The Importance of Connection in a Post-Pandemic World

Hi All,

It has been some time since I last blogged – it was a whirlwind start up to the school year as I find myself in two new roles in education, at the high school and university level. One of these roles involves counselling within a virtual high school. It has been fascinating to observe the long-term norms that have become established in virtual learning – both teachers and students have become adept at providing and completing courses completely online, and students who need to learn from home for a myriad of reasons are getting that full experience.

What worries me, not only for my virtual students, but for all students as we emerge from the pandemic, is their ability to connect with their communities after almost 3 years of intermittent isolation. What I am observing in both the high school and university settings are students experiencing a ramped up stress response to simply returning to normal. We cannot blame them – our current grade 12 students have not experienced a normal year of high school, and our undergrads have done the majority of their higher education online. From complete isolation, to masks and distancing, how can they know how to connect when they have been conditioned to do the very opposite? This must be top of mind for us educators, as the effects on our young people are becoming more and more apparent and the impact on collective wellbeing is significant.

What does the research tell us? The research on the positive impacts of social connection for mental health is vast and convincing. Social connection is closely related to the feeling of belonging and feeling close to others, and it is a core psychological need that is mandatory for life satisfaction – it is also a key component of good learning. We know that students who do not feel welcome in the classroom will not perform in the same ways as students who feel seen and heard – who feel like they belong. Connection is also closely related to resiliency; positive social interactions contribute to our meaning and purpose in life, and those with a deeper purpose tend to be able to handle the small inconveniences of life much better than those who do not. Social connection is also good for our health – it lowers our risk of anxiety and depression, reduces inflammation, and increases our immunity – seriously!

So, we know that social connection is important for our health and wellbeing. What I am observing, anecdotally, is students who need a bit of extra support with connection and overall wellbeing as we stumble, slightly haphazardly, back into the ‘normal’ world – but this world has changed and so have the kids who have experienced an event we couldn’t have fathomed in our developmental years. Our social connections might look a bit different now, like for my online students, but it doesn’t mean we can’t re-connect and benefit from this powerful wellbeing tool.

What can we do about it? Guiding students towards a life that contains community and connection needs to be individualized – no two persons internalization of community will be the same. Introverts may only need several human connections in a day to feel filled up, while extroverts like myself, need a whole whack of them. A start is to simply raise awareness about the powerful connections of community and wellbeing with our students. We might consider asking them to create a mind map of the people in their lives who contribute to their social networks – those people who support, energize and enrich them. These people can be their family and friends, their colleagues and their online connections. They should make it a point to keep in touch with these people, especially when times get tough. Also, if there are people who didn’t make it onto their lists because their interactions with those people are draining or negative, they should consider dropping those people from their life – this is not community.

To extend this exercise – you can have your child/student list 3-5 specific and positive things they could say to these wonderful people in their lives. It doesn’t need to be in person – students can connect with their people through text or phone. Showing interest in others lives and taking the focus off the self can contribute to wellbeing in powerful ways, and help strengthen our student’s social webs.

In the Classroom – For all those educators out there, it is well worth the break in curriculum to plan weekly ‘community meetings’ with your classes just to take a temperature and let the class connect over anything and everything. Have students share a ‘rose and thorn’ from the week, share gratitude in class for one another (this is a powerful one), work towards a shared goal like a pizza party, or give daily shout outs or compliments in class. These small strategies can go a long way in establishing a sense of community within the classroom.

Most importantly, as we support our students in the new normal, let’s give them voice. Let them tell us about the triumphs and letdowns of the past few tumultuous years, let’s give them ownership over their learning and wellbeing, and let’s support them so they can take on whatever the world has to throw at them this year.

They (and you) have got this.

