May 17, 2024 • 22 mins
Sometimes, we.are.just.not.ok. No matter the day, the month, or the year. In honor of Mental Health Awareness month, join CH this week as she recounts a key time in her life where prioritizing her mental well-being took precedence over celebrating a holiday, and how that moment further shaped her approach to prioritizing mental wellness on the whole not only for herself but in support of others.
Show Notes
- May is Mental Health Awareness month in the United States, which has been observed since 1949 (Wikipedia).
- The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. Visit the official site for more information and for a wide array of mental health and substance abuse resources.
- The quote CH references is from the 1991 film 'Friend Green Tomatoes,' which starred Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary Louise Parker, Kathy Bates and the late Jessica Tandy.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This weeks.
Life Note giving space and grace when we are not.
Ok.
Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17,
a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,
wisdoms and inspirations as we navigate life's journey,
(00:21):
post chas to share thoughtful perspectives and insights from her own life journey.
As well as those of special guests,
contributors tune in for thoughtful conversations about lessons learned wisdoms,
gained experiences,
had and inspirations shared.
Find us where you get your podcasts and be sure to hit follow or subscribe.
(00:44):
So you never miss an episode.
Now enjoy this week's episode.
All righty.
Welcome back in friends to another episode of Life Notes from Chair 17.
I'm your host,
Ch and I thank you once again for finding me in this corner of the podcast universe.
(01:06):
And as always,
I like to start off.
Thanking our returning C 17 ers.
This includes our international C 17.
Thank you so much for continuing to tune in each week and for your support.
But if you happen to be tuning in for the very first time,
(01:27):
maybe you've just found us on one of the major podcast platforms or via our website out on life notes from Chair 17 podcast.com.
A warm welcome to you.
Thank you very much for wanting to check us out.
I certainly hope you like what you hear and you'll want to continue to tune in.
(01:47):
I do also want to thank those of you who have listened to our previous episode,
which was another in our share of the chair series with Jackie Yan.
Uh,
it was,
it seems to be landing with several of you,
a lot of you have worked with.
So you knew of her and I think it was just a treat to hear her chat once again.
(02:14):
Uh I really enjoyed talking with her.
It was a real treat and it really was the first time that we here on the podcast have had the opportunity to bring on an executive leader,
really to talk about more of their holistic life journey versus just bringing them on to talk about,
you know,
their work as a leader or,
(02:36):
you know,
their career.
So it was definitely a fun conversation and I certainly thank Jackie for wanting to come on and indeed share the chair as it were.
And I will say a part of what we talked about in that episode is inspiring this episode.
(02:58):
One of the things we chatted about was acknowledging the times in life when we have to be ok,
not being ok.
And the importance of taking care of ourselves,
particularly from a mental health standpoint in those moments.
(03:20):
And as I sit down to record this episode,
we are in the middle of May 2024 which happens to be Mental Health Awareness Month here in the US.
And actually Mental Health Awareness Month was established way back in 1949.
(03:43):
And I,
I actually looked this up as I was prepping for this episode and the focus of it or the purpose behind it was really,
as it says,
to increase the awareness of the importance of mental health as well as wellness in the lives of folks here in the US and to celebrate recovery from mental illness.
(04:10):
And as we've mentioned off and on throughout various episodes of this podcast,
the discussion about mental health present day and taking care of it certainly has come a long way.
I noticed this difference.
I joke,
I love the line from the film Fried Green Tomatoes where Kathy Bates character Evelyn Couch says to Jessica Tandy's Ninny Threadgoode character.
(04:41):
I am too young to be old,
but too old to be young.
And I can say that that kind of applies.
I think where I'm at in my life.
But if we look at that,
I never had much discussion about mental health or even awareness of it when I was growing up.
(05:01):
And if I'm being totally honest in my specific circumstance,
I definitely felt as if I was surrounded more by those who just expected you to suck it up and deal or put on a mask and pretend everything was fine,
instead of really taking a moment to understand what was going on if we were feeling not ok in that moment.
