Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You know, a lot of people who lose a parent will say, oh, my gosh, I'm the next generation now. Right? And you have this awareness of mortality. To have healthy healing is to move forward and make meaning and have a constructive response.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: My guest today is Melissa McCreary Duaire. Melissa earned her master's in divinity from Chicago Theological Seminary, and she's an ordained UCC minister and a certified graduate grief counselor. We'll get into all of that. Her passion is to acknowledge and address the life changes we'll all experience and understand the impacts of these as loss. That needs naming and reframing. You can find her@whole personsconversations.com Here we go. Hi, I'm Stuart Papp, founder of DN8, and welcome to Stand up to Stand Out. The podcast communication has changed my life, and it will absolutely change yours, because breakthrough innovating deserves breakthrough communicating.
Every episode, we bring you industry insiders, subject matter experts, and you can learn from my decades of experience to get the most practical and tactical advice that you can put to work. Now let's dive in to today's show.
So very excited. Melissa, thank you so much for joining. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while, and I feel like we're going to talk about a topic that's maybe a bit of a third rail, which is grief, which is a fundamental human, I guess, emotion, experience. Maybe you could give us some baseline definitions so that we're all playing with the same tools. First of all, welcome.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: And. And second of all, maybe you could just help myself and the audience level set with some basic definitions of. Of how you define grief, how you think about this, and then we'll get into some deeper questions.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Well, grief is the G word, right? As a culture, we avoid it. It's indicative of some kind of weakness and loss, usually related to death.
And the way the culture treats it is. You get three days of bereavement leave, one day to travel, one day to bury someone, and one day to get back, and then you.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: And then you're good.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Then you're good. Grief is clearly universal, but it's very, very unique, right? Depending on the event, the person and your past experiences, where your current state of mind is and what the. How the future unfolds.
So there's the early stages of grief, when we're talking about death, that have real consequences, right? Psychological, physiological, emotional, and cognitive impairments. It's hard to eat, it's hard to sleep, or you sleep too much, you eat too much, drink too Much drink too little, can't focus, can't concentrate, can't articulate right. It's like you're living in a cloud. These are all pretty universal symptoms that go along with death and grief. But what I've come to find is that throughout life with other events, there's grief, there's loss. And we have some of those same symptoms, but they're not honored and we don't talk about them. And we really need to. Because if you're in a workplace and you're cognitive, cognitively impaired, it's hard to focus and you can't perform. People are wondering what the heck's going on. There are statistics out there that say that companies are losing billions of dollars by your presentee as ism coming to work but not able to function because of a divorce, a job loss, a diagnosis, or you know, a traditional death. But grief is all around us. Whenever there is a loss, we feel it.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: So I'm curious to get even more fundamental. When I was looking up the word earlier, I noticed that, you know, came from the Latin root was for gravitas, sort of something heavy. And then I think it was co opted and this is according to the Internet, so who knows? But as something negative. And I'm wondering, when we're talking about it, it seems like it's underpinned by negative definition, death, sort of massive loss. But you're also translating that to change.
I'm wondering just the origins of this or maybe just for the purposes of today, you know, is grief always negative? Right. Is that the underpinning of it? Or is that meaning that we give it both?
[00:04:26] Speaker A: And you know, there, there usually is when you lose something, there's something that needs to be an adjustment, right? And so initially I think we're sort of wired to take that negatively. Like oh my gosh, I've lost my certainty, I've lost the known. So we fall back on our heels. And I'll give you another definition of bereavement, right? You've been robbed of the loved one, you've been robbed of your career, you've been robbed of your relationship. And so that has heaviness to it. Now we'll talk about this model of change and listening for the grief that we all experience at some point where we can move it from heaviness to something meaningful, which is one of the coping mechanisms of how we heal grief is to bring meaning to it through commemoration and ritual and different things. But it has to be named, and so many of us are afraid to name it that when we get to that point, we can make meaning of it. And it's, you know, the initial reactions are going to be that sadness and all of the other symptoms we talked about.