Laura

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Lessons learned from the ‘Greatest Generation’

Hi All,

We recently lost the matriarch of our family – my 97 year old grandmother, Frances. While I have some raw feelings about it, I also wanted to take a moment to share some of the lessons I learned from a woman who was part of the ‘Greatest Generation’ . Frances suffered no fools – she lived through a World War, the Great Depression, she raised four Baby Boomers and persevered through near poverty for most of her life; she wasn’t one to complain and she undermined her accomplishments. I want to share a few lessons I learned from her, though I know she would bark at the preciousness of my post.

1. The importance of creating – Frances was always creating something from scratch – for her, it was beautiful quilts or knitted items for her many grandchildren and great grandchildren. We will cherish these items for the rest of our lives and they will always remind us of her loving, well-worn and industrious hands. Growing up in a depression, Frances learned how to sew out of necessity – when her family would need to relocate due to financial hardships, one of the only possessions her mother would bring with them is an old Singer sewing machine. The same machine now sits in our bedroom – I found old needles and thread in the drawer the other day and I left them right where they were – the stories those small items could tell…

While Frances and her generation didn’t know it explicitly, sitting in silence and creating, or doing that busy work that occupies our minds, expresses our creativity, and offers us a sense of accomplishment, has profound effects on our wellbeing. My grandmother’s generation did this work because they had to, but along with their busy hands came meaningful talks about the items with their family and friends. I will always attribute my love for creativity and creation to my grandmother – she taught me how to knit and sew and from that experience came a sense of accomplishment and creativity that forms the foundation of who I am. Again, she would bark at me for giving her any credit towards this.

2. Suffer no fools – Frances children and family will tell you – she suffered no fools. Though standing under 5 feet tall, her presence somehow loomed over most that she encountered. She was a true matriarch and reminds us of the power of a mother and the importance of family. As a member of Frances’ entourage, you knew she had your back and that those who did not serve you in positive ways would need to be cut out of your life, in her mind anyways – she was deeply protective. To her, it was a simple and necessary decision. It reminds us that we are meant to surround ourselves with people we are positive and reciprocal relationships with that lift us up and help us when we fall.

3. Keep it simple – I tend to overthink; I will even overthink a recipe if I let myself. These instances are always when I would give my grandmother a call and say, “those buns you make, how much milk again?” and she would always reply with a ‘so it cover its all, Laura, use your head!” While she said it in an endearing way as only a grandmother could, the message always came across loud and clear – trust your instincts and keep it simple. I have let this small but impactful lesson guide me in other areas of my life as well – it is so important to trust that little voice in our head that tells us something isn’t right in a complex situation. Oftentimes, the answer is more simple than we might expect, and that simple truth can set us free.

4. Spend time immersed in the natural world – my earliest experiences with the outdoors involved my grandmother. It wasn’t some riveting outdoor adventure, it was simply time spent in her garden. Those early life experiences are palpable for me – I remember the smells, touches and feels as I watched her beautiful vegetable garden grow each summer. We would work our way down the small dirt alleys, and I would steal a bean, tomato or strawberry when I should have been weeding. We would sit and shell beans or husk corn afterwards on the porch; again, an experience that feels like yesterday. Perhaps it was quality time spent with my grandmother that has me remembering these experiences so vividly, but I also believe time spent in nature was at play. We know from the research, connection and immersion in the outdoors in important for our health – I will always credit my grandmother for getting me outside as a young girl and teaching me this important lesson.

4. The importance of small traditions – as a matriarch, Frances hosted many dinners. She was an impressive baker, probably much better at baking than cooking. Every time we would break bread as a big family, Grandma would set out random bowls of her vegetables on the table – a little bowl of lettuce (even though salad or hamburgers weren’t on the menu), some random olives or beets. The bowls of produce never quite matched with the main course, and us kids would always giggle at the tradition. But, to this day, I put one little bowl of something strange on my table whenever I have company over.

My point here is to remind us to not forget how our small daily actions and traditions can have big impact on those around us. The bowls of produce on my grandmother’s table symbolized the love that she had for bringing us together to eat as a family – I carry on that silly tradition because of that feeling of belonging I felt around that table, not because the olives go with my roast beef dinner. I hope my daughters will do the same some day.

