Employing Differences, Episode 118: Is this a bad day?

Karen: 0:08

Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Paul: 0:15

I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:16

And I'm Karen Giming.

Paul: 0:18

Each episode, we start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Is this a bad day?"

Karen: 0:28

So this is one of those questions that we don't have to tell you to ask yourself. We think it arrives either in self awareness, or you say to somebody, "Good morning!" "Is it? "Oh, are you having a bad day? What's going on here?" So when that question comes up, I think what we want to explore today is what do you do with it? Because we do have bad days. Whether I'm aware that I'm having a bad day, or I need someone else to point it out to me, we all have that space. If we have systems that only work when we're having good days, then – to touch back to last week's episode on resilience – we don't have a lot of resilience if we don't have plans for bad days. So what do we do in that space, where either I'm aware that I'm having a bad day, or I'm aware that somebody else is having a bad day? What do we do there?

Paul: 1:28

Yeah, and that idea of having systems that don't require us to always be operating at our best is really important. As a friend of mine likes to say, there's a reason why it's called "your best." It's not your average, and it's not your worst. And so, so part of it is we need to not assume that we always have to be showing up at our best. Because I think that's sometimes a thing we carry with us where we believe that, "Okay, I have to show up at my best every day." Culturally, that's a problem. That's a thing that shows up. But the other thing that that often leads to is we're often afraid or unable to admit that we're not at our best. That today is a bad day. That for whatever reason, things aren't working. As you have pointed out, we're often bad at hiding those things. Other people can often tell it's a bad day for us, maybe before we can. But one of the things that I've always found really useful is – presuming that it's a safe enough environment for me to do so – to admit when I'm having a bad day. And to the degree that I can to disclose why I am, what's going on with me. I will always remember – I mean, this seems like a little thing, but it was a meeting with my boss a number of years ago. She just seemed really distracted and really out of it and maybe a little annoyed or irritated. And– because it's me – I was going,"What have I done? How have I provoked this?" And then about five minutes in she just said,"Just so you know, I'm having a migraine right now. So if I seem a little off..." And I was like,"Oh yeah, you do." She was like,"Oh, okay, I'm really sorry." And I was like, "No, I now know that it's not me that's doing that." And that allowed me to relax. And then we were able to say, "Okay, so do you want to postpone, do you want to reschedule?" We could get into more of those things that you might choose to do if it is a bad day. But we were only able to do that because everybody knew. It was on the table; we were able to start working with it. So I think one of the first things that we can do is if we're having a bad day is answer the question, "Can I tell people that? And can I tell them why?" Because there may be times when it doesn't seem like we can. And that's all right. But first we need to know that.

Karen: 3:54

Yeah. And then the follow on with that is, "So then what happens when someone says they're having a bad day?" And I think some of it is when I say I'm having a bad day, what am I hoping? Because you're describing, I think exactly what we hope will happen, which is,"Okay, now people will know, and if as the result of my migraine or whatever is happening to me, I am behaving off that they won't take it on themselves, that they will have a little more patience and compassion that they might consider suggesting postponing or other things that you wouldn't normally just suggest on a typical day. But what what is it that I'm wanting and not wanting? And also for the group. Does that mean we suggest that that person could leave the meeting but we're going to get the work done? Does that mean we stop and have a therapy session at this moment for that person? Which might be. Like I'm having a bad day because I just got a call that something related to work happened. Okay, let's all work through that it's gonna affect all of us. Or even, we're just the kind of office or the kind of group or the kind of space where we say, "You know, what our work is less important than supporting and nurturing." And if that person feels safe enough, and that's the place that they want to do that work and, and, and. There's a lot of complexity and figuring that out. And I'm thinking about my personal situation that's ongoing, actually. I lost my son about four months ago. I took some time off, and everybody knew I took time off, but I was coming back into a teaching role. And I thought a lot about how everybody knows – it wasn't that people didn't know, but here I am showing back up again. And it was a big enough thing, that people who care about me – even people who mostly know me, because I teach classes that are mostly a professional relationship for me. The nature of the work I do is that people feel more personally attached than they would if I was, you know, their plumber or something. But what does that look like coming back into the space, with this big thing that's happened to me, that is now part of me. It's not going away. I have a lot more bad days lately than I would otherwise. There's all of that. And when I thought about it, what I realized is that what was going to be useful to me in that first moment of reentry, when I was still awfully fragile, was to not talk about it. I needed to have that space be as normal as possible. I'd been in grief space. I would be in grief space, but having a few hours of the day that we're not about that thing that happened to me, not about that experience, not about that emotional space, especially when I'm trying to be a teacher. And so I sent out a message to everybody in advance and said, "You know this happened. I'm coming back. This is where I am. Many of you have sent notes, and I appreciate all that. But really, what would help me is if that class can be as normal as possible. I am happy to receive condolences in these other ways. But setting boundaries around it. In this class time, I'd really like people not to mention it. This is what I need." And I don't offer that story as that's always the right thing, or that that would be true for somebody else. It might not be. But I think there is value in – especially if it's a big thing. It's another thing if I ran a stop sign on my way in from work, or I got a speeding ticket or something that's gonna go away, that's relatively small. But when it's a big thing and a thing that's likely to make other people uncomfortable, and they aren't going to know how to respond to it, to the extent that I was able to – and I had the luxury of time – that if I can say, "This is what would help me. This is the thing that I need. This is it." And I think it was important in that case, both that I said, "This is how you can actively help me. These are the spaces and contexts in which that would be useful. And this is also what I'd really like you not to do." And being able to define that is really useful. And it works really well.