Um, but it's how you respond, right? And you'll see, like people who have lost a young child, they need to make meaning of it. They need to commemorate. And now there's a 5k cancer run. Right.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: They're.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: They're not letting that loss happen in vain. So I think initially, yes, there is always a heaviness to it, but the way to healthy. To have healthy healing is, is to move forward and make meaning and have a constructive response. I think, you know, a lot of people who lose a parent at a young age will say, oh, my gosh, I'm the next generation now. Right. And you have this awareness of mortality. I think this happened during the pandemic. And the great resignation. People realize their mortality and they're like, I'm not staying in this sucky job forever. You know, every day is a gift. I'm on borrowed time and I'm going to live it on my terms. Yeah, I tried to push that idea. It's like this great resignation. You only have a certain amount of time and you don't know when it's going to end. So live productively and fruitfully and with meaning. And I don't like to use the term the silver lining.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: People jump to that too quickly. Well, look on the bright side. It's like no grief is heavy. You need to lament. You need that time to sort of just understand and process before you can react positively. Right. And I think our culture is not great at. At doing that.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's scary. And anything scary and uncertain we tend to avoid. And people also have an aversion to heavy things because they feel that brings them closer. People don't like talking about death because they feel like talking about it just brings it closer. But it's the opposite, actually. But I want to get to all of that and I want to unpack the model and I want to look at that through that. But first I want to understand more your journey and just go back a little bit, because obviously you. You have a very unique background. You have a master's in divinity from Chicago Theological Seminary. You're an ordained UCC minister. You're a certified grief counselor. Maybe you could help me understand just coming into this. Right. Because I know what your mission and purpose is, that we really acknowledge and address these changes and that we understand the impact and we name and reframe. I know this about you, but I don't understand how this became your life's work. And I would love to understand that journey so I can learn from you.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah, like if anyone else wants to turn into like a grum reaper or something, you know, it seems really dark, but it's not. There's. There's a lot of optimism in the work that I'm doing because I think that people can heal and move, move forward and. And part of that journey began when I lost my mother. She was very young, she was 63 and I was 36 with three young kids and thought to myself, well, if I die of the same fate, I have 27 years left, I better get busy living. Right. And that was the meaning making that was happening. And so I started pursuing things that were meaningful to me and trying to understand death, which is a fact of life. We spend a lot of time on the birds and the bees, but we don't talk about death and how it impacts us and all the ancillary losses. Right. You lose your family.
Losing a mother is like the patriarch. You now have lost all of your holiday traditions and the dining room table and all of these different things that were unfolding that were related to her death, but were non death. And so I went to my minister and said, where's the grief group? Who's there to talk to? Like, I feel really alone in this. And she suggested that I start up the Steven ministry group, which would at the church previously. And it deals with peer counseling conversations, one on one, where somebody who's gone through something like you have as a trained listener and you meet once a week and there's a lot of validation and just someone listening to you and holding that space and assuring you that you're not going crazy, that these are all normal emotions.
So I did that. I led that through the church and was active in that for three or four years. And there was a lot of positive feedback to me about my ability to hold that space without judgment and was sort of gifted and helped a lot of people on their journey. So this, this conversation becomes call talk. It's like, oh, you know, there's a ministry in this. And honestly it's, it's something that we call the ministry of presence, which is so powerful and we can all do it, we can all be present when we learn to get comfortable listening to uncomfortable things.
So I started seminary, went through all that grief based, and was called back to work at my own church as the minister of pastoral care, which was Absolutely. A privilege, you know, really getting to hold people and hold space for people, going through all different types of things, between job loss and losing a parent and going through a diagnosis, you know, anything that was a loss.
And from that point, ministry was my call and that's what I was doing. We moved to Colorado in 2020, so I was no longer with the church.
And that was during the pandemic. And if you recall, it was just a really anxious time. We weren't sure how this was going to play out. Are people just going to drop dead on the sidewalks? There's going to be a lot of death. And culturally we're uncomfortable with it and certainly don't know how to deal with it. So I worked at College of DuPage as an adjunct and talked to their psychology department, said, hey, can I help teachers support the students that are coming in here so that they can hold space and be present for them. So that was my first webinar and it just sort of compiled different people are like, oh, can you talk to this group and this group and help us hold space and understand what's happening with this loss? If we have lost someone, what are the, what's the triage? Right? In those early days of grief, which take care of yourself, you have to eat, you have to wash your hands, you have to take vitamins, your immune system's compromised, all those early types of things. But then also, how is this going to play out?
What does this mean to have lost X, Y or Z person? And it depended on your relationship with them.
And if you lost a parent that was 95 years old, were kind of anticipating a death, you didn't know when or how it was gonna happen. But it's not unexpected. But if you lost a healthy 23 year old nephew, you're like, whoa, how does that happen? And trying to make sense of that. And so I was, I was talking with these people throughout and then I was, I'm like, okay, I gotta, I gotta give webinars. If I can say this to one person, I can say it to ten or a hundred or a thousand or. My largest client was SAP and gave a webinar to 25,000 of their North American employees saying, okay, this is, this is what it is. This is how grief manifests in all different ways and there's different names for it and we can talk about what those are and how it will play out and how it will impact your productivity and ability to be productive, creative, engaged at work. Right? So companies have an invested interest in and wanting mentally Healthy individuals. So we did that. And then I booked one on one hours with the employees. They could just hop on my website and have an hour with me. And what I was finding, most of the people weren't talking about the death, loss, but all of the losses in their life, right? The loss of routine, the loss of stability, the loss of everything.