(05:26):
So for this episode,
I wanted to recount a story in a life story,
obviously,
in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month that I didn't really realize would have such a profound impact on me back when it happened.
(05:48):
And of which is a great example of what you really should not do to someone who needs to take a moment for themselves.
But even more than that,
the,
the story I'm going to recount is,
is the realization for me as well as I share it with you.
(06:11):
Maybe it'll be true for you that,
that need to take space and grace for yourself and call it a mental health day can strike at any time,
any moment any day.
And even if that happens to be on Christmas Day as it was for me.
So we've talked before on this podcast that in general,
(06:33):
sometimes the holidays can be very difficult periods of time for some of us.
And it's for a variety of reasons and it can trigger a lot of feelings and thoughts and emotions that aren't necessarily the Hallmark Card version of of holiday celebrating.
(06:55):
Maybe we've just lost someone in our family and it's the first set of holidays we are celebrating without them,
or maybe we are finding ourselves alone for the first time.
Or still alone after maybe a handful of years where we were not and we're not really sure how to ring in the holiday spirit by ourselves.
(07:20):
Or maybe the holidays just point blank,
do not evoke any kind of positive memories because of maybe something that happened to us in our past.
That could be as a child,
it could be a young adult.
Some other event,
there are a variety of reasons that do not make what is stereotypically supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.
(07:43):
There's a lot of reasons why it's not the most wonderful for all.
And in my specific case,
and in this story,
Christmas Day of 2010 was surely one of those days at that time of my life.
And not unlike right now,
I was recovering from being laid off in the great recession of 2008 and jobs were hard to come by.
(08:10):
I essentially found myself starting over and to sort of set the context and the back story further at the time,
in order to make ends meet and stay afloat,
I had taken a job in retail and I found myself working holiday retail really for the first time in my life.
(08:30):
Now,
if you have ever worked retail period or for sure,
ever worked retail during the holiday period of time,
you know,
the struggle is real and to say that it is a grind is probably the biggest understatement of the century in the world,
(08:54):
for sure.
It's why I am always.
So let's just call it accommodating and trying to be appreciative and thankful to every single retail employee that I come across during that period of time because I know how hard they are working having been one of those at one point in my life.
(09:14):
But on top of what would be the usual holiday grind of being a front line retail employee in this particular year.
And in this particular situation,
we also were packing up and moving our store to a brand new location where it was going to be twice as big and twice as busy.
(09:40):
And we had to do it in this super condensed period of time to make sure that we were up and running for the full holiday shopping season.
Now,
I had only been with that retailer for maybe a little over a year,
but I was working alongside people who had been there much longer than me and were far more seasoned than me.
(10:07):
And even for them,
they had never seen anything like what we were trying to do in the really shortened period of time,
we were doing it.
And the idea of moving a smaller store into a bigger store footprint really doubled,
not only the amount of stuff or product that we carried,
(10:29):
but it also doubled the amount of ground we were covering on our shifts,
basically doubled and tripled the work in some cases for some of us,
I remember consistently tracking that I was walking about 5 to 7 miles on an average shift if I was out on the floor.
And we jokingly referred to this as being in,
(10:51):
we called it store marathon shape.
Uh because you were basically getting a workout every day that you were having to cover that much ground coming out of a smaller store where maybe you weren't walking or being asked to cover that much ground.
So suffice it to say it was really a very brutal set of months and it was not just brutal for me.
(11:16):
It was for the entire store staff.
There might even be a few of you out there listening right now who still remember this and of which,
you know what I'm talking about and you can say that you survived it.
Everyone who went through it pretty much down the line was burned out,
exhausted,
(11:37):
just sort of done with people with holidays with everything,
it was a real grind.
So if we cut to the fact that by the time Christmas Day in 2010 rolled around it,
really,
for me personally,
ended up being the only day I had had off in,
(12:01):
I don't know how long the weeks and the months prior kind of blur.
