TRANSITION TO OFFICES
At varying rates and with various blends of home and office based working, many of our clients are making shifts (again) to a new pattern of work and commute. We too, are starting to increase our face to face contact with clients, and are very much looking forward to seeing each other face to face for the first time in 18 months. Using our Four Pillars of endings for better beginnings we’ve noticed and shared with each other what this means for us, and how we feel about it. We’ve also thought about what the shifts in our work and travel mean for those closest to us, and thought about how they might feel about it.
The impact of doing this has been settling for us in many ways, and has also enabled us to plan and prepare for aspects that we, and those around us, are finding unsettling. Everyone is different. Everyone’s work and circumstances are different. Everyone feels different. There is, in our view, no right or wrong way to feel, and no expectation that how we feel is static. It’s a time of transition. This means that there are endings, including some that it feels easy and feels good to acknowledge, and some less so. Some of those endings we may not even have noticed because they are hidden beneath the more obvious ones. When we don’t fully acknowledge an ending, we can get stuck, in big and small ways, in behaviour and thinking that isn’t helpful to us in our next phase. Using our four pillars of endings for better beginnings is a way of fully seeing and articulating what is happening for you in order to turn more fully and optimistically towards what comes next.
AN EXAMPLE:
A client (whose permission we have to write this) shared recently that they were very much looking forward to returning to the office having missed the contact of others and the variety of the city. Yet they felt a sense of resentment that was niggling, distracting, and even draining. Articulating the full reality led to naming of how much they have loved being able to go for walks when they would ordinarily have been commuting, and that there have been multiple benefits to that. Acknowledging how they felt about this not only confirmed where that niggling feeling had come from, it led to a palpable sense of relief at having spoken their full truth and feelings. The client then acknowledged what they had accomplished on these walks, from a physical and mental health point of view as well as in terms of contact with others and clearing their mind and feeling more present after the walks. From here, they were able to think about adjustments to their commute and routine that enabled them to retain some of those benefits. We talked about a possible ritual; an action that would acknowledge and celebrate both what they had valued from the walks, and acknowledge that life was changing again. Their ritual was to leave for work early the next day and incorporate a favourite walk into the commute. Along the way, they took photographs representing what they had valued most from the walks, and will value most from the next phase.
TRANSITIONING BACK TO A WORKPLACE: An Exercise
If you’d like to work through a transition back to a workplace, here’s a way of using the Four Pillars of Endings for Beginnings to do that. Either writing, or talking with a trusted thinking partner, say all you have to say on each pillar before moving on to the next – test yourself by asking “And is there anything else?” until your answer is wholeheartedly, “That’s everything.”
Starting by fully articulating working from home. The highs and lows, benefits and challenges. The projects completed. The changes to your role or roles around you. What you’ve learned about when and how you are productive, and when not. The collaborations. The separations. The days worked and the shape of those days. The adaptations. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, including all the tricky and messy stuff that we might not want to look at, but frees us up when it’s been fully surfaced rather than rattling around our minds or being uncomfortably boxed up.
This is about ensuring that having got a full picture of the reality, that you are also getting a full picture of you feel about it, or have felt. We find Dr Gloria Willcox’s Feelings Wheel a helpful resource here – one that helps to look beyond and acknowledge the emotions that are dominating and get a full picture. Take a look and note which feelings resonate with you as you approach this transition.
The important work of acknowledging what has been accomplished. Maybe a great deal. Maybe a little. There is always something. And once you start there is usually more than you thought too. By taking care not to hurry through this or gloss over our accomplishments we re-resource ourselves, both with a sense of satisfaction and contribution, and a greater awareness of the strengths and skills we bring to the challenges ahead.
Having paid attention to the first three pillars we can turn our attention to the myriad of ways we can say a proper goodbye to something, and in doing so, be able to turn our energy and attention more fully to the future. This could be writing something down, saying something out loud, moving a piece of furniture, adding an object to your desk, or an image to your screensaver, or a coffee with a friend or colleague - as long as it means what it needs to mean to you, and marks the moment in the way you need, it’s yours to choose how you do it.
We hope this is a useful structure for some thinking about your transition to the next phase of work, and that for you, as it has for us and many of our clients, it brightens and lightens the beginning of the next phase.
As always, we encourage you in doing this work, to seek support if at any point you think you need it, and to start with yourself, and not use these approaches to work on others unless you feel safe and qualified to do so.
Start with you. Work safely. Seek support.
