Have you noticed people are getting a little frayed around the edges lately?
Perhaps you’re feeling a little more on edge yourself?
There’s definitely been a new EDGE coming up in the conversations I’ve been having and facilitating with leaders in recent weeks and months. Emotions are running close to the surface, tempers are easily flared and rage ignited, tears more easily flow.
Whether it’s in an exec team meeting, on a customer call, dealing with a team member, navigating seemingly endless orange cones and other motorway drivers, or small niggles with one’s partner or kids that become monstrous in the dead of night, bumping up against each other’s edges is causing trouble.
When I cast my attention from today back over the past 4.5 years, it’s not surprising.
No-one has escaped the impact of the concatenation of events and circumstances that have brought us to a place where people are lonelier than ever, under greater financial stress, worried for their jobs and businesses, and wondering how long it will take for things to turn around.
The increased allostatic overload we’re all dealing with comes from a combination of both chronic and cumulative stressors that have been piling up without the time for psychological, physiological or emotional adaptation to any single one, let alone their collective mass.
Our brains and bodies have been subject to a steady and mounting stream of events and circumstances that mean our systems are locked in to ‘high alert’ functioning causing all kinds of systemic and relational challenges. We’ve gone beyond needing ‘resilience’ by our pre-COVID definition and are struggling to deal with even the smallest additional stressors.
Many of these are adaptive challenges that have no quick fix but instead require us to look at our beliefs, behaviours, relational systems, and ways of living/working, They’re asking us to look for different ways of solving problems – all while in a state of ongoing disequilibrium.
It hasn’t just been the economy, or COVID, or technology adaptation, or social isolation, or loss of control, or threat to survival through job loss or losing the security of our homes, but ALL of these and more for many people. And for all for an extended period of time.
As we head into the final six week stretch to the summer break here in New Zealand, I hope that everyone is planning to create some space for rest and renewal, along with the family travel frenzy the Christmas break always brings. Even just the smallest opportunities to breathe a little deeper, smile a little more, and feel a little more connected will make a difference.
Let’s get deliberate about planning our recovery so we can buff down those edges just a little and in the meantime remember: everyone is doing the best they can with what they have.
We’re all on the edge, each in our own way.