I'm sure there were,
there was a day off here and there,
but that run up to Christmas,
we were all working what felt like around the clock.
And all I wanted to do on that day,
(12:22):
which happened to be Christmas Day was nothing like Zilch,
nada.
Nothing.
And the fact that it was technically Christmas,
I didn't care.
I really was not connected to the holiday whatsoever.
(12:44):
I was the most tired I had ever been.
I felt like my body was somehow in more pain than had ever been sidebar.
I had been an athlete so I knew like aches and pains.
So my back had kind of gone through the ringer,
my knee had gone through the ringer,
but this just felt like a whole different level of tiredness,
literally from two months of moving boxer boxes and fixtures and product and stands and whatever it is,
(13:13):
you name it essentially just done physically.
The grind of it all too was making me wonder,
you know,
would I ever get back to the kind of work I was doing before I was laid off,
which was not surprisingly in the corporate marketing space a lot really was on my mind at that moment and on that day,
(13:36):
and it seemed to come to a head on that particular day and in that moment,
and I really just did not have it in me to pretend to be ok when I really was not even if it was Christmas Day because really what I wanted to do and what I felt like was the best for me in that moment was to rest and to be still and to be quiet.
(14:04):
And at the time due to having to figure out a way to live and work and still trying to find full time work,
I had to move back in with my mom,
which was for me,
less than ideal because I had been very independent and I had been on my own for,
(14:24):
I think over 15 years,
pretty much when I got out of college,
I went and lived by myself and I had not had any move back in with parent kind of situations going on until that moment and sidebar,
I know that nowadays there has been a bit of a shift on how kids move back in with our adult Children,
(14:48):
move back in with their parents thing.
So no disrespect meant there.
But at that time and for me,
it was not something I ever envisioned myself doing or wanted to do,
but I was forced to do it because I was trying to still get a job,
a full time job and save money to still be able to pay my expenses,
(15:09):
like car and things like that.
So I appreciated that I was able to do that,
but it was certainly not what I really wanted to be doing.
So on this day,
there was no,
I got ready at my house and went over to my mom's.
I was already there and when I got up that morning and I went into the kitchen where she was going through the motions of preparing for family to arrive.
(15:33):
Later in that day,
I did not have much energy and I wasn't talking very much and she turns to me after a bit of silence and she's sort of annoyed with me and says it in this tone of,
well,
it's Christmas Day.
Aren't you going to just say Merry Christmas at least?
(15:53):
And I just remember looking at her going actually.
no,
I'm not.
And it was really for the first time in my life that moment I made a choice to be honest and admit,
(16:13):
no,
I wasn't feeling the holiday Spirit and two.
I really just needed to take the day for myself.
I needed to be ok not being ok in that moment on that day,
regardless of whether or not it was a holiday.
(16:34):
And unfortunately,
and sadly,
my mother in that moment did not and could not really understand and she got even further irritated with me about it.
But what I feel is the worst of it is that although she ultimately did tell me to go do what I needed to do,
(16:58):
take care of yourself,
whatever she did it and didn't actually mean it,
but I thought that she did.
So while I took her somewhat,
you know,
muted,
ok,
fine,
whatever.
And I took it as she understood what I was feeling and was ok with me taking a pass on the day's activities when I actually emerged later that night after everything had come and gone,
(17:34):
she wouldn't speak to me.
I asked how dinner was because I skipped it.
I got a one word answer.
Fine.
I saw that the gifts that I had gotten for her,
she didn't open,
she left them untouched.
I asked why she didn't give me an answer.
And I know that's probably,
(17:56):
probably hits some of you a little bit harsh.
Maybe you're a parents or you're a mother.
And you couldn't imagine treating your child like this or treating one of anybody like this in what was clearly a moment of struggle for them.
So I want to give grace for a moment if everybody take a breath.
But I share this because while I was really in the actual moment,
(18:21):
kind of too tired and I was,
I sort of dismissed it as,
you know,
great.
Ok,
so she's annoyed fine.
