Mindful Monday’s

Transcript

Michelle

Hi, hello, and welcome to Mindful Mondays. My name is Michelle Precourt, and it's a pleasure to be here with you today. This is episode 21 Thriving Through Change. And I'm really excited to have this conversation, I'm going to tell you all about our guest right away. Before I do that, I'd invite you, Cathryn, I'd invite our viewers here to take a moment and reflect on the Indigenous communities that you're calling in from. I have the pleasure and honour of working and living on the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people's lands, I truly admire their stewardship of the lands. And I hope that you do too. There's so much work that's being done in our community right now. And for those of you who may not know, this is also called Squamish, British Columbia. So I invite our viewers to share in the chat where you're calling in from today. We've had folks from coast to coast to coast and even internationally. So I love hearing where you're calling in from. And one other quick infomercial, if you will, for anyone who's joining us for the first time. What is Mindful Monday’s all about? It's really about sharing collective wisdom. It's really about, this wisdom is intended to create sustainable workplace cultures where people feel balanced and healthy, and engaged. And I know that our guest today Cathryn has some thoughts around that. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Let me tell you quickly about Cathryn. Cathryn is a leadership coach, a change leadership coach, a facilitator and a consultant, who has worked internationally with United Nations, universities and health care organizations in Canada to grow leadership, and coaching cultures. Cathryn is also part of two collaborative coaching organizations called the Demers Group and Elevate Leadership Alliance. And we'll share all of Cathryn's contact information towards the end of today's broadcast. So today's topic, Thriving Through Change. Welcome, Cathryn. So nice to have you here today.

Cathryn

Thank you, Michelle. I'm delighted to be here and engaging this conversation.

Michelle

I'm really looking forward to this. And in terms of engaging I'm going to see here who is online with us this morning, let's check the chat. Who's here? I see a couple of comments in here. So we've got Victoria, North Vancouver as well. I look forward to hearing your comments as we dive into this conversation. And for those of you who are joining us, I have a question for you. I'm turning the tables and throwing a question out to you for you to consider. Please share in the chat. What weekly or daily practices do you have that support you to thrive? I look forward to seeing those in the chat. And while we're waiting for that, Cathryn, tell us a little bit about your thoughts on this question. What do you do? How do you thrive?

Cathryn

Great question. Thanks, Michelle. I'd love to hear from you as well. Some of the practices that really support me to thrive include daily meditation practice. I love doing this on the mat. There's a community of us who gather and do morning practice together, which I find so nourishing and connecting. And being in a community helps me be accountable and show up. Another one is circle practice with other women or pods where we come together and support each other and break through old ways of being and come back to our truth. And I find those generative relationships so helpful to coming back to remembering who I am and what matters.

Michelle

Yeah, fantastic. I think that's really key. Remembering who I am, right, whenever we're in something that feels a little bit unstable, sometimes we can lose ourselves in that instability. And so finding a place to ground. I also appreciate that you asked the question of me as well because grounding is really important for me and the fact that I live in a community where there's a trail system literally 200 meters away. I can just really connect with nature that way. I feel like maybe because I grew up in the Prairies, and there's so much spaciousness, that I actually appreciate the kind of cocoon feeling that I get living in British Columbia, by all the trees and moss and there's something just really nurturing about that. And it helps me to ground and relax and I have this expression. Not everyone agrees with me, but I have this expression that “your relaxed self, is your best self”.

Cathryn

Yeah, I love that. That's my experience, too. I love going out into nature. I think nature has so much to teach us about our relaxed selves and our original nature as being creators of our ancestral selves. So for myself, I'm calling in from the lands of the Lekwungen and Esquimalt people on Vancouver Island. I'm currently in Victoria. And I was born in Liberia in Africa, West Coast of Africa to English parents, so English ancestry and Celtic background, and then emigrated to Edmonton. So I'm also a Prairie girl, when I was five years old, and now living here on the west coast. So the land and the connection with nature has been such an important teacher for me and thriving as well like, aligning with the seasonal cycles of change. As I've been on my healing journey, I've been reclaiming some of the ancient teachings from my lineage of the Celtic tradition. And that includes the Celtic calendar. And aligning my change process with the Celtic calendar has been such a game changer for experiencing more peace, having a sense of calm connection with the lands, and also knowing that it's just part of the life is always changing and moving somewhere. And the more that I can align with the flow of nature, the easier my life is.

