REOPENING: Why don't I feel better?

Earlier this month, President Biden spoke to a crowd people gathered for a Fourth of July celebration. "We are emerging from the darkness of ... a year of pandemic and isolation, a year of pain, fear and heartbreaking loss,” Biden said to about 1,000 people enjoying their hamburgers together. One thousand people. A crowd that size will make you reflect on just how far we've come.

“We never again want to be where we were a year ago today,” Biden said. We can all agree on that. But where exactly are we now?

The country closed in a week, and we scrambled to adjust. This reopening is a more gradual process. We're all trying to define this new normal for ourselves. Are we doing the right work? Are we doing it in the right place? After a year of playing it safe, how to we access ambition again?

Welcome to Hello Monday's first-ever Special Series: REOPENING. Starting today, Hello Monday will take on six big questions designed to help all of us navigate this period proactively. There will be homework. We’ll discuss our weekly assignments on Office Hours, and bring back highlights each week. We hope to come to some answers together.

We start with Richard Orbe-Austin, a psychologist and coach. Together, we ask the question: why don't I feel better? And maybe you do feel better. Or maybe, you feel all kinds of things at once—ecstatic but also demoralized, hopeful and yet burned out. Understanding where you're at, and where the people with whom you work might be, is the start to approaching this moment of reopening proactively and realizing your career aspirations for the future. You can find the episode here, or listen directly below:

🪐 Homework Assignment: The Feels

To start off our our work together, you'll need a notebook, a pen, and a timer. At the top of the first three sheets of paper, write each of these questions: How do you remember feeling one year ago? How do you feel right now? How do you aspire to feel in a year? Now, set your timer for 15 minutes—and aspire to write for the full 15 minutes. If you run out of things to write, that's okay! Keep the pen to the paper until more thoughts come. See what happens when your mind begins to wander a bit. Producer Sarah Storm, Contributor Michaela Greer and I will be doing the assignment, too, so if you'd like to share your thoughts, please join us for Office Hours.

🪐 Office Hours: Our moment of silence

As Rich suggests, we have all just endured a collective, ambiguous loss. We’d do well to mark it. Making space to honor it also allows us to move forward, and that is what we endeavor to explore in our reopening series. So this week, we'll begin Office Hours with a minute of silence. Join us on Wednesday afternoon at 3pm EST. At five minutes after the hour, we’ll mark a moment of silence together. If you can’t be with us live, you can still be with us for this moment. Set your alarm on your phone. Stop what you’re doing, and join us.

Then, we'll pick up with a lively discussion about our week's assignment. You won't want to miss it!

🪐 Take things further: LinkedIn Learning

When we’re caught off guard by a job loss or the crumbling of a personal relationship, it can be tough to move forward. But while we can’t avoid these kinds of unexpected changes, we can control how we deal with them. In this short course, Dr. Todd Dewett explains how you can harness the power of change for your benefit and the benefit of those around you. Learn how to put change in the proper context, create the right perspective, and ultimately become more resilient.