It's taken a while and it's taken a few years to reflect back on this particular day and really how it shaped my approach to mental health days.
Now,
both for myself as well as with others and to have literally the worst response you can give to someone parent or otherwise have happened to me has made me far more aware of how to show up and support folks needing to take a moment when they have to be ok,
(19:02):
not being ok.
You sure as heck do not give someone the silent treatment or a guilt trip or an attitude for not putting up the old buck up Buttercup approach and pretend to be fine.
No,
you give grace and space and support full stop.
(19:24):
And as we move through mental health month here in the States,
I do share this as a reminder,
a very personal reminder that we hit those days regardless of what the calendar says.
So it could happen on Christmas Day.
It could happen on a random Wednesday in July or it could happen at an all hands meeting when you are the marketing leader trying to talk all things company info while your son is really struggling.
(20:01):
And that comes up as part of the start to that meeting as Jackie.
So graciously talked about in our previous episode no matter what it is.
Sometimes when we need that break and we are having to really deal with not being ok.
It's unexpected and it's not planned and it may be and perhaps happen when we aren't even aware that it's happening until it suddenly does.
(20:33):
But what is important is that we take the moment when it does,
we take the day,
we take the space and we do what we need to do to preserve ourselves in that moment.
If it is rest,
it is rest.
If it is go to the park,
it is go to the park.
(20:53):
If it is go for a walk or a run or something that brings energy to you go do that.
If it is going to a support group meeting,
go to a meeting.
If it is just simply asking for help,
you,
ask for help,
whatever it is.
However,
(21:13):
we can best take care of that mental health that is as important as our physical health and prioritize that we need to do it and we need to do it without shame and without judgment because when we do,
I feel we become better for it as do those of us around us who are supporting and encouraging and embracing us to help us get back to being ok.
(21:48):
So there you have it.
If you have a story about how you have taken space and grace for yourself in a moment where it was really unexpected and it really derailed maybe a day that you thought was supposed to be super special or something.
Let me know it's really,
(22:09):
really important to continue to talk about this and to continue to normalize when we have to take a break,
to take care of ourselves mentally.
And with that,
as always,
I ask you to be kind to yourself.
Take it one hour at a time,
one day at a time and I will see you next time.
(22:37):
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Life Notes from chair 17.
Remember to follow and subscribe.
So you never miss an episode.
We'll see you next time.
This weeks.
Life Note giving space and grace when we are not.
Ok.
Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17,
a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,
wisdoms and inspirations as we navigate life's journey,
(00:21):
post chas to share thoughtful perspectives and insights from her own life journey.
As well as those of special guests,
contributors tune in for thoughtful conversations about lessons learned wisdoms,
gained experiences,
had and inspirations shared.
Find us where you get your podcasts and be sure to hit follow or subscribe.
(00:44):
So you never miss an episode.
Now enjoy this week's episode.
All righty.
Welcome back in friends to another episode of Life Notes from Chair 17.
I'm your host,
Ch and I thank you once again for finding me in this corner of the podcast universe.
(01:06):
And as always,
I like to start off.
Thanking our returning C 17 ers.
This includes our international C 17.
Thank you so much for continuing to tune in each week and for your support.
But if you happen to be tuning in for the very first time,
(01:27):
maybe you've just found us on one of the major podcast platforms or via our website out on life notes from Chair 17 podcast.com.
A warm welcome to you.
Thank you very much for wanting to check us out.
I certainly hope you like what you hear and you'll want to continue to tune in.
(01:47):
I do also want to thank those of you who have listened to our previous episode,
which was another in our share of the chair series with Jackie Yan.
Uh,
it was,
it seems to be landing with several of you,
a lot of you have worked with.
So you knew of her and I think it was just a treat to hear her chat once again.
(02:14):
Uh I really enjoyed talking with her.
It was a real treat and it really was the first time that we here on the podcast have had the opportunity to bring on an executive leader,
really to talk about more of their holistic life journey versus just bringing them on to talk about,
you know,
their work as a leader or,
(02:36):
you know,
their career.