Michelle

Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much for sharing your your personal strategy, we've got a couple in here to show. So we've got one person who said yoga, absolutely. I'm also a yoga practitioner. Also here Cherolyn. Thanks for joining us today. Cherolyn, daily walks, weekly yoga. And then here, Sherry being planful about the day, really mapping it out, I really appreciate you sharing this sharing, because this doesn't, you know, some of what we're talking about is a bit esoteric. And I get that there are left-brain thinkers and right-brain thinkers, and the left-brain thinkers really need something linear in place. And so 100%, you got to do what's right for you. And so thank you for raising this Sherry. Because I do believe that it's important to tap into whatever strategies are going to work for you. This idea of, you know, mindful meditation, it works for me, it works for you, Cathryn, but it's not going to work for everybody. So what works for you, test it out and trial it out and see how that goes.

Cathryn

Yeah, that's such an important thing that there are so many practices that we can implement, and it's finding the ones that really work for us. And I love doing the am, pm, I also do a daily am intention setting and then a pm gratitude practice and reflection on my day. And I find that a really powerful practice. So thanks for sharing that.

Michelle

Yeah, I also want to say hello to Greg. Greg Loghrin. Is just commenting on Sherry's post here. So I just implemented this two days ago and discovered it was impactful. Fantastic. That's really great. So the learning continues. If there's anyone new who's just joining us, we threw in a question an audience question, if you will, what weekly or daily practices do you have that support you to thrive? If you've got a strategy that you'd like to share, please do that. This is really about collective wisdom and collective learning. So really, really appreciate what's happening there in the chat. Now, Cathryn, I want to go back to you because part of what was interesting to me about you, you are a very interesting person, but one of the things that really stood out to me was the word thrive. You have it all over your website, and we're going to share Cathryn's contact information, but thrive, why thrive and what's the impact when we thrive and change?

Cathryn

Great question. Thrive. I've been learning about what does thrive mean, and thriving together really has been a concept that has been inspired through the Truth and Reconciliation process, as I've been doing my part and unlearning and cultivating the conditions for us to heal the divide and come into connection. The thriving together is something that I hear from indigenous leaders, and I really am an ally, and I follow, follow their lead. So, I'm learning what thrive means. I'm a practitioner of thriving, and what I've been learning is that the root of the word thrive is to prosper, and prosperity, what I've been learning about prosperity through my I just did a 40-day meditation practice on prosperity to discover and uncover and reveal what that means. And what I've been learning about that is, it's about our original state, like our value, the sense of our being, when come from that relaxed state come from the essence of who we are. That's our innate value. That's our innate prosperity, that's our innate gift that we have to bring to the world is our beingness. And our very presence and the unique characters and vision and mission and blueprint, like thumbprint we each have to bring to the earth to bring to this world to bring to our work, the more that we can align with that, and bring that work out through our daily practice through our careers through our relationships, then that's where we can really prosper and thrive and create the conditions for thriving together.

Michelle

Thank you. I'm also curious, from our viewers, what do you think about this word thrive? What does thriving and change mean for you? And maybe as you're contemplating that question, you can think about a scenario that may not have been an easy scenario. And did you feel that you thrived in that scenario? So go ahead and share that in the chat. What does thrive mean to you? Because, again, it's a little bit like what Sherry highlighted here, there are different perspectives, depending on how you are wired, a little bit of neuroscience here, that thriving may mean different things to different people. And it's a little bit about, you know, what's the goal? What's the objective of the change? And how do we get there, and so there's going to be some structures in place. Maybe some, you know, if I think about an organizational change of some sort, you're going to want to have some foundational documents, some processes in place, that's going to help people to stay informed. And I'll even use the word grounded, it's kind of how I look at the world of HR, there's foundational HR stuff that is really important that then you can kind of spider out from there. So foundational type of HR is like legislative requirements, and what does the employer have to pay, like minimum wage or sick days or this sort of stuff? And I also think it's, relevant in the changing world, you know, what is the change mean? It doesn't mean I'm reporting to somebody new, does it mean that? Are our offices moving physically moving? Is there a technological change of some sort? And, then from there, it's the emotions that are attached to that. Because whenever there's a change, there's a sense of loss. I recently did a workshop delivery around change. And there's grief associated with it. When I was researching and building out my curriculum, I researched this model called the Kubler’s grief loss process. And what happens is that you know, we may be thriving, I'll use the use your word, we may be thriving in our work. And then this change comes and there's a dip in productivity. And it's like, what's going on? This feels really uncomfortable. I don't feel safe here. Once we figure out that it's going to be okay, then that productivity starts to go up, and we and we shift back to that thriving sense. But during that, I'll say that low, almost like the opposite of a bell curve. What is it that you need to do for yourself to rebalance, even if everything around you is shifting? I don't know if you have any comments on that Cathryn.