Toilet paper, I think was one of the big things in the pandemic days and the loss of commute, right, like routine rhythm and things like that and how it was impacting them. I started putting all this together. It's like, okay, we need to broaden the scope of what grief is because people are fearful of losing a lot of things. And it's like, okay, wait a minute. Anxiety is the fear of what can be lost.
Ooh. Depression is sadness over what has been lost.
Loneliness is loss of meaningful connection.
And here we are. These are all the symptoms that were being treated for, but we're not talking about the loss behind them. It's like, oh, this is, this is really pivotal. And this is, this is where I land right now in this passion. If we're only treating symptoms and we're skating on the surface and never get to loss, you're going to be in counseling for 10 years. And I actually had clients who are like, wait a minute, I've been with a counselor for 10 years and we've never had this conversation.
Like, well, then, you know, you're missing the heart of it. And ironically, licensed therapists do not have to take grief courses.
So this isn't necessarily something that you're going to get with every therapist. There's lots of great ones, but if they're not trained in it, if they don't have that lens, you're not going to have that conversation. And I think get to the root of what's going on.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: You said something when you were first doing this in Chicago that you were noted as a gifted listener. And I was hoping you could help me understand what that means.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: Listening is difficult.
It means being fully engaged, non judgmental and holding space, right? So you never know what someone's gonna say. And it might be something that's really uncomfortable.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: But what does holding space mean?
[00:14:46] Speaker A: To me, it means being safe in a undistracted environment where you can really be present. You're looking at that person, right? What I used to say to my kids is, listen with your eyes, listen, like right here.
So you're engaged, right? You are all in. You can tell by the body language, right? If somebody's listening to you or not. And creating that.
I don't know, it's sort of like an energy.
And this is where people just started telling me things. I don't know what it was, but I think there's something unconditional and non judgmental in powerful listening. It's just like I'm just, I'm right here. It's that ministry of presence.
Then whatever you need to say, I'm going to respond with a heart. And it might not be words, it might just be silence, it might just be holding their hand. But you're in that space of pain or discomfort with them and that's super powerful. And anybody can do it if you choose to.
The other really important thing about listening is to not hijack the conversation. If someone's taking that moment to be vulnerable and share something with you, it's their moment, it's not your moment. You hold that space and you listen with respect and not interrupt and say, oh, my mom died too, and da da, da, da da. And then you've hijacked the story and the narrative and now it's all about you.
But there's so few moments in this culture where we really allow it to be about that person, right? There's so many distractions. And to me, that's what listening is about. You're with them and you feel it and you hold it and you share it. You can't fix it necessarily, but you can be there.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: You're giving me a lot to think about because on the surface, listening looks like you're not doing anything. And then you said a few things. Number one, you're engaged but not speaking. So that's energy. You're bringing energy. You're bringing non judgment, which is a constant reframing. You're not rushing to fill it with a narrative about you already.
I feel like that's like a triple backflip, you know, in the air.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But on the surface it looks like it's nothing.
What is that?
[00:17:05] Speaker A: I think it's calm, I think it's peace. I think it's grace, I think it's mercy. I think it's a lot of things Americans don't necessarily value, right? Because we're, we're busy.
We need to look like we're doing something.
But like I keep saying, holding space, but it is, it is a really active verb. And the other thing that I'm doing when I'm listening carefully is trying to hear the emotions, right? When somebody says they're, they're so sad or they're so angry, like, tell me, you know, what does that look like? And the other thing I don't do, which people have been trained to do. So it sounds like you're saying which if. When anybody says that to me, I just want to punch them right in the nose. Right. It's like, it's not. It's not regurgitation. It's not verbal vomit. It's. They're repeating me back to me for validation. Did I hear you correctly? There's ways to do that without being pedantic. Right. Like that. That doesn't feel good. So by listening to the motions, it was like, that sounds really frustrating. Would that be accurate? Yes. I am so frustrated. And it's like, oh, my goodness, that seems disrespectful.
That's exactly right. Right. And sometimes you can help give people words and check in and see if that's what they're feeling. If you're. If you're getting the sensation of their emotion. Correct.