So it was definitely a fun conversation and I certainly thank Jackie for wanting to come on and indeed share the chair as it were.
And I will say a part of what we talked about in that episode is inspiring this episode.
(02:58):
One of the things we chatted about was acknowledging the times in life when we have to be ok,
not being ok.
And the importance of taking care of ourselves,
particularly from a mental health standpoint in those moments.
(03:20):
And as I sit down to record this episode,
we are in the middle of May 2024 which happens to be Mental Health Awareness Month here in the US.
And actually Mental Health Awareness Month was established way back in 1949.
(03:43):
And I,
I actually looked this up as I was prepping for this episode and the focus of it or the purpose behind it was really,
as it says,
to increase the awareness of the importance of mental health as well as wellness in the lives of folks here in the US and to celebrate recovery from mental illness.
(04:10):
And as we've mentioned off and on throughout various episodes of this podcast,
the discussion about mental health present day and taking care of it certainly has come a long way.
I noticed this difference.
I joke,
I love the line from the film Fried Green Tomatoes where Kathy Bates character Evelyn Couch says to Jessica Tandy's Ninny Threadgoode character.
(04:41):
I am too young to be old,
but too old to be young.
And I can say that that kind of applies.
I think where I'm at in my life.
But if we look at that,
I never had much discussion about mental health or even awareness of it when I was growing up.
(05:01):
And if I'm being totally honest in my specific circumstance,
I definitely felt as if I was surrounded more by those who just expected you to suck it up and deal or put on a mask and pretend everything was fine,
instead of really taking a moment to understand what was going on if we were feeling not ok in that moment.
(05:26):
So for this episode,
I wanted to recount a story in a life story,
obviously,
in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month that I didn't really realize would have such a profound impact on me back when it happened.
(05:48):
And of which is a great example of what you really should not do to someone who needs to take a moment for themselves.
But even more than that,
the,
the story I'm going to recount is,
is the realization for me as well as I share it with you.
(06:11):
Maybe it'll be true for you that,
that need to take space and grace for yourself and call it a mental health day can strike at any time,
any moment any day.
And even if that happens to be on Christmas Day as it was for me.
So we've talked before on this podcast that in general,
(06:33):
sometimes the holidays can be very difficult periods of time for some of us.
And it's for a variety of reasons and it can trigger a lot of feelings and thoughts and emotions that aren't necessarily the Hallmark Card version of of holiday celebrating.
(06:55):
Maybe we've just lost someone in our family and it's the first set of holidays we are celebrating without them,
or maybe we are finding ourselves alone for the first time.
Or still alone after maybe a handful of years where we were not and we're not really sure how to ring in the holiday spirit by ourselves.
(07:20):
Or maybe the holidays just point blank,
do not evoke any kind of positive memories because of maybe something that happened to us in our past.
That could be as a child,
it could be a young adult.
Some other event,
there are a variety of reasons that do not make what is stereotypically supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.
(07:43):
There's a lot of reasons why it's not the most wonderful for all.
And in my specific case,
and in this story,
Christmas Day of 2010 was surely one of those days at that time of my life.
And not unlike right now,
I was recovering from being laid off in the great recession of 2008 and jobs were hard to come by.
(08:10):
I essentially found myself starting over and to sort of set the context and the back story further at the time,
in order to make ends meet and stay afloat,
I had taken a job in retail and I found myself working holiday retail really for the first time in my life.
(08:30):
Now,
if you have ever worked retail period or for sure,
ever worked retail during the holiday period of time,
you know,
the struggle is real and to say that it is a grind is probably the biggest understatement of the century in the world,
(08:54):
for sure.
It's why I am always.
So let's just call it accommodating and trying to be appreciative and thankful to every single retail employee that I come across during that period of time because I know how hard they are working having been one of those at one point in my life.
(09:14):
But on top of what would be the usual holiday grind of being a front line retail employee in this particular year.
