Week 7

This week..I am not even sure where to begin with this week.  When working in higher education Halloween in the middle of the week is never good, it allow for parties on the weekend before and the weekend after and that means the opportunity for parties and costumes that culturally appropriate.  The fall out of such actions can overwhelm the remainder of a semester or year given the culture of the campus, and leave students, staff and faculty exhausted.

Well that about sums up this past week EXACTLY!

In the wake of that, and the continuation of parsing that out and addressing/responding to it this week I was reminded to focus on centering practices from the competency area aligned with conscious engagement.

Conscious Engagement

• Incorporating time daily for at least one of the following: meditation, yoga stretching, or focused reflection on nutrition.  

This week I wanted to default to watching Netflix with my dogs...and while that did occur, part of my centering was to integrate an attention to my breath and meal prepping as avenues to deal with the high stress and long hours. In respect to this assignment this was an intentional way to allow for a pause while still fulfilling the on-going focus on personal leadership development.

Instead I took time to go grocery shopping after work on Monday and then prep 3 healthy meals to rotate for dinners and lunches throughout the week.  This focus on nutrition, and the routine and structure it provided allowed me to literally feed my body so that it wasn't run down by sugar, carbs and caffeine. 

I also took advantage of the "breathe" function on my Apple Watch.  I started by just doing the minute of guided breathing before getting out of my car and then back in my car.  I found I had a few minutes between meetings and I could have checked email, Facebook, or others but instead did the minute of breathing.  I felt so much more centered after that I immediately did a second.  Later in the week, I found myself intentionally doing this 2 minutes of focused breathing before going into a long meeting that could have been very draining, dealing with students that appropriated and then helping other students craft a response to upset peers. It allowed me to start and maintain a focus on the students much longer than I feel like I might have without it. 

While the tasks were not huge this week they allowed me to focus on the personal side of the development plan so that when I needed to more visibly enact the leader side of my work I was a bit more centered.  I think a bit of learning that also occurred this week was that it is often difficult to remember to put yourself and your development or rejuvenation foremost when you are dealing with those in your community that are in such a high need.