And give them other words. But when you get really into the weeds about angry really has, you know, 15 different synonyms for it. And when you get into the weeds and find what that is, is it discontent is an embarrassment, Is it disrespectful? That helps the narrative, and it helps them feel, A, heard, but B, able to articulate it and really fine tune that narrative other than just, I'm distressed.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: So labeling the emotions. Do you have to have permission to do that?
[00:18:53] Speaker A: No, you can offer it. You're listening, right? Like, you're not. You're not completely silent. You're. You're asking questions of clarification. You know, you don't want to be condescending, but it's like, that sounds like X, Y, or Z.
Am I hearing that correctly or are we going a different direction? It's like, I don't want to put words in your mouth. That seems like frustration.
That seems like betrayal. How does that feel? Does that feel like a right word for you?
You can offer things because a lot of times when we're really exercised about something, it's hard to articulate. Right. We're just. Everything's heightened and we're in that fight or flight mode. And so being articulate isn't going to be necessarily one of our strength.
At least when I go on a rant, I'm not horribly, horribly articulate about what's going on. So being heard and having my emotions witnessed is powerful.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Charles Duhigg, in his book Super Communicators, breaks down the three types of conversations. There's fact based Feeling based and social identity and fact based is, where are we going? What are we doing? When are we meeting? Feeling is the most of it, your emotions. And then there's also social. Who. Who are we? I thought this was an interesting framework, but it gets overweighted towards the emotions. And it sounds to me that you're talking about listening at a deeper level where you are able to encourage somebody to learn what they're grieving about or frustrated about or emotional about by helping label those emotions so that they can own it and move through it.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I think once we.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: When we have the answer, then we know what we're dealing with. Right. Like, so if you're going in for a health diagnosis, the most challenging time is between the symptoms and the testing date, and then the testing date until you hear back what the diagnosis is. Right. So uncertainty is uncomfortable.
And once we know what we're dealing with, then we can deal, we can make a plan, we can adjust accordingly. It's those in between spaces that are really challenging. You know, people need to hold you on that and validate it. Yeah, this is an anxious time. This is really difficult. People say, oh, I feel so overwhelmed. It's like, well, that's not. That's not a feeling. That's a reality. Because you just told me 15 different things that you're playing with. Right. That.
That you're trying to juggle. So I think a lot of validation and affirmation that any feeling is okay is really helpful because culturally, we don't like negative emotions.
And we feel bad about feeling bad and we push through it, or we bury it, or we deny it, or we mask it, and that becomes complicated. And it comes out. We'll talk about this with the fish tank model, but it comes out as a disproportionate reaction to a small infraction. And we blow up. And it's never about stepping in the dog poop. It's the 15 other things that had happened that day. But that was the final thing that, like, I can't deal with this. My life is awful.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: It feels like language really matters because the way you label something can shape your reality around it. Right. I mean, when my son was little, we were. You'd see, like, what's in most hospitals, which is, by the way, egregious. Or, where's your pain? Smiley to frowny. Right? I mean, yeah. What about existential pain? What about, like, you know, like, hard, crushing loss, grief that the world will never be, you know, horizontal again? You know, pain, like, we don't we really struggle with that? It's two dimensional on a four dimensional playing field, not even three dimensional as he's aged, you know, that chart has gotten bigger and bigger. But I think about this with words that the bigger your vocabulary, the more nuanced you can be about defining it, which I feel could be helpful at times, but might hinder as well if you over label it. I guess I'm wondering what's the appropriate level of labeling is that allows you to, you know, move forward.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: People take what works for them, you know, whatever narrative they're going to craft and they're going to be like, yeah, that's what it is, and go. They're not going to say, okay, give me, you know, get out the thesaurus, let's come up with 15 more. I'm not there yet. It's like when, when you're in this and you're having this conversation, like, yes, that's it. Like the disrespect that keeps going on and no one's hearing me, no one's listening. I keep trying to bring this up and it's just maddening. It's like beating my head against a wall, right? They'll take it and run with it. Once they, once you validate that, it sounds like they're like, that's exactly what it is, you know, and there's instant relief.
Like, yes, you see it, you hear it, you get me.
And when people feel like they've been seen and been heard, they're like, oh, okay, I got it. Great. I, I know what to do now.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: It's funny, the context matters because in the right circumstance, when you finally see it, all the lights go on, you can move forward. I think what I've noticed in, you know, corporate settings where people feel biased to solve and thus if I don't get a problem named, then I'm not on the hook to solve.
And I think we know that in life, you know, you don't have to solve things, you just may have to hear them and help them hear themselves own it. But I think we have this bias to solving and fixing and then are we on the hook and are we accountable? And you know, that's not in this conversation, but I can see that that would be part of the resistance, at least my.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Well, yes and no. Because like in, in corporate America, it's like, look busy, right?
