‘What will the universe teach me today?’ is a question I’ve asked more in the last couple of weeks than I probably have in the last 10 years. Everyone I speak to seems to agree that ‘things will never be the same again’ – a little like a death in the family. We are told ‘time heals’.  The truth is, life is never the same again and we begin a new way of being.

There are so many tragedies associated with Covid19 – but that can’t be all we learn. I have been ashamed to realise how much I have always taken for granted in my daily life.  ‘I think I’ll go and stack shelves at the Sainsburys instead’ is a phrase I’ve heard from time to time, from those who are feeling overburdened by their leadership role. Now I know what a valuable contribution to society those people would be making in their changed role. The NHS are doing a wonderful job, as everyone acknowledges; schools are remaining open for the vulnerable; but there is so much more:  the post arrives daily, as it always has; warehouse managers and drivers continue; shop workers; refuse collectors; farmers; factory workers; the list goes on. These are not people that I have stopped to be grateful for in the past: I hope I will continue to do when all this is over.

So what is the universe teaching us in spreading Covid19?

The need to find meaning and purpose in life is pretty much universal.

There is an irony that a pandemic that requires us to isolate ourselves also has a clear message that we are all connected. John Donne was right when he declared ‘no man is an island’. While needing to care about others, though, we are also thrown back on ourselves. Take a deep breath, stop, and listen for just 30 seconds – if you dare. You may notice wonderful things ordinarily buried amongst the busyness of life.

This morning I read an account of the Prime Minister’s response to his time in hospital, which recorded those closest to him sharing their experience of his intolerance of ill-health (and not just his own). I spend much of my time talking about resilience, which you might interpret as ‘keeping on keeping on’. It’s a characteristic that is much admired in our always-on 21^st century society. It can also be a survival strategy, unconsciously designed to prevent us from having to accept our own vulnerability. Leaders often need to be strong; indeed followers expect it. No-one wants a leader who falls apart under pressure; but no-one is invincible.  In my interpretation, at the heart of our capacity to cope is emotional resilience, because when our emotions overwhelm us, we lose our capacity to make reasoned judgements. Emotional resilience entails acknowledging our own vulnerability and being able to sit with it: to be able to retain emotional connnection without being overwhelmed.  If our self-image depends upon our invincibility, for example, when that image is challenged, we are left with a vacuum. The challenge we are facing is magnified by our own self-talk that tells us we ‘should’ be able to cope.  There is a deeper challenge: to adjust to a new understanding of ourselves: acknowledging that to be human is to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is one thing that connects us to the whole human race, however different from us others may seem.

Perhaps one of the things the Coronavirus outbreak might teach me, is to take time to consider what it means to be someone else: to be in a high-rise flat with young children and nowhere to play; to be a wife unable to say goodbye to her dying husband; to be a health worker unable to see his children in the interests of keeping them safe. With understanding comes compassion and with compassion comes greater understanding. If we are to build a kinder more compassionate world, we need to start with ourselves – today.

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1. New earphones for my mobile phone.

I sat on the last pair. When I got the new ones I started using them to accompany me to the gym. I now download plays, a serial, or omnibus editions of books from Radio4extra.   I can (almost) look forward to going to the gym now,  knowing I have the next instalment or something else entertaining to enjoy.

2. Singing is good for the heart, it’s said.

For less than the cost of a regular evening class, I sing weekly during the term time with In Ecclesia.  We sing church music and make it our business to visit churches whose congregations enjoy the traditional cathedral music choral tradition and have no parish choir of their own to provide it.  About twice a year  we provide the music for a weekend at cathedrals across the country when their regular choir is on holiday  We have an entourage of supporters (mostly partners of members) who travel with us and we all have a meal together at least once over the weekend.  This investment ticks all of the #teacher5aday priorities:  I learn new music, connect with friends, cycle to rehearsals, give of my time for others’ enjoyment, and at its best the music we create allows us to ‘take notice’ in a very special way, joining us with something beyond ourselves in the moment of musical creation.

3. Train travel, when I can, rather than car.

I can walk to the station (tick another of the #5aday), watch the countryside going by, read a novel (yes, really I sometimes do that) or even work, using the time more profitably than I would if driving .. .and better for my carbon footprint, too. This picture was taken on the walk from Totnes railway station to Dartington Hall where I attended a conference last week.

4. Bringing the outside in.

When the roses in my garden are no longer blooming, I buy flowers for the house; they don’t have to be expensive and if I choose carefully, they last a long time.  I put them in the hall, so whenever  I move from one room to another I see them. They greet me when I go downstairs first thing in the morning and when I arrive home, and they remind me to take time to stop and notice their beauty.