As I say goodbye to Frances and we collectively continue to say goodbye to the last of the Greatest Generation, I think it is so important to record the lessons they instilled in who we are as people and to pass those along to our next generation. I hope some small part of this resonated and I wish you a restful weekend spent with the people you love most.

L.

To the grads of 2021 – spend this summer driving with music: and other lessons from Lisa Damour

Hi All,

It should probably comes as no surprise by now that I am a big fan of Lisa Damour’s writing and work. I recently had the good fortune of watching her speak to our grads at Lakefield College School School; Lucky us! Whenever I interact with Lisa and her work, I feel inspired to write about it and this instance was no different. I also couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that this time last year, I was writing a teary letter to our class of 2020, naively believing this would be our only class to endure such bizarre circumstances in their graduating year.

This is why I was so grateful and emotional when Lisa began her talk by simply saying “I’m sorry” to our grads; sorry that this pandemic was happening in one of the milestone years of their lives – again. For us adults, this year could be like any other; we could put off applying to that new job, writing that book or buying that house until next year.For our grads, however, this will be the only time that they graduate from high school and move onto their next big chapter. This apology from Lisa was authentic and moving; I found myself emotional and could tell our grads were as well.

Lisa guided our students through a talk about what mental health means to her and, as always, it was refreshing because it took the pressure off feeling great all the time as the anecdote to being ‘well.’ To Damour, mental health means ‘having the right feelings at the right times’ – and this year, the right feelings were often that of sadness and anxiety, as we all grappled with the state of the world and what that meant for our everyday lives. It is how we manage these emotions that dictates our mental health; do we have the tools to cope when we feel these adverse emotions? THAT, is mental health.

Damour also mentioned her qualms with the commercialization of wellbeing; something I have thought and written about a great deal as well. We should all be weary of an industry that preys upon a definition of wellbeing that demands perfection and misses the messiness of real mental health – much like the weight loss industry misses the real meaning of holistic health and wellbeing. We should teach our young people to be critical consumers of any industry that promises the gift of wellbeing as wellbeing is mostly discovered within. So then, what does that look like for us and for our young people today?

Weightlifting & the Pandemic – Unrelated you may think, but Damour’s analogy to this pandemic is pretty similar to spending 365+ days at the gym without a rest, and that can take a toll on the body. We build resilience, though, in these trying times, and Damour believes this generation will be one of the toughest in recent memory because of this fact. But resilience needs to be balanced with rest to really sink in and be sustainable, much like the body needs recovery days to build muscle at the gym. She reminded our grads that this summer they were ‘off the hook’ and could get ‘out of the gym’ and take that time to really recover. What does this recovery look like? It represents different things to different people; Lisa recalls the JOY she experienced as a teenager driving with music; one of those visceral experiences you can almost palpate 20 years after the fact.

Soft Fascination – These activities such as driving with music, gardening or walking/running tend to take up only a small slice of our ‘bandwidth’ or mental capacity unlike a ‘hard fascination’ activity such as getting lost in a book or your work. This psychological term really stayed with me; this idea of doing an activity that helps us to begin to ‘close tabs in our mental browser.’ I do all my best thinking on runs or when I garden and I love to be able to make sense of it in a more concrete way; maybe you will as well. My hope for our grads is that they locate these soft fascinations in their lives and continue to create and connect as they have been though this bizarre time.

University is NOT the best 4 years of one’s life – Lisa concluded by sharing that she really doesn’t love when adults tell young people that university will be the ‘best 4 years of their lives.’ How awful to think that the best years of your life are over at 22; and it’s just not true. She shared that she actually finds her current life to be the best; she found the partner, the job and continues to thrive in her passions. I couldn’t agree more – being a university student is a special and fun time, but I wouldn’t go back; I love my life too much now. University is, however, a good time to have a blast and, more importantly, it is a mental and emotional exercise in gaining capacity – capacity to take out into your life and thrive as an adult. There shouldn’t be so much pressure on it though.