And so what you were saying before, listening looks like you're doing nothing.
So there's that threat of like being there and sitting with someone and holding that space And a lot of people, we all have issues, right? It's like, I don't want to talk about death. If somebody just lost a relative and they come in and saying, I'm having a really hard time, right? And so we're not equipping people with as managers or, you know, people that have direct reports with the right tools and language and skillset to be comfortable with this, because there's a lot of fear and avoidance. Like, ooh, that's like, too personal. That's too sticky. I don't want to say the wrong thing or I'm going to be in HRs, you know, hit list. Like, so there's a lot of fear. We keep talking about empathy and leading with compassion and servant leadership and all these types of things at very high levels. But then are we executing them correctly and really shaping healthy cultures? I don't know. I'm guessing not. Based on the employees that I talk.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: To, I would support that. I think what makes it challenging, and you and I speaking here, we have no other agenda than to have a great conversation and connect. If you were in the church and you were in the grief counselor and I came there, there would be no other agenda. I wouldn't think. Boy, I hope Melissa is thinking of giving me a promotion at being, you know, at the end of the year. So is it possible to sort of carve out this dynamic where in, you're my manager and you're a wonderful person, but I also know you're going to look at my performance and you're going to look at the numbers and the bone, so you're going to see a lot more.
How would I ever feel like I can be my whole person with Melissa, who's also my manager?
[00:26:21] Speaker A: Well, if you're underperforming, you and your manager already know that. But if you go to your manager and say, listen, I haven't slept for three days, I just got served divorce papers, and I can't think now, your manager is not going to hold the accountability on the numbers. They're going to know it's a reason, not a skill set, that you're not up for the job. You're just having a moment of being human here, and we can design around that. What can I do for you? What's going to help this situation so that you can get back to being able to concentrate and perform?
There's always an ROI on helping people. I think you should do it for the right reasons. But when we get into the business context, you get your money back when you Help your employees be their best self. And that's not always a straight line. It's like, okay, so the numbers didn't work this quarter. What can we do? How can we make this accommodation? What support can we bring in? What would be helpful to you? And check in weekly, right?
[00:27:21] Speaker B: Do you want your team to have a seat at the table?
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You know what I think is helpful? I think it's helpful when people wear a different hat in the same relationship. Like, I'll give you an example. I had a family friend who was a physician, and I only knew as my family friend who, you know, barbecues, hangout talks, and I had a medical question, and he said to me, I'm going to stop being your friend and I'm going to put on my physician hat. And so now we're going to enter that conversation. It was the same call, and I found that very helpful because it was a different set of guidelines. It was the same person. And I feel like in most conversations in life, we just get slippery. It's like, oh, you're my friend, but now let's talk about work and let's talk about our spouses and then recreation. And we sort of slip through all of these environments effortlessly, but in a work setting. Melissa, I feel like it would be helpful for people to designate where are we and what are the rules of engagement so that we can be free.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And one of the professors in seminary was talking about that it's like teaching a chaplaincy course, but that's also who you went to if you were having a problem. And then it's like, okay, am I Melissa your friend, or am I Melissa your friend? Melissa the chaplain, just let me know I can be either. Right. And we're complex people. We all have different skill sets and roles that we play. And so I absolutely agree. Sort of like that moment to pause and have the visualization and shift gears, to like, no, this is serious. I need you to lock in on this role at this moment.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Right, Absolutely agree. A quick anecdote, and then I want to look at the fishbowl example and the other model.
But I just had a call with a client and it was the, you know, leader of this group and then his two sort of co leaders as well. And he said something at the top, which is, okay, so we're in the circle of trust here. Right?
And I got that as, like, permission to say something more Controversial, but also that we wouldn't be sharing that with others.
And so I know those are micro expressions at times, but they're helpful because they kind of calibrate, you know, what's in scope and what's out of scope. And you know, my wife's an engineer and she always talked about sort of Six Sigma, where you look at a problem and you would scope the problem, right? You'd say, this is in scope, this is out of scope. And I think that's helpful in conversations. What's in the scope of this and what's not? And where do we then feel safe?
[00:30:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I use lanes, right. Or we'll talk about. I use rocks too. But it's like, hey, let's. Let's keep it measured. And those are micro boundaries too, right? That we're trying to establish that. And you need to be in the right place, the right circumstances with the right people to know that you can say certain things.
That's the circle of trust, right? We all have those feelers out. And a lot of times I think people don't feel like they are in a circle of trust or with a person who's gonna hold their trust. Right. So there be some accountability with that. And in corporations, it can be a role.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: It.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: It could be. Do you remember the show Billions?
