Our monthly lunch & learns with our leadership program graduates is leaning more and more towards personal success practices rather than hardcore work topics. But topics like stress, and failure, and loneliness, and forming new habits, and managing your time are hardcore work topics. Whether we like it or not, we live integrated lives.
Yesterday our small group discussed the Ted Talk “Why we all need to practice emotional first aid” from Guy Winch. (x)
And in the middle of the workday, we had a pretty frank conversation about loneliness, the negative rumination that spins us out, and reframing failure. To give you a pulse of the room, we were vulnerable talking about depression, divorce, negative self-talk that was leading to nightmares, and how we seek out meaningful connection with others.
Winch has this to say on loneliness during his talk:
“But loneliness is defined purely subjectively. It depends solely on whether you feel emotionally or socially disconnected from those around you. And I did. There is a lot of research on loneliness, and all of it is horrifying. Loneliness won’t just make you miserable; it will kill you. I’m not kidding. Chronic loneliness increases your likelihood of early death by 14 percent. Fourteen percent! Loneliness causes high blood pressure, high cholesterol. It even suppresses the functioning of your immune system, making you vulnerable to all kinds of illnesses and diseases. In fact, scientists have concluded that taken together, chronic loneliness poses as significant a risk for your long-term health and longevity as cigarette smoking.”
So how does this play out at work? Why does it matter that we’re talking about being lonely or practicing emotional first aid?
Because we are the same person everywhere. Work for me was a safe haven when I struggled personally, but when I held back that I was struggling my loneliness amplified. To combat loneliness you have to be known, and you don’t do that without being vulnerable. Even at work.
Here me out. Work is still work. You still need to get your job done. Be professional. Not let your personal life turn into a series of excuses about poor performance. But if we could work cultures where we can be vulnerable with one another, to make it okay for an employee to let a manager know they’re struggling, to make it okay to ask for help, to bring context into performance and work behavior … we’d build a healthier team and healthier individuals. Life happens and happens and happens, even during the 9 to 5.
As Brené Brown puts it, “What if loneliness is driven in part by our lack of authenticity — that I can go to a party, and I can be the belle of the ball and come home completely disconnected, lonely, anxious, because never once during that experience was I myself?”
The goal should be to be ourselves. To create companies and communities and lives that support our whole hearts. We all have a part to play there.
With Love,
Natalie
What if loneliness is a product of people’s lack of authority at work and in our own lives?
What if it’s from a lack of control and involvement ( or the perception/feeling of..,)in the small decisions that make up our lives- work or otherwise?
That’s what I wonder about. Work wise I think it’s called “ engagement “, in life I typically peg it as ennui.