Lisa, thank you for this talk – you connected with our grads and with us adults. As always, I felt as though I could have been sitting in a living room having a cup of tea with you; this is how accessible you are. To our grads, take this advice and take those rides with music this summer – you deserve it!

Dr. E 🙂

Rethinking Joy & Happiness in our daily lives – An introduction to the world of positive psychology in a post-pandemic world

Hi Everyone,

It has been some time since I have written a blog post – my writing time has been wholly focused on writing a draft of my first book – a historical non-fiction number that takes up current wellbeing practices through the instructional life of famous writer and pioneer, Catharine Parr Traill. This has been a fascinating process that brings together a lot of the work and research that I have completed in the past. I can’t wait to share it with you.

As we make our way through the gloomy days of November – not quite Christmas and fully ‘blah,’ I wanted to share a modified excerpt from my recent work that seems timely and needed – it’s been a tough transition for many adults and young people as we all ventured back into the classrooms and offices after 2 years of isolation. I think we expected this year to be invigorating and to represent a rebirth as the world (or at least the North American world) began to return to some form of normalcy – and while it has in many ways, in other ways, we’re still just dog tired after months of living in a perpetual state of flight or fight.

Looking back, I am not sure what would have convinced us that we would recover so quickly, both psychologically and physically, from the s*#t storm that was 2020 and 2021 just because we had vaccines – I wish it worked that way. While the amazing Jennifer Gonzelez offered a really timely and important call to action and some tangible ways for school leaders to support teachers this year, I wanted to focus on some psychological strategies that we can use at the individual level to recover more quickly – all grounded in the fabulous field of positive psychology. To be crystal clear – both individual and systemic strategies are needed for this journey.

Positive psychology is an important area of wellbeing research that takes up the fundamentals of flourishing, or that opposite state of ‘languishing.’ You might remember the NYT’s article in which Adam Grant unearthed the psychology surrounding that ‘blah’ feeling we all had, and continue to have (ugh), when we are functioning fine in our day to day, but aren’t really thriving – the ‘neglected middle child of mental health.’ This post offers some background and some hands-on exercises to help you, in some small way, move from languishing to flourishing. I do these exercises with my student in careers class (thank you to the Ontario government for including mental health in the new curriculum!) and it always resonates. I hope it does for you as well.

In his book, Flourish, the founding father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman coined the term PERMA-V – it is an acronym that really succinctly gets at the vast amount of academic research that has been collected about wellbeing and thriving in the past 10 years. Below is what it stands for and some questions you can ponder to think about this in your own life – I always like to ask myself these good questions when I start to feel as though my wellbeing is slipping in tense or stressful times: aka – the past two years.

Note: None of these areas of researched wellbeing practices are associated with ‘stuff’ – they are all derived from our inner worlds and the people around us who make us feel good. Think of all the best times in your life, and I can almost guarantee they involved others, as opposed to ‘things’ – a plug before that Christmas shopping commences in the face of a supply shortage!

• Positive Emotion – what makes you feel good? 
•  Engagement – What are the things that help you lose track of time?
•  Relationships – Who brings you peace and joy? Who supports you? 
• Meaning – What things are most meaningful to you? 
• Achievement – what is important for you to achieve? 
• Vitality – what physical habits make your body feel best?

Psychologists believe that if you ask yourself these questions, embedded in the PERMA-V framework, and seriously ponder if you are fulfilling these areas, you are on track to develop lifelong wellbeing – easy, right!? Just kidding, this is a lifelong process that ebbs and flows based on life circumstances and it’s important to know when you need to shift into ‘survival mode’ to get through your days, or if you are feeling in a place to dive into this work.

In survival mode, it is important to focus on just a few things that can get you through the day, and they are often physical – go for a walk, breathe deeply, hug a loved one – anything to remove your system from flight or fight. I always think back to my time just after having babies, when I was a hormonal puddle of equal parts love and overwhelm – doing soul searching in that time would have felt impossible – a walk or shower and a hug from my partner, doable. You get the picture!