Cathryn

I have a lot about that. So thanks for bringing that in. So change processes, generally in my experience working in healthcare like the change the structures, the procedures, the policies tend to be like in one part of the organization. And then there's like the learning and the development and the people, the leadership development work that happens over here. And they're kind of separated. And I think the best strategy is to bring them together. But the change and the people and the learning and the leadership needs to come together because of this process you're speaking about exactly. Which is this you. So Theory U, Otto Sharmer’s work also speaks to this really eloquently or the Bridges work, many of you probably have heard about the transition and change. And it's from one state to another, so say, a move of an office. So we're in one office, and we're moving to another or like the hybrid work environment, this is a huge change for so many workplaces right now. And so there's the physical move of and the transition from working at home and working at the office and how many days we agree to and what conversations we have at home, and what conversations we need to have together in connection. And then there's the identity change. So it's like the transformation of identity is often the conversation that we don't have, and we need to have more of, is to see ourselves like it's a, it's a transition of seeing who we are as employees, like employees, employees, where I go to the worksite, and I have the meetings and I clock in eight to four, versus perhaps like a collaborator, or co-creator or a partner, where I am collaborating and co-creating the environment for us to do our best work and perform together. And there's going to be some times when I need my work at home. And that suits me very well. And sometimes when I need to go into the office, and so this shift of identity is part of the big letting go of this identity of like this way of working that we all kind of understood what the rules were. And now it's letting go of like, wow, I used to know what the rules are. And now I don't know what the rules are and, and that grieving in that process. And so many of us can get feel afraid about like kind of letting go and being in that unknown zone, which is the space of how do we call it the uncertainty, the neutral zone. It's the space between like the old and the new. And it's actually the most creative, innovative space for having conversations for being vulnerable for sharing. Like, I'm feeling a lot of like fear or loss or grief about this, like, I'm afraid I'm not going to get my needs met. These are my needs for certainty for being in communication for having a relationship. For things being fair, how, you know, what are the conversations we need to have together to really satisfy our core needs as human beings so that we can co-create these conditions for us to thrive.

Michelle

Yeah, I love what you're saying there. And I know that you have so much more to share. This is why everyone needs to connect with Cathryn on change. I also don't want to lose a comment here from Cherolyn. Cherolyn said here when I'm thriving, I feel like I'm in a flow. Yeah. So thanks so much for chiming in there. Cherolyn that there's, for me anyways, when I read this comment, there's like an ease about whatever it is that's happening. Things are here, just, you know, moving along, feeling good. There's a rhythm. There's a flow. Yeah. Yeah.

Cathryn

Yeah. And the key and also, so it's really important to recognize those moments of flow and ease and thriving because then we can see those moments when I'm not. When I'm contracted when I'm afraid when there's tension, maybe there's conflict. And generally, we tend to like our default is to avoid these at all costs. And try and find the thriving but actually what I've discovered in my journey, as I went through a journey, a healing journey of burnout, after being in health, working in health care for like 15 years. And through that journey, I discovered many things that are in the way of my thriving including many of the belief systems and mindsets and patterns of unworthiness being not enough competition like with other people I'm looking outside of myself for direction rather than inside. Like, it's really, for me the conditions for thriving have really been a radical shift from like this outside in looking outside of myself for the answers to inside out and what's my gifts? What are my strengths? What's my truth? What are my needs, and to collaborate from a place of sovereignty or self-differentiation rather than like codependence and pulling on other people? That's been a really important shift. And it requires leaning into those moments of like, where I feel stuck because those are actually there are some golden nuggets there about, about transforming ourselves.

Michelle

Yeah, certainly lived experience helps to coach others for sure. And I'd like to ask you this question. Cathryn, you know, in terms of your work as a coach, what are you seeing? When it comes to organizational change? What are you seeing in your work as a coach, when it comes to organizational change?

Cathryn

I'm seeing a lot of patterns of burnout, exhaustion from old ways, and just not working anymore. And people wondering if I can do it, and some women like holding themselves back from leadership opportunities, because they're concerned about their health and their energy. I'm also noticing, I'll talk about like this stuff, holding us back where we're stuck first. I'm also noticing some patterns of toxic cultures like there's the old way and the new way, like the old top-down, hierarchical seniority way of organizing. And then there's a new way of collaborative teamwork with the younger generation, so there's like, some tension between that, resulting in some conflicts. I'm also noticing, like there's a call for, like this, this recognition, the way we've been doing things isn't working. And this, like in healthcare, there's a bit of a badge of honor about how much we do in a day. And like, I'm no, I'm really productive. Or I'm important, I'm valuable because I did this, this, this, this, this, and really need to let go of those old ways and create spaces for being and for connection. And like, the urgency of like, too many things, too many priorities, and needing to focus on like the top three to five yellow balls, I call them.