5. New curtains and a blind for my bedroom.

If you follow me on twitter, you’ll know that I’m the advocate of #teacher5aday+1 … Sleep is the most important aspect of wellbeing for me: it drives all the others, because we make the best decisions when we’re well rested and this includes decisions concerning the best way to look after ourselves.  Investing in blackout curtains and a light coloured blind that lets the light in when I need it, has allowed me to sleep well and – by opening the curtains and leaving the blind down – get dressed in the light without alarming the neighbours.

Those are my 5.  What are yours?

The post Wellbeing: 5 simple investments first appeared on Chrysalis Leadership Development.

I’d prepared a workshop (in the event, 8 people joined me).  Then about 3 days before the conference, the call went out from the Conference Chair   ‘We need a couple of brave volunteers.’  If she hadn’t used the word ‘brave’ I might have felt more like stepping forward. But it seemed a great opportunity to share my research more widely.

‘It’s the message’, I kept saying to myself.  ‘The message is what’s important, and here’s a chance to get it out there.  It doesn’t matter how I put it across – as long as they get the message’.  ‘Six minutes’, I said to myself.  ‘Isn’t it worth investing six minutes in this?’

I read all the guidance again.

A TeachMeet is organised for those who want to listen to inspiring teachers who do amazing things in their classrooms every day. 

That’s me, I thought.  I am constantly inspired by what teachers achieve, against the odds, and in a climate where I know many of them feel unappreciated by those outside the profession.  Not sure I’d put myself in the ‘inspiring’ category, though, and I don’t work in a classroom.  Still, I persevered.  When I received the email which said   ‘looking forward to hearing the spin on academic research vs. classroom practice.’ I panicked.  I’m not a teacher.  What I have to say isn’t about classroom practice.  Had I misunderstood the call from the Conference chair?  @TeacherToolkit was reassuring. ‘We’d love to have you’.  At the conference John Novak had talked about ‘unintentionally disinviting’ .  Now I knew exactly what he meant.

So … 6 minutes: I had to make an impact.  Something different then?  What could demonstrate resilience and show what happens when it’s lacking?

I often talk about ‘filling the resilience reservoir’.  I rejected the idea of tanks and taps as being far too complicated.  An inflatable beach-ball tapped on the shoulder of my  consciousness.  I could bounce it to show resilience at work, and quickly deflate it to show what happens when we don’t top-up our batteries/resilience reservoir.  In trials, the safety valve on the beach ball prevented my deflating it easily.  Was this a challenge too far?  I tried hard to hang on to the idea that this was going to be fun, reaching far back into my past to get in touch with my child self; she tends to  when make herself invisible when I’m feeling vulnerable.

In the event, the hot room and the anxiety which mounted each time I wasn’t called forward (and there were many) took their toll.  My wonderful idea of the bouncing beach-ball had already lost its resilience as I stepped on to the platform.   I threw it on to the ground, getting ready to catch it as it bounced …  It didn’t.

The message, however, remained, and I shall be eternally grateful to @cazzwebbo for her tweet:

‘@chrysalisleader beginning beautifully poetically – we sometimes drop the ball! Resilience! #slteachmeet’

That captured it completely.  Our resilience grows when we ‘show up and let ourselves be seen’ says Brené Brown. That’s hard to do. It’s especially for hard for those in education who are carrying the anxiety which the government through the media unwittingly projects when they charge schools with solving the economic problems of today’s society through introducing one new education policy after another.  Almost nothing is good enough to be left alone.  As any teacher knows, tell someone they’re not good enough often enough, and they will believe it.

The great thing is, those feelings can be reversed.  With determination and support, resilience can be grown.  I have the data to prove it.   Thanks to Brené Brown and Ross McGill, others know it too.

The video is available  at 2:04;33

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It doesn’t have to be like this.

If you were an athlete, you wouldn’t dream of entering a race without any training; yet the majority of us do no training at all for the times when suddenly we find ourselves running on empty: when everything happens at once and our resilience tank is already dry.   What’s more, running on empty can become normal: that doesn’t mean it’s healthy.

The saying ‘what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger’ is, in fact, verified in research.  Going through tough times can make us more resilient – but only if we stop, reflect and learn from them.  Although schools purport to be learning organisations, expecting adults to find time to stop, reflect and learn without allocating time and space to do it and getting them to focus on the learning rather than what they too often perceive as ‘letting others down’,  is like asking the sun not to rise.

