture thought-leader as a speaker, panelist, author and pod-cast guest. Megan is the author of Voix, a series committed to advancement and empowerment. She is a Co-Founder of The Trilogy, a conversational series exploring the intersection between allyship, mentorship and sponsorship as drivers of intentional and enduring change in the insurance industry. She is also a member of Insurance Business America’s Inclusion Advisory Panel and recently served as the co-host of the 2020 IICF Midwest Women in Insurance Beyond Gender: Inclusion, Leadership & Innovation Regional Forum as well as a co-city Lead of Chicago’s 2020 Dive In Festival & Celebration of Diversity in the Insurance Industry. Megan strives for holistic success in her interwoven professional and personal journey, prioritizing authenticity and well-being. Megan believes it is critical to use our individual and collective voices and our positions of leadership to drive meaningful change for more inclusive industries and society.