Paul: 8:25

There's two things in there that I want to point at a little bit. One of them is being aware of your own needs, and once around that. When we're having a bad day, or a whole series of bad days, our ability to discern that is often impaired. It's a bad day, we're not at our best. So the fact that you said, "Look, I was able to have some time, I was able to think about the fact that when I came back into this space..." You were able to run through some options and go, "No, I don't want that. I do want this." You were able to be deliberative about it. And I suspect it probably took you a little longer to land on that set of things than it would have otherwise. But it points to a thing that shows up in the show a lot, which is that idea of really having the self-awareness getting in touch with what we are thinking and feeling and needing so that we can then communicate that to other people in ways that they can effectively do that for us. That's a really key part. And I think that's true, regardless of the badness of the day or the level of grief, of loss, of frustration, of whatever it is that you're going through. I think that's always useful. The other thing I want to point out there that's tremendously useful is when there isn't information about how the other person would like us to handle it, we will generally default to what makes us feel the most comfortable – or the least uncomfortable. We will get caught up in our own reaction to what's going on with the other person.And we then have our own complicated feelings around, "Okay, what am I supposed to do with someone who is grieving? Like do I do, I just tell them..." Or someone who's struggling, who is having difficult time, is very frustrated... I'm someone who struggles with being around people who are going through strong negative emotions where they're stuck. I get that. Cognitively, I get that that's just a thing you need to experience. And I feel helpless. I feel powerless to help them. And so I get caught up in my own reaction rather than focusing on actuallying being helpful to this other person.And that might just be we're not going to talk about it. It might be I'm going to acknowledge that they're going through some difficulty, and I'm not going to try to solve their problem. The more that we can provide guidelines for what we do and don't want from other people when we're having a bad day, the more that they're actually going to do that, rather than whatever their default is, which is about tending to their own emotional distress around it. And so those were two things that I heard in there that I think were probably why that was really useful to you, that why that worked, as well as it did.

Karen: 11:33

I really want to pick up on the piece you're talking about of when we hear that someone's having a bad day, we don't all have the same script. We all have different reactions. Some of us are like, "Okay, get as far away from that as I possibly can. That's what I learned." Some of us are, "I'm gonna fix it." Some of us are,"Tell me about it. Talk about it. I'm gonna listen to you for days and encourage you to keep talking" –which may or may not be useful. But that piece about we all arrive in that with our own need. We probably arrive with our own story. "Yeah, that's like the time I lost someone," or "That's like the time..." Many of us will arrive in it with an instinct to advice-giving. That might be related to the fix it gene. And the more that we can build our own self awareness around,"Okay, when someone's hurting or struggling, what is my instinct?" And then being really careful about doing that thing. Noticing, "okay, I'm in the presence of someone in pain. I'm in the presence of someone who's struggling. My default, the thing that makes me feel good is this. If that's the thing I'm inclined to do, I better second guess myself." I better stop and say, "Hey, I always think it's going to help if I bring brownies." Ignoring the fact that this person's been on Weight Watchers for the last 10 years... Maybe brownies isn't the thing. Whatever it is that go-to instinctive thing, pause and look for evidence in the other person. Are they asking for that? Are they looking for that? And it may even be to say to them, "What I'm thinking might help would be this thing. Would that help you? Is that what you want?" But just being very aware of help. And I think we did an episode on when is help helpful. We're back in that space again, but it's with that added freight of the emotionality. And recognizing that the person who's not having a good day, they may find it hard to say yes to help. They have find it hard to say no to help. They may be someone who likes to overshare all the time, and that feels good to them. They may feel further traumatized by being asked to share and being put on the spot. There's this whole range. So there's just a lot about slowing down and and paying attention to what is it that's actually in front of me today. And what is my back channel script that's coloring what's in front of me today. And then a whole lot of discernment about what's really going to be useful, given everything that we know.

