Building Resilience - Professional Healing
Quite by chance the other night I was at the cinema watching a trailer for an upcomkng movie. I can't even remember what the movie was about or what the film was called, but one scene stood out to me. It was a scene where a Priest (presumably from the Catholic faith) was on the witness stand in the courtroom and was being questioned about why God allows bad things to happen to good people. His response was very eloquent and it amounted to the idea that when we pray to God for wisdom, strength, patience or any other kind of virtue to help us through a situation, God responds by giving us difficult situations that allow us the chance to grow by exercising our wisdom, strength, patience etc. You get the idea. As a person of faith myself, this really made an impact on me. What occurred to me though was that, although this Priest had answered the question as to why difficult situations occur, he hadn't really given any indication as to how to handle them.
Today I was reading a book by Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell (2007) entitled, "A Manager's Guide to Self Development." In there the author's suggest there are five ways out of difficult situations: love it, leave it, live with it, change it or change yourself.
This got me thinking.
("C-0T Autobot Transformation" by Louis K. is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)
Change yourself - is there something about this situation that challenges an aspect of our identity? These past few years since I started my MA and now my EdD, I suppose I was working from the premise that, if I have all the evidence I need (too much evidence), then perhaps it's a problem with me. What do I need to change about myself to finally gain approval? So I set about learning. And the more I learned, the more I found that people related to me differently. My job hasn't changed, nor has my work role, nor the way I perform my job. And, given that I was studying both prior to and during the pandemic, it wasn't that my expertise in online education was valued because if I wasn't othered for being a tech evangelist, I was simply told what to do.
I was told I was a valuable member of the team, but it didn't feel like it. Perhaps there was an admiration for my academic achievements, but that's as far as it went.
So I considered very carefully the options of living with it and leaving it.
Live with it - what happens if you simply do nothing? I have to say I have found through experience that the temptation to do nothing, just walk away and leave a situation alone is strong. But I can't always do that especially if a situation goes against my personal values and morals. I come from a family who have something of a reputation for being hot headed and I've seen situations where things have been made much worse and real damage has been done by not affording yourself the chance to stand back from a situation and view it from a safe distance.
I remember when I was younger, a woman from our church told me that, "When you don't know what to do, do nothing and God will make it clear in time." I was young, in early high school, and I had to make my subject choices for my exams. That advice helped at the time because it encouraged me not to worry so much and trust God. But over the years I've learned that approach doesn't always work. It's not that I don't trust God. But I've come to realise that there are certain situations where you don't have the option to do nothing, especially when it's a question of your own wellbeing or survival (or that of those you care about).
And, put simply, this situation at work was starting to impact my mental health. So living with it wasn't an option. Worse I was starting to think about leaving the profession.
("Exit" by paulbence is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.)
Leave it - For a while now I've been very conscious about this one. The authors suggest that sometimes you have to look at a situation and weigh up the cost of sticking with it against the cost of leaving it behind. I've spent a lot of time over the past two years cutting things out of my life that have impacted my sense of self-worth. It meant changing some of those negative habits of self-talk. Some of the things I cut out were people whose habits, ways of being and general presence impacted my sense of self-worth. There has been a cost to the process. My social circle is different, smaller, perhaps diminished in some senses. But I've also realised the people I still consider to be close friends are even more precious to me. But I did give serious thought to leaving the profession.
The emotional labour and emotional dissonance (Hochschild, 1983 as cited by Tsang, 2011) was a subject that came up today in a course I attended in Edinburgh led by Iain G. Moore of Strathclyde University. I'd forgotten about this concept but it articulates perfectly the difference between how I was feeling and how I had to act. It just left me feeling alienated. But in time I realised that I couldn't simply walk away from an institution that meant so much to me. My parents both trained at this place and gave us a better standard of living growing up. My brother attended there too and gained access to a university level education. And I had given 22 years of my career to it trying to give other people in my local community the same chance I had. I'm proud to be part of this place so I wasn't about to walk away.
That left me with two choices - Learn to love it or change it.
Love it - how do you learn to love difficult situations? It took time for me to realise that this situation has challenged me to grow. I suppose it's that journey of self-discovery that encouraged me to keep going. Pedler et al. (2007) suggest that your struggle with a situation is a measure of how much you care about it. I care about my learning. I care about my studies and I would love to one day achieve the expert status of Doctor of Education. But most of all I care about the instituion where I work and the students I work with.
It also occurred to me that by reframing a situation you can learn to view it in a more positive way. It made me think of a conversation that evolved around imposter syndrome with my classmates in #ProfDocsYr1. Maybe there's something in that - reframing imposter syndrome as a part of a journey of self-discovery.
What I've also learned is that, through my doctoral studies and through attention to the RPDF, I've already started to make changes.
("Day 255: Magic Wand" by amanky is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)
Change it - if I had a magic wand, what could I do to make this situation better? I think most teachers can relate to this one. A lot of us get into teaching because of the philanthropic desire to make the world a better place for the next generation by equipping them with the skills they need for the future or by equipping them with the skills they need to change their own lives for the better. But I'd encourage other educators to think of this in terms of their own professional development too.
Over the past few weeks I've tried to change my situation by actively share my learning and research more openly. I've initiated conversations and consequently made connections with practitioners in other institutions who are genuinely interested in my work. As a result it's been suggested I could lead on a number of projects including action research groups and short life working groups. I'm building my resilience through building supportive relationships, disseminating my research and engaging with new opportunities. For the first time in years I'm inspired! More importantly, the scars are starting to heal.
Mustering up the courage to share, being open and vulnerable again was a big gamble for me, but I can already see how it's paying off for me both professionally and personally. I think I've learned that building resilience takes time. Like the Priest in the movie trailer said, perhaps this situation was an opportunity to grow beyond my comfort zone and become more resilient. And perhaps the emotional labour was worth it. But the reality of the situation is that there is no magic wand. Real change is often brought about by sharing our interpretation of the world around us, showing people what we see and experiencing every day and by asking others to help us change situations for the better.
And that's the really hard part - asking for help. Where are my helpers?
You can follow me on twitter @McintoshMclean
References
Pedler, M., Burgoyne, J. and Boydell, T. (2007) A Manager's Guide to Self Development, 5th edn, Berkshire, McGraw-Hill Professional.
Tsang, K. K. (2011) 'Emotional Labor of Teaching', Educational Research, vol. 2, no. 8, pp. 1312 - 1316.
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