What is energizing for you right now?

I won't lie, it's been a rough week for me. I mean, I don't really know what a not rough week in a global pandemic looks like, but out of the three weeks we've been quarantined at home, this was the toughest one. It does seem like my husband and kids had a better week though, and honestly, it feels like I "took one for the team" in order to make that happen.

When we're conditioned as women or as caregivers to be the ones to make sure everyone is ok, what I'm finding is that a global pandemic exacerbates that. All the invisible emotional labor that we were doing anyway has multiplied. And of course, at a societal level we are seeing that too in that so many "essential" workers are poor, Black or brown and considered dispensable by our systems and culture - this has always been true, but is also exacerbated under the current circumstances.

For those of us more fortunate who can do our jobs from home (or at least attempt to), many of us are stuck now as, basically, admin assistants for our kids as we try to help them navigate online school (this is the part that has been the most draining for me while alleviating the burden for everyone else in my family).

Others are out of work because even though we could do our work from home, that work has come to a grinding halt. And of course there are the jobs that can't be done from home but that also are "non-essential" and have been shut down for now.

As always, privilege can mitigate the impact, but can't protect us entirely.

I recognize how privileged my family is but that doesn't mean it's easy.

I don't have answers, but I do know that the level of management my kids have required means I have not had time for my own work beyond calls and then harried snippets of time grabbed here and there. I love my work, it is energizing and healing for me, and not having the time to do it has been soul-crushing, and I mean that literally.

I did have an aha moment today though as I reflected on why I'm not willing to just ditch online school, as many of my privileged friends have been suggesting. Because I've been in the weeds giving it a try, and because I know that if I'm struggling, then less resourced families are likely to be having an even harder time, I am able to advocate that the school shifts the focus to community, connection, and mental health support rather than learning.

And then I remembered that what has always been draining for me is being trapped into complying with a system that doesn't make sense to me (ie jumping through hoops) and being limited to making an impact at the interpersonal level only.

What is energizing for me is being able to influence change at the group or organizational level.

This morning I was able to have a conversation with some school leaders about what we've been experiencing as well as make some recommendations for change that would I hope benefit everyone.

It felt so good, and I guess that even though I feel at the end of my rope, one of the ways I can leverage my privilege and what I'm good at is to try to change the system, using an equity and inclusion lens, instead of just ditching it (which would only solve the problem for my family, and not for everyone, certainly not for those who don't have the ability or resources to make that same decision).

This is a very long winded way of saying:

What energizes you? What is your zone of genius? How can you create the most impact with the least effort?

And then how could you find even small pockets of time to be in your zone of genius? How could you shift some of the drudge work you may have to do right now into that zone of genius?

(Read more about your zone of genius here.)

And if you feel like you don't have the bandwidth or time to even think about this, that's ok. I heard someone remark the other day that we're all back at the bottom of the pyramid of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. We may need to get back to fulfilling our more basic needs before we can do all that "fulfilling our potential" stuff. What would that look like for you now? I'll admit, yesterday I went and sat in our parked car outside our house for an hour just to get some alone time, listen to music, and close my eyes. In the evening I shut myself in the bedroom and watched a movie. Today I had more capacity to reflect on why I was feeling so drained and what I could do about it.

I really think this is how I'm going to get through this. Even sitting down to write this post has helped me feel better than I've felt all day and possibly all week.

If you need any extra support, please do reach out.

Self-portrait at the end of week 3 of lockdown.

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Banner photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash. Originally published on LinkedIn.