Paul: 14:39

This is also one of those places where if we have any degree of "I need to do things right"in our character, it goes haywire. Because depending on how bad somebody's bad day is, there is no good way to deal with it. There is no right. There is no perfect. There is nothing that is just going to make everything better. And so we can second, third, and fourth guess ourselves a lot on the way to try to find the perfect answer. I think it's where we also have to be willing to step in the space of recognizing that even if you do things perfectly, things are going to be difficult and painful, and there's going to be a struggle. We shouldn't immediately take that as a sign that we've done something wrong. There may not be anything right that we can do. And so if we can take that additional meta burden off of ourselves – If I want to be helpful, if I want to actually express care, if I want to help this other person's needs get met, I need to get over my own sense of "I've got to do it right." And being able to go, "Yeah, this is gonna be hard." This is just is a hard thing. This is an uncomfortable, painful thing, depending on the badness of the day. That can sometimes be the struggle. Because sometimes our pattern is, "If I don't know what the right thing to do is, I'm just going to step completely out." And there are times when that's the right thing to do. The thing about these deeply patterned responses is that they're useful sometimes. Are they going to be useful in this situation? We don't know. We can't know ahead of time. And so I think that one of the places I'd go back to is that if I'm having a bad day, and you recognize that, then the most useful thing for you to do is: I can't be at my best. How good can you be? Don't put too much burden on yourself to to be at your absolute best, but recognize you may need to carry a little bit more than I am able to in that moment.

Karen: 17:03

I think that sense of giving self grace also applies to when I'm the one having a bad day. We need it to be okay to say, "I'm not at my best today. This is a day I'm not going to do this thing or that thing." My daughter is part of coaching summer camp and part of their training was if you are not feeling well, if you are irritable, if you are snapping at kids, we have enough staff. You can go home. Because you can't be coaching kids' circus campus – as she is – and snapping at kids all day. That's just not going to work. We're not gonna punish you or think poorly of you if you say, "Yeah, I need a day. This is not a good place for me to be today." And so whether it's something as extreme as that, or it's this is the day to go through my backlog of emails, not my day to write that complicated contract. Whatever the thing is, this is not a good day for me. To be willing to not layer shame on top of the reality that this is not a good day. That it's normal to have bad days, and it's wise to just say, "Yep, this is not a good day, and there are things I can't do." Maybe even, "Okay, there's one thing that's going to be hard that I have to do today, so I'm not doing anything else. On normal day I could do you those other five things I thought I was gonna do and that one really hard thing. Today, that's not going to work. Today, I need to take a two hour lunch, and then I can do that one hard thing I have that really can't not be." Whatever it is, but just that grace to say, "I don't have to pretend that everything's fine. I can be fully present in the whole reality of what is." And I may compartmentalize – I believe me, I've been doing a lot of that the last few months of saying,"This is not the moment I'm thinking about that. I'll think about it later." We can all do some of that. But be realistic about how much is that useful? How much is it feasible? How much will it really work and feel good about, "Doing the best I can on a bad day is the best I can." That is my best work on that day, and that's okay.

Paul: 19:34

So to track where we've been, we really talked about how we are not at our best every day. There is the best of each day, and some days are better and many days are worse than others. So how do we work with that? How do we deal with that? The first piece of that is you becoming aware of where are you at today? What's going on with you? The self-awareness piece. And to the degree that you can, and that is appropriate, letting other people know where where you're at, what's going on. The thing that's even more useful is to be able to tell them, "And so because of that, here's what I, here's what I need, here's what I want, and here's what I don't want." That requires you to have done the self-reflective work to land at that spot, which is hard. And if you don't have a regular practice of doing that, doing it on bad days is even harder. Don't wait until that point to try to develop the skill. Because if you do that, it really helps other people to actually support you in the ways that are actually useful to you. If you don't do that, what's more likely to happen is people are going to respond with their own instincts of how to be helpful – their own patterns – that are really more about addressing their own anxieties rather than the situation in front of them. And that may not lead to the result that any of you want. And so the degree to which you're able to give guidance is the degree to which you're more likely to be better supported on those days when you are not at your best. Also just recognizing that there may be times when you go, "I'm not going to get into that situation today. I'm going to recognize and give myself some grace and go, you know, I could be doing that today, but I don't need to. That would take a lot that I don't think I really have. And so I'm going to defer that. I'm going to push that off. I'm going to maybe ask somebody else if they can take care of it." Being aware of what is within your capabilities today. What is the best thing you can do today? Working within those limits, giving yourself some grace around that. If you are trying to help somebody who is struggling on a particular day giving yourself grace about the fact that there's no good or perfect way to handle these situations. And being able to just be together. To be sensitive to that space between. Turn up your sensitivity to that as much as you can, because it is the thing that you can rely on. How is what I'm trying to do landing? How is this working? And the thing I'll add at the end here is sometimes it's just useful to read that space, to remark on it. To say, "It seems like things are not going how either of us hoped this would. Maybe we want to do something different." Tune into that comment on it when you can. Stay as connected as you can with the other person, whether or not you are the one who's having a bad day or the one who's trying to help the one who is.

Karen: 22:38

That's going to do it for us today. Until next time. I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 22:43

And I'm Paul Tevis. And this has been Employing Differences.