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: Wendy. Like, I want to be Wendy. Right? Like that's what she does. She just like takes care of their performance issues and that's their go to person. And you're in, you're out, and you have that safe place. They dumped it there and then went out and, you know, slay dragons, which is cool. I think more people, companies should do something like that.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: I'm a big fan of mental models. I know you brought some with you and I was hoping you could share.
Maybe start with the goldfish, because it. Having a visual example can be really useful.
Would you be willing to share that with us?
[00:31:14] Speaker A: Absolutely. Let's see.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: For anyone who's listening on audio, you may want to check out the YouTube link here. So you can see the visual here.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: So this is a metaphor that you can use for different things. But. Well, let's make this a personal fish tank.
And it's your agency, right? These are your boundaries.
And the first thing you decide is what are the rocks in your tank? You know, and we all have them. We all have issues. We all have health and finances and family, and those are the primary ones. And then we have other things like relationships and friendships and job stress and physical impairments or physical joys. Or whatever it is.
And so all these rocks go in the tank, and this is physics 101. But the more rocks you get in the tank, the higher the water line, right? Or the larger the rocks get. So, like, if you're having health issues, that rock is going to be really large, and it's going to have the displacement of that water, and it's going to elevate to the top of the tank.
[00:32:17] Speaker B: And.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: And so we know that when the water gets really high, we're in jeopardy of flooding. And so it's the smallest pebble, the smallest.
The wrong phone call, the wrong tone of voice, the last frustration, right? That is the small pebble that floods the tank. And now it's messy. Now we got sludgy water and splash all over the place. And we don't know what to do because that pebble went in our tank. So we have to evaluate. We have to say, what's the big rock that needs attention here? What's the rock that's got slime and mildew and icky stuff all around it?
And anytime we're doing change, it's going to get messy, right? So we're putting our hand in that tank, we're going to get wet, it's going to be messy. Different people are going to react differently to this change in this splash. But we take out that rock and we break it apart, and we look at it and we say, what are the things that I can control and what are the things I can't control?
There are always going to be things you cannot control.
That's the smallest form of the rock. But all of the things that we can control that we're not dealing with, right? The denial piece, that's what's increasing the rock size. So we take it apart and then we make a list, and then we figure it out and systematically go through the things that we can control.
Because the objective is to get that water line lower where we can function and get clear water in there. We don't want to swim in icky green sludge water and, you know, kill the plecostomus because there's so much fish poop in there. We want it to be clear. We want a goldfish or a pink seahorse or a little castle. Like, this is our. This is ours, and we have control over it. And so we don't want other people putting rocks in our tank, right? That's a boundary issue. And it happens all the time. So when we look at this and we evaluate it, it's like, wait, A minute, what rocks in my tank are mine to control and who's putting other rocks in here? And so you can take this from a personal thing, but if you're a team in a company, you can say what rocks are to deal with and how can we deal with them effectively. And wait a minute, what other departments are putting rocks in our tank? Right. So you can have this kind of neutral conversation or you can use it as a check in. Where's everyone's water line?
What's going on? And that can be a personal conversation if it's appropriate, or it can be a check in with a project. Right. There's all different tanks that you can have. It could be one tank just based on relationships. If you have toxic friendship and there's one person's rock that is taking up so much space and time and energy that you're about to flood, then you need to evaluate that, right? You need to evaluate that particular rock or that particular relationship. So it's just an easy metaphor that when you share it with people, they start putting in their two cents. You know, they love going with the water and the muck and the fish and the control.
But also like, where's the filter?
Where are the boundaries? How do you clean the tank? When do you empty it?
All of these different things are neutral conversation where people can sort of like express into it and have neutral meaning derived from it without getting too personal. That's why it's usually very beneficial in a conversation. People will just take it and run with it because it, it's less intimate.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: It feels like maintenance in the best of ways. You know, my. One of the most profound things I ever learned was that humans are built to break down and thus, you know, so think about it. Typical day, like we need to feed ourselves and hydrate and you need to sleep and you need to take a break. Like we are just fragile, you know, I know we're all strong and resilient and I, I buy into that. And so for people who are dealing with, with change, to be able to have a framework like that, a model that will allow you permission to ease into those and maintain an open line of communication, I think it's really helpful.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: And see, I love that you brought that into like the maintenance factor because that's sort of like what's on your mind and where you are. And I can introduce this to someone else and they take it in an entirely different direction.