And in this particular situation,
we also were packing up and moving our store to a brand new location where it was going to be twice as big and twice as busy.
(09:40):
And we had to do it in this super condensed period of time to make sure that we were up and running for the full holiday shopping season.
Now,
I had only been with that retailer for maybe a little over a year,
but I was working alongside people who had been there much longer than me and were far more seasoned than me.
(10:07):
And even for them,
they had never seen anything like what we were trying to do in the really shortened period of time,
we were doing it.
And the idea of moving a smaller store into a bigger store footprint really doubled,
not only the amount of stuff or product that we carried,
(10:29):
but it also doubled the amount of ground we were covering on our shifts,
basically doubled and tripled the work in some cases for some of us,
I remember consistently tracking that I was walking about 5 to 7 miles on an average shift if I was out on the floor.
And we jokingly referred to this as being in,
(10:51):
we called it store marathon shape.
Uh because you were basically getting a workout every day that you were having to cover that much ground coming out of a smaller store where maybe you weren't walking or being asked to cover that much ground.
So suffice it to say it was really a very brutal set of months and it was not just brutal for me.
(11:16):
It was for the entire store staff.
There might even be a few of you out there listening right now who still remember this and of which,
you know what I'm talking about and you can say that you survived it.
Everyone who went through it pretty much down the line was burned out,
exhausted,
(11:37):
just sort of done with people with holidays with everything,
it was a real grind.
So if we cut to the fact that by the time Christmas Day in 2010 rolled around it,
really,
for me personally,
ended up being the only day I had had off in,
(12:01):
I don't know how long the weeks and the months prior kind of blur.
I'm sure there were,
there was a day off here and there,
but that run up to Christmas,
we were all working what felt like around the clock.
And all I wanted to do on that day,
(12:22):
which happened to be Christmas Day was nothing like Zilch,
nada.
Nothing.
And the fact that it was technically Christmas,
I didn't care.
I really was not connected to the holiday whatsoever.
(12:44):
I was the most tired I had ever been.
I felt like my body was somehow in more pain than had ever been sidebar.
I had been an athlete so I knew like aches and pains.
So my back had kind of gone through the ringer,
my knee had gone through the ringer,
but this just felt like a whole different level of tiredness,
literally from two months of moving boxer boxes and fixtures and product and stands and whatever it is,
(13:13):
you name it essentially just done physically.
The grind of it all too was making me wonder,
you know,
would I ever get back to the kind of work I was doing before I was laid off,
which was not surprisingly in the corporate marketing space a lot really was on my mind at that moment and on that day,
(13:36):
and it seemed to come to a head on that particular day and in that moment,
and I really just did not have it in me to pretend to be ok when I really was not even if it was Christmas Day because really what I wanted to do and what I felt like was the best for me in that moment was to rest and to be still and to be quiet.
(14:04):
And at the time due to having to figure out a way to live and work and still trying to find full time work,
I had to move back in with my mom,
which was for me,
less than ideal because I had been very independent and I had been on my own for,
(14:24):
I think over 15 years,
pretty much when I got out of college,
I went and lived by myself and I had not had any move back in with parent kind of situations going on until that moment and sidebar,
I know that nowadays there has been a bit of a shift on how kids move back in with our adult Children,
(14:48):
move back in with their parents thing.
So no disrespect meant there.
But at that time and for me,
it was not something I ever envisioned myself doing or wanted to do,
but I was forced to do it because I was trying to still get a job,
a full time job and save money to still be able to pay my expenses,
(15:09):
like car and things like that.
So I appreciated that I was able to do that,
but it was certainly not what I really wanted to be doing.
So on this day,
there was no,
I got ready at my house and went over to my mom's.
I was already there and when I got up that morning and I went into the kitchen where she was going through the motions of preparing for family to arrive.
(15:33):
Later in that day,
I did not have much energy and I wasn't talking very much and she turns to me after a bit of silence and she's sort of annoyed with me and says it in this tone of,
well,
it's Christmas Day.
