Yes, this is the third time that I’m writing about coping energy. It’s been quite the humbling month, as evidenced by the fact that this essay is posting a week late, after the one before it was half a week late. Anyone who knows me knows that I really don’t like missing deadlines or being late—even if no one but me cares.
Ever since I retired and then started this blog, I’ve been very proud of myself. Thinking about all these life and leadership lessons as I’ve been writing about them had gotten me feeling something like a mountain climber summiting a peak. The peak, in this case, is Maslow’s hierarchy and I guess I convinced myself that I had reached that rarified air of self-actualization. At the tender age of 59 I had reached enlightenment and could now calmly pontificate from the top of the mountain and spread my wisdom. My life was now a joyful string of days full of calm, happiness, rainbows, and unicorns. Yeah, no. My humbling lesson over this past month is that I have not reached some enviable skill of managing life’s stressors. It’s that I had managed to remove a good number of the stressors I’d dealt with throughout my life through a combination of good fortune, retirement, and a life partner that I thank the Universe for every day. And when a series of unforeseen and uncontrollable stressors came flooding back, I found that my ability to roll with the punches just wasn’t there. So, we’re going to talk about coping energy AGAIN.
I just reread my first two essays on this topic. You can find the first part here and the second part here. I could have benefited from reading them these last few weeks. What happened? Well, it started on September 1st when the remains of Hurricane Ida, smashing up against a cold front, spawned a number of tornados in our area, including an EF2 that spun 130 mph winds right through our neighborhood. RIGHT THROUGH. That’s what my last essay was about. The disruption was more than the power outage and the debris. It was the constant irritation of the sound of the generators and chain saws and wood chippers. It was the PTSD of going around the area and seeing everything changed. It was the Y being closed and not wanting to do any other type of exercise and eating takeout and being thrown totally out of our routine. It was trying to celebrate both of our birthdays and being happy and joyous but feeling exhausted the whole time while trying to hold it together. It was navigating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in the middle of all that, which had me reliving all the horror, distress, and disorientation of those days. All of this messed with my sleep, which is messed up enough as it is, and just aggravated the whole situation. I had a hair trigger moodiness. I was exhausted. And I couldn’t really explain why I was feeling so off balance.
Then I had to get on a plane and fly to Atlanta for a family visit. I love seeing my family! What I dislike is the travel to Atlanta—on a good day. This time, I had to deal with my stressed-out mood which meant a pit in my stomach every time I thought about any aspect of the trip. Tropical Storm Nicholas had decided to park its tropical self west of Georgia, which meant a rainy forecast the whole time I was there. That meant I was going to have to navigate “driving” around town in the rain—“driving” around Atlanta being some cross between the Indy 500 and a demolition derby. To top it off, my sister’s car had taken in some water during a recent flash flood, so there was always the little concern in the back of my mind that something electrically kerflooey might happen at any point.
There were other things going on, too, that I just don’t want to share. The details are not important. What matters is that I kept getting pinged by one stressor after another combined with a change in my schedule that kept me mentally and emotionally off balance for the first three weeks of the month without a break. I did not handle it well. Stuff that normally did not bother me much turned almost incapacitating! I was teary all the time and had to keep going off by myself to let that emotion out. I just wanted to sleep all the time, but I couldn’t sleep at night. I wasn’t exercising. I ate Very Bad Food and lots of it, which also left me feeling lethargic. I slid very far, very fast. I had no coping energy and was not able to regain any reasonable amount until these last few days. That humbled me big time.
I thought I had conquered the coping energy challenge! I thought I had developed the skills to catch myself, to maintain perspective, to practice effective self-care, and keep my coping energy reserves full (or at least not totally empty). Instead, I found myself back in those old patterns of short temper, thinking only about myself and my own needs, making poor choices, and just feeling like I was drowning. I disappointed myself and that made everything worse. I felt like a failure.
Trish, members of my family, and friends who have seen me during this time were all kind of puzzled by this behavior. It just didn’t seem that bad to them. None of the stressors by themselves were enough to knock me off kilter. Driving around Atlanta is never fun but I used to be able to do it without feeling like I was going to throw up when I got behind the wheel. It was the combination and the unrelenting barrage—sort of like a boxer weakened by blow after blow. He could withstand any individual hit just fine, but after so many so quickly, he went down for the count.
So, here’s what I’ve learned though all of this. When someone tells you about things that are stressing them and sapping their coping energy, don’t try to fix it. If they want your suggestions for solutions, they will ask you. What they want is for you to listen, to really hear them, to validate that the situation sucks, and to know that you care. Look, I’m a problem solver. Most of us are. We’ve spent our careers doing that and it’s hard to resist the urge to fix something or someone. I’m telling you, resist that urge! I did not want all the well-meaning suggestions that came flooding in. I knew I could right the ship. I just needed to vent about the storm and hear from others that, yeah, the storm is rough. I am reasonably good at asking for what I need, although sometimes I need to reach a breaking point and that ask comes with tears. (Very effective for getting what you need, by the way.) Others may indeed need a little prodding, but ask gently. Ultimately, if the person feels safe and supported, they WILL ask for what they need. And if you are the one struggling, let yourself struggle a bit and then take one little step forward. Don’t beat yourself up but don’t get stuck. And ask. For. Help. Just having Trish take me to the airport instead of driving myself made a world of difference.
I’m mostly out of the storm, now, as evidenced by the fact that I can write about it. A visit from a dear friend helped to fill me back up. The bathroom scale has fortunately not moved appreciably and my eating is reverting to the mean. I’m still looking forward to getting back into regular exercise. I’m going to work on the hubris. I’m not invincible. I don’t have all the perfect techniques to avoid a crash. I learn a little more each time I go through a difficult period, which is why the difficult times are so important. This time, I am reminded of the importance of pushing myself outside of my comfort zone a little more frequently so that I am better able to handle unexpected upsets more easily. And I will work even harder to have that compassion for others whose coping energy is sapped for whatever reason. “We are here to get it right, not be right.”