One woman I was working with, I'm like, I'm like, it's going to be different this time I'm like, how do you know? I said, well, because up until this point, you've been taking that big rock and rolling it over to the shiny side and. And just hoping things would be better and that the algae wouldn't grow on it. I said, but this time you went in the tank and extracted it. It's no longer even in there, and there's settling. That happens now because that rock's gone. Everything else is shifting, right? The silt and the other rocks and the people that are impacted by that aren't sure what to do with it because your change impacted them. And they were used to doing X, Y, and Z, and now you're not allowing that. And she's like, you know, like, that was her take on it. And it was like, so whoever you share it with, and please do share it, they bring whatever's going on into it. And it's just so. It's such an easy metaphor that you can put really deep kind of maintenance and energy, things and relationships and boundaries into it, because we're more sophisticated than the actual model. So we project that into it.
[00:37:43] Speaker B: So talk to me about something very capitalist, quantifying the value, right? So let's just imagine we're the skeptical, you know, C suite, and we say, yes, this is all great, but we have a mission. We have to dos. Everyone's got to get busy. You know, humans have to work, right? That if you. It always strikes me as funny if you sort of, you know, you Google, like, work. You always. It's always like some assembly line or some, like, I Love Lucy, right? Like, thinking is hard work, and being creative is hard work. It just doesn't look like much. It's reminds me, you know, whenever they show somebody who's like, faking driving, they always move the steering wheel more than. We don't drive like this. We don't do this. You just hold the wheel, right? But so it's like people's impression of what driving is, people's impression of what working is. So let's. Let's take the devil's point of view or the opposite point of view and just say, okay, this is all great, and I want people to be their whole person, and that's all fine. And. Well, maybe during feedback, maybe during quarterly reviews, maybe during annual performance evaluations, we'll use some of this. But it doesn't really affect the bottom line. What would you say to that?
[00:38:52] Speaker A: Life's happening every day, and it doesn't.
It doesn't happen in a timely fashion, right? You Never know when the, the shit's going to hit the fan. And it's always happening. Somebody's always under some kind of pressure and most of the time their tank and their water line is not up to the top and they can manage it, but there are going to be times when they're flooded and you got to pay attention statistically.
Gallup Poll has done their annual review on this. With employees being overwhelmed, Deloitte does a beautiful study on workplace wellness as well.
The world's telling employers that they need help.
There is collective and cumulative grief going on, and you can name it by generations, and we're all bringing it into the workplace.
So every dollar that you spend on mental health, wellness and giving people the metaphor, giving them the vocabulary, giving them the guided model and conversation is going to give you a 300% return.
So it's sort of like proving a negative. But if you take care of your employees, they'll take care of you. Right? It increases retention and it increases loyalty.
You know, turnover costs are huge, burnout costs are huge. Just take care of them before you get to a crisis situation. But it's hard to prove that. But leaders who have the ear and the heart for it, those who get it, get it. And then it's really hard to sell anybody who doesn't get it, probably because they have a lot of emotional deficits in their own life and don't deal with them.
And that's great that they can do that, but a lot of us can't. And life does impact us and it impacts our productivity and our creativity and our willingness and ability to be completely present in the job that we need to do.
So when people have a safe place, like an hour conversation with me and they're validated, or let's talk in another month and see how X, Y and Z works out, they're like, thank you.
They need the validation, they need the affirmation that they're normal and back in the day in the workplace, right, you were expected to just like, amputate anything that happened in life and be locked in. Well, maybe we were able to pose and pretend we were doing that, but that's not the reality anymore. Because most of us are working at home some portion of the week. Our life is all around us all of the time.
Some of us are answering emails at 10 and 11 o' clock at night, like, I'm in my pajamas. Does that impact my mood? Probably right? If you're not dressed for the office and in that state of mind, you know, there's all of it correlates. All of it correlates.
I forgot where I was going with this, but it matters and it needs to matter because people are not machines and life is happening to us all the time and all we need to do is just offer safe landing spots for it. Say it's going to be okay because your turn's coming soon. Yeah, that's life.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: In my better moments, when, when people have come to me with something to share and I'm unclear on what their intention is, I've asked, I said, you know, what can I do to support you? Would you like me to listen? Would you like to problem solve something else? And just, just articulating that can sort of signal to the other person that I'm. I want to honor your intention here and that it's important to me and I want to get it right by not trying to get it wrong, I guess.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's great for every relationship. Right.
They. They talk about it in couples relationships because there's always one person in the relationship that's a fixer and one person who's a venter. It's like, I'm just ranting, you don't need to fix any of this. So it's like fix or vent. Which is it first?
[00:42:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: Let me know which hat I'm wearing.
And.