Aren't you going to just say Merry Christmas at least?
(15:53):
And I just remember looking at her going actually.
no,
I'm not.
And it was really for the first time in my life that moment I made a choice to be honest and admit,
(16:13):
no,
I wasn't feeling the holiday Spirit and two.
I really just needed to take the day for myself.
I needed to be ok not being ok in that moment on that day,
regardless of whether or not it was a holiday.
(16:34):
And unfortunately,
and sadly,
my mother in that moment did not and could not really understand and she got even further irritated with me about it.
But what I feel is the worst of it is that although she ultimately did tell me to go do what I needed to do,
(16:58):
take care of yourself,
whatever she did it and didn't actually mean it,
but I thought that she did.
So while I took her somewhat,
you know,
muted,
ok,
fine,
whatever.
And I took it as she understood what I was feeling and was ok with me taking a pass on the day's activities when I actually emerged later that night after everything had come and gone,
(17:34):
she wouldn't speak to me.
I asked how dinner was because I skipped it.
I got a one word answer.
Fine.
I saw that the gifts that I had gotten for her,
she didn't open,
she left them untouched.
I asked why she didn't give me an answer.
And I know that's probably,
(17:56):
probably hits some of you a little bit harsh.
Maybe you're a parents or you're a mother.
And you couldn't imagine treating your child like this or treating one of anybody like this in what was clearly a moment of struggle for them.
So I want to give grace for a moment if everybody take a breath.
But I share this because while I was really in the actual moment,
(18:21):
kind of too tired and I was,
I sort of dismissed it as,
you know,
great.
Ok,
so she's annoyed fine.
It's taken a while and it's taken a few years to reflect back on this particular day and really how it shaped my approach to mental health days.
Now,
both for myself as well as with others and to have literally the worst response you can give to someone parent or otherwise have happened to me has made me far more aware of how to show up and support folks needing to take a moment when they have to be ok,
(19:02):
not being ok.
You sure as heck do not give someone the silent treatment or a guilt trip or an attitude for not putting up the old buck up Buttercup approach and pretend to be fine.
No,
you give grace and space and support full stop.
(19:24):
And as we move through mental health month here in the States,
I do share this as a reminder,
a very personal reminder that we hit those days regardless of what the calendar says.
So it could happen on Christmas Day.
It could happen on a random Wednesday in July or it could happen at an all hands meeting when you are the marketing leader trying to talk all things company info while your son is really struggling.
(20:01):
And that comes up as part of the start to that meeting as Jackie.
So graciously talked about in our previous episode no matter what it is.
Sometimes when we need that break and we are having to really deal with not being ok.
It's unexpected and it's not planned and it may be and perhaps happen when we aren't even aware that it's happening until it suddenly does.
(20:33):
But what is important is that we take the moment when it does,
we take the day,
we take the space and we do what we need to do to preserve ourselves in that moment.
If it is rest,
it is rest.
If it is go to the park,
it is go to the park.
(20:53):
If it is go for a walk or a run or something that brings energy to you go do that.
If it is going to a support group meeting,
go to a meeting.
If it is just simply asking for help,
you,
ask for help,
whatever it is.
However,
(21:13):
we can best take care of that mental health that is as important as our physical health and prioritize that we need to do it and we need to do it without shame and without judgment because when we do,
I feel we become better for it as do those of us around us who are supporting and encouraging and embracing us to help us get back to being ok.
(21:48):
So there you have it.
If you have a story about how you have taken space and grace for yourself in a moment where it was really unexpected and it really derailed maybe a day that you thought was supposed to be super special or something.
Let me know it's really,
(22:09):
really important to continue to talk about this and to continue to normalize when we have to take a break,
to take care of ourselves mentally.
And with that,
as always,
I ask you to be kind to yourself.
Take it one hour at a time,
one day at a time and I will see you next time.
(22:37):
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Life Notes from chair 17.
Remember to follow and subscribe.
So you never miss an episode.
We'll see you next time.
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