Michelle

What comes to mind for me, as you were saying, that was people are asking for more. They're, they're asking for what they need. And I think that this is like, so amazing, right? Because years ago, you showed up to work, you got a pay cheque, you did what you were told. And that was pretty much it. Right? Like, there wasn't a lot of the conversations about like, how are you doing with this? You know, how are you managing this change? And so now people are coming to their leaders and saying, I'm struggling with this. Well, good. I want to say that's really good. Because, again, there are different models out there in terms of how you navigate change. And certainly, the employer has some responsibility for creating those foundations that I talked about. Putting some support systems in place, like we have an employed family and assistance program that you can tap into. There could be therapists and coaches ready to be online for whatever changes are happening if they're really significant. When I worked for Nav Canada for 10 years, if there was something really significant that happened, they would have a grief counsellor, available on site. So those are really strong foundational practices to have in place. But I am so thankful that today's workers are asking for more because I think that we can do more, we can share more, and we can learn more. There's just so much more. And I’ll say the old ways of working, we really do need to shift and augment and not shy away from these. The emotions around change. I'll stop there because I'm also noticing time here. And I know you're very passionate about this. I can hear it, you sound so skilled, I expect that you're, you know, a really busy coach in this particular field of thriving and change. And so I have one closing question for you, Cathryn. What advice do you have for viewers who want to cultivate a thrive mindset?

Cathryn

Begin with yourself and cultivate conditions for your emotional well-being first, because when you can care for yourself and put care at the center of your life, then then you can care for others and care for the work.

Michelle

Yeah, yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, I think it's about that self-awareness that comes to mind, like, what is it that you need right now? And maybe you don't know what you need, that can be a real problem. You don't know what you need, but you're not feeling, you're not feeling yourself. And what I mean by that is, you may not be as productive as you once were. For those left-brain thinkers, there are other others out there who are going, I just don't feel myself and I don't know what I need. But I'm going to talk to Cathryn about this, I'm going to talk about speaking up. So that then maybe collaboratively, we can figure out how to support each other and how to thrive, right how to thrive. We've got a question in here that I'd like to put on screen here. So let's go with this one. Mohammed asks, How do you know you're in a toxic work environment? Any thoughts?

Cathryn

I'd say, are you shining your lights? Can you express your truth? Are you leaving the meetings thinking about all the things you should have said that you didn't say? Generally, that's a sign that there's a lack of safety and trust and the environment to be able to speak our truth and bring forward new ideas and share? What's happening? And what's required?

Michelle

Yeah, I really liked that specific analogy that you said, did I not say what I was thinking? That is 100%, a sign of a lack of psychological safety that can hold us back from thriving from being our true self from speaking up about this idea of fear that is holding me back going. I don't want to sound ignorant. I don't want to sound incompetent. So I'm not going to ask this question. But how I would throw it back is if you didn't ask the question, and we miss something, then it's not about me anymore. It's about we, the team has failed. So great question, Mohammed. Thanks so much, for sharing this question with us. We're coming up close to the end of the program. But if there are any other questions that you would like to ask Cathryn, here, we've got another minute or so you can go ahead and share those in the chat. And if we don't connect with you now, you can always connect with Cathryn later on through LinkedIn. We shared her contact information in the chat as well. And with that, I am going to tell you a little bit about our next Mindful Monday. So our next Mindful Monday is on May the 15th at 830am PST, and we're diving into social purpose and sustainable development with a green energy expert. I really hope that you can join us I hope Cathryn, you can join us from the other side, so to speak because I think this is going to be another engaging conversation around sustainable workplace cultures. I want to thank you so much, Cathryn, for joining us today for being our guests, and for sharing your knowledge.

Cathryn

Thank you for the invitation. And thank you to everyone who's here in this conversation, I can feel your presence, and I really, I wish us all to thrive. May we all thrive together.

Michelle

May we all thrive. Those are great closing words. Thank you to our guests for showing up. Some of our regulars are here. Greg, Cherolyn, Sherry, Mohamed. Thanks for throwing questions in the chat there and always thank you, Vraya for working behind the scenes and sharing those links with us. So we've come to the end of our program and with that, I will close by just simply saying, be well.