And that's great. You know, like letting someone vent, that's holding space. They feel safe enough to just like let it fly.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: So before we end here, and this has been a really a profound conversation, but I want to make sure that we give some actionable ideas to those who want to start playing with these concepts or bring them into their workspace and just honor this toolkit that you've presented. What would be some useful, easy steps that could get people comfortable with being and having whole person conversations.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Practice listening. Right. It's a learned skill. And can you do it? Can you sit still and listen to somebody without telling your story and just hold that space? I think is a good thing. The other thing I did want to share with you was that other model for the dynamics of change.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: Please.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: This is really helpful for guiding the conversation. And it's so important to know what people are bringing into it. So there's three aspects to it.
It's the narrative that we all have our experiences and our relationships. I think before you mentioned something about, you know, not three dimensional, this is four dimensional because we have the timepiece happening. So we always have a self narrative. Right. And this is where we're talking about whatever that Change is whatever that loss, whatever we've been bereaved of or robbed of, depending on our past experiences and relationships, that's going to form the narrative we have now, right? We don't happen in a vacuum.
It's never siloed. So that's. We're bringing the biases of our personal experience, but also what friends and families have told us in the past and sort of set up our.
Our narrative and our values, but also like community. What is the community value? Like, if you're an athlete, right, you're a super champion. We love winners. But what happens to you when you blow out your knee and you're no longer in uniform? How does. How does that impact you? And then cultural norms, right? We don't like to talk about loss. It's that toxic positivity.
And then spiritually, it's like, what does all this mean? And who am I and what is my role in the world? All of those concentric relationships are pushing upon our narrative and our experiences and our relationships.
But when you're listening to someone currently in the present, it's like, well, tell me, have you had anything else like this happen before? And how did you feel? Who were the people that helped you? Who were the people that were detrimental to you? What messages were helpful and positive? What messages are negative, right? So now you're doing this inventory and setting up a plan for what's actually going to be helpful and who's going to be helpful, right? And experiences that have been helpful that you can lean into. When you understand this, again, this is the awareness, right? And understanding the dynamics of this, then you can align yourself with the relationships, starting with self, that are more positive. What's the narrative you're going to give yourself going forward of resilience?
Who are the people you're going to align yourself with? Right? Keep the good ones, eliminate the bad ones, right? Because you're dynamic and you're changing and this needs to change with you. And sometimes you have to stand in a place that's countercultural, which is what I'm doing every day, right? Talking about grief.
But it's like we can change that narrative so that there's better understanding in the community and more acceptance and less shame. And now more dialogue, more understanding, more compassion, more acceptance, right? So all of this is working together. So those are the three wheels, or the three axes, if you will, that are always pushing against whatever the change is. And change can be something negative, like a job loss, or it can be something positive like retirement, right? That's A milestone that we're looking forward to. But guess what happens? You lose your identity. You're no longer vice president of sales, you don't have a place to go, your daily routines interrupted, your paycheck's gone. The words of affirmation, the esteem, the friendships, all of that disappears even though you're in this great milestone of success, right? So that becomes disenfranchised grief because now you're ashamed to say it and people don't want to talk about, I'm feeling really lousy. It's like, well, hey, you got this great buyout package and you should be happy, right? And then we get into this whole shoulding thing of how we should feel based on community and cultural norm saying retirement's great. It's like, well, not if you've lost your purpose.
You've been discounted. Right now you're 65 and you're not a viable person in our culture. So this model is really important for people. Like when we talk about how do you train managers to listen to you give them this kind of guidance, to have this system in place so that you are listening to what are the relationships that are impacting people? What are the narratives they have and the emotions behind it? We don't want to throw people out there. This is not armchair psychology. These are conversations where we meet people where they are and accept it and try to empower them and give them agency with the right vocabulary.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's elegant and beautifully said.
Well, Melissa, this has been an amazing conversation with so much to think about. Where should everyone go to learn more about you and your work?
[00:48:16] Speaker A: I'm on LinkedIn. Look me up.
Melissa Duaire. Also Whole Persons conversation website, whole personconversations.com I'm always available for a conversation and here to support people, supporting people. Right.
We want to make the world better and right now is a really tough time with, with all the losses of normalcy and collective grief that we're experiencing.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. Well, this has been wonderful and I look forward to our connection again. And thank you so much for sharing yourself today. It was wonderful.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: Hey, it's Stuart again. Before you leave, if you love this podcast, subscribe. And also if you go to dn8.com you'll find a sign up for our newsletter where we give you actionable and practical advice. And be sure to find us on social media. And don't be shy. You can give us a six star review, but we will settle for five. See you in the next one.