After several years researching into resilience for school leadership (see articles) I’ve been undertaking a research project which helps to answer the question ‘is it possible proactively to build resilience?’  A headteacher who understands the importance of setting aside time to build resilience signed herself and her whole leadership team on to a programme focused on  ‘sustaining and developing resilience for school leadership’.   We met 6 times over the course of a year. The majority of sessions were twilights, and together we looked at what supports resilience, what undermines it, and why those working in schools in particular find it hard to prioritise their own needs, or even listen when their bodies are telling them ‘enough’.    We looked at the importance of physical well-being, the actions required to maintain physical health (like getting enough sleep, taking exercise, eating healthily and drinking enough water) and why we discount our own needs to look after the needs of others.  We also explored how our habits of thinking can undermine our sense of wellbeing and the drain on our energy if we’re working against our values. Participants completed the same diagnostic questionnaires each term during the programme.

The result?  Despite the end of school year tiredness, resilience showed a measurable increase for nine out of 12 participants between September 2014 and June 2015.  Of the remaining three, one stayed the same, and two went down.  The year-long programme had given them time to absorb the messages from the programme and to practise, and in some cases even establish, new habits.  The participant who gave up trying to drink more water after failing at the first attempt announced on the last day that he’d ‘cracked it’.  One had realised that she was putting herself under unnecessary pressure in needing everything to be perfect.  Others had accepted the need to take time for themselves.  I plan to catch up with them in a year, to find out how they’re doing.

Participants completed the Subjective Vitality Scale (SVS), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (RISC).  As their vitality went down over the course of the school year, stress increased slightly  (rather than significantly, as they became more tired)  and their resilience increased.

I’ve run short sessions to highlight the importance of resilience.  They rarely have long-term impact.  Building resilience means taking a long look at yourself.  It takes time and commitment.  We can’t just take a pill, or wave a magic wand.  We have to do the work.

It was risky putting a whole team together on a programme like this: would they be brave enough to be really honest about their private thoughts and feelings in front of colleagues?  No, I  don’t think all of them were.    But they learned together and they now have a common language, even if some speak it more fluently than others. They are better prepared for the tough times because they’re not running on empty.

Next year, I’m running further programmes for participants from different schools to come together. If you’d be up for the commitment, or would like to hear more about what I discovered through the research  I’d love to hear from you.

The post Training for the Tough Times first appeared on Chrysalis Leadership Development.

Not only are we ‘crazy busy’ as Kevin Kruse says, we’re also bombarded with advice concerning how to combat the ‘crazy’ bit.    One writer after another provides us with top tips to conquer the things that cause us stress.  Often we read and nod, knowing that the advice makes sense.  We may even try it out for a few days, but after a while ‘crazy busy’ takes over and we continue pretty much as we always have.  Why?  Why do we continue to ignore what seems at first glance to be good advice, making our lives more difficult than they might be?

The truth is,  following simple advice is really difficult.

a)      The advice is issued to ‘everyman’ whereas in fact each of us is different and has to find what suits us

b)      If we want to change habits it takes commitment, support and time – in that order.  And it’s much easier to commit if you’re part of a community working to achieve similar outcomes.  If that were not the case organisations like weightwatchers wouldn’t need to exist.

So before taking on board 5 simple strategies, or 10 top tips, or 7 simple steps, ‘take a moment’ (that in itself will be hard for some of us) and decide whether any of them could work for you.  Don’t set yourself up to fail.  Identify what you want to work on, and be aware of your motivation to change.  It may be logical to have only one piece of paper on your desk at a time, but if that’s not the way you usually work, what will you have to give up in order to achieve it and how is your current habit meeting your needs?  Do you want to work this way because ‘it’s the right thing to do’ (who says?) or because you really believe it will add value to your way of working and perhaps allow you to feel more in control of your work.   You need to engage with your goal emotionally as well as intellectually.   How will things be different when you’ve established your new habit?  What will be the rewards, and what will you have to give up?  Is your new commitment to get some exercise every day?  What could get in the way?  Where are you going to find the extra time?  And don’t forget, taking exercise requires energy, so the first step might be to ensure you get enough sleep.  Take some time to track back to understand yourself and how you might hijack yourself.

Take one step at a time, keep checking your progress, celebrate your successes (by which I mean notice, and congratulate yourself) and share your goal with someone else who has your best interests at heart and can help you to stay motivated.  Most of all, accept that it will take time, proper encouragement, and self-compassion.

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