I'm changing things up a bit this week, conveying some life coach skills I have been using recently. Over the past few months, I have worked with many people that feel stuck. Call it a mid-life crisis or "being lost," whatever name you want to give it. I think we are all feeling some of that right now thanks to COVID and being generally surrounded by craziness. We all feel a bit of loss of control and that’s never a good feeling.

When we feel like we are losing or have lost control or we just don’t jive with our colleagues or friends, we tend to have shorter tempers and we run short on patience. Am I the only one feeling this way? I doubt it, although most people don’t talk about it; it is an uncomfortable discussion.

Our industry has seen some pretty high stress levels in the last 10-11 months. We have been blamed for just about everything COVID-related and we may not have received all the thanks we deserve for keeping food on the shelves. Our mental state is probably not the best right now.

I want to share one of my favorite autobiographies:

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

by Portia Nelson

Act 1: I walk down the street, there is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in … I am helpless … It isn’t my fault … It takes forever to find a way out.

Act 2: I walk down the street, there is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend that I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place, but this isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

Act 3: I walk down the street, there is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Act 4: I walk down the street, there is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Act 5: I walk down another street.

This classic short story is a great example of mindfulness, the ability to create space between a stimulus and a response. When we bring awareness to a situation we are dealing with, we can create space between the situation and the reaction, and that space becomes the response. The response becomes a thoughtful choice, a calmer choice, and a choice with a better outcome. When we practice mindfulness, we are cultivating an ability to observe a situation and observe the feeling. When we learn to observe before we react, we can begin to understand and respond differently. When was the last time you acted to a situation with a response versus a reaction?

We are dealing with a lot of stress and mental anxiety right now as individuals working in the meat and poultry industries. I hope that this autobiography and mindfulness example resonated with you. I hope that you can create some space for yourself when the anxiety creeps up at work and respond as opposed to react. You'll feel better.

Mindfulness: be the change

Join for free* to continue reading.