If you’re feeling up to it, though, you can try this simple exercise below as a first step towards self-awareness;

Map your Happy – use this chart to plot out your positive source of emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. What areas are strongest? Where could you add more to contribute to flourishing? 

POSITIVE EMOTIONS – What brings you positive emotions?

ENGAGEMENT – What activities do you get completely absorbed in?

POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS – What relationships bring you joy and support? What do you do to nurture them?

MEANING – What larger purpose or cause do you feel drawn or connected to?

ACCOMPLISHMENTS – What would you like to accomplish in the next year/week/month?

TAKEAWAYS – in what areas are you strongest? Where could you give more attention to really flourish? What’s your biggest takeaway from this exercise?

Have a restful Sunday and week ahead,

L.

Anonymous Hate in our online worlds

Hi Everyone,

I recently wrote an op-ed for the Toronto Star about using gratitude as a wellbeing strategy in schools this year – it was completely torn apart on Twitter, as was I. Insults included having Covid wished upon my entire family, assumptions that I must be a ‘blond yoga instructor married to a political leader,’ and someone telling me to simply f@#k off. Poetic. Sadly, the trolling of writers is extremely common, especially for women.

This gratitude piece (a topic also covered by the New York Times and the Washington Post during the pandemic) quickly became analyzed through a political lens; the result was dark, because the political climate surrounding education is dark right now. Ironic, really – the article was meant to offer a well-researched tool for reprieve from the utter chaos surrounding us as we head into a new school year. Escapism? No. Political docility? Absolutely not. An offering of a wellbeing strategy to divert negative thoughts 24/7? Yes!

I have had some great debates in the past, but the majority of these nasty comments didn’t call for response, and no one used their real names anyways. I reflected on a handful of comments about privledge that were thoughtful and I wish I could have engaged to say I would do better, but that move didn’t feel safe. I also got a ton of support from educators I respect – thank you.

As an educator, perhaps my most meaningful takeaway was thinking of ways I might utilize this personal experience to instruct young people on social media literacy and online resiliency. Anonymous online hate was not something I experienced growing up in the time that I did, but after this firsthand experience, I can confirm – it is brutal. I couldn’t help but ruminate on how many of the teenagers we know experience these kinds of debilitating comments in any given day? What if this relatively mild opinion piece had been written by a teenager? What if the content were more hard hitting or reflected a piece of a young person’s identity that was considered outside of societal norms? Would it end as mundanely as it had for me, with a bad week, a cocktail (or 3), and a deactivated Twitter account? The answer is no.

7/10 young people experience online trolling or cyberbullying by the time they turn 18, and the rates are astronomical for LGTBQ+ kids. This abuse is widespread and has devastating effects on teenagers; one-third of young people who are trolled online report symptoms of depression. Young people are impressionable and their sense of self is still forming, so experiences like this can be downright dangerous for their mental health. I am reminded of how imperative it is to educate our young people about online hate, how to avoid it, and to definitely not take part in it themselves – a future employer or university could find out, plus, it’s just cruel and won’t make them feel any happier.

Teenagers follow our accounts and see what we post online, they learn how to behave based on the ways they see us interact. Perhaps others didn’t connect with this content, but some of our kids were reading those comments, and this is another reason I chose not to engage. The world is a scary and unpredictable place right now and the last thing any of our kids need is more controversy and hate; they are trying to survive their 3rd year of pandemic school, and it’s not easy to find the joy in that – I’ll keep supporting them as they try to, though.

Finally, here comes the gratitude – I have never been more inspired to continue, what I now know in my guts, is the imperative work of social media literacy and online resiliency skills with our young people this school year. I also won’t stop writing about it.

Here is a useful guide from MediaSmarts on helping our kids navigate cyberbullying.

I hope you all have a restful labour day weekend. Good luck with the school start up!

L.