At the end of my workday at six, I, with my work partner and a bunch of other people, do a check-out calls, from across cities if not states. We come online, look at each other through our screens, and turn by turn answer these 4 questions:
- How are you feeling?
- What did you do well today?
- What do you want to do better tomorrow?
- Highlights from the day
My experience of answering these questions, day after day, went from feeling excited to feeling embarrassed and evaluative in the past two months. I started my first checkout by talking about “notes and number of calls I made” for highlight to “I danced even though it’s not like me to do so sober in front of people” for the 38th one. Every day I saw how mentally clenched I was (I equated my self-worth with my productivity, I assume people are as critical of me as I am of myself and I am strict about not making mistakes) that I wasn’t myself anymore.
I have tried to not fall into my voluntary “kamikaze response” of lying or avoiding things that sting. I stayed truthful with my answers in spite of my people-pleasing-instincts: “Today I bathed”, “I wanted to cry from anxiety and I managed to finish work,” “I took a day off when I felt like I was out of energy instead of pushing myself,” “I got distracted and did not get anything done.” I admitted that I was tired of how demanding caregiving is,
even though it tugged at my conscience.
More of me started flowing into my work and more of the work helped me grow. I started feeling lesser like a wage-earner, as an economic unit, a receptacle of responsibilities. I felt, still do, feel myself unclenching, overcoming my cockroachy desire to scuttle into a corner, to dance freely, take a work call in a noisy place, say “sorry, I can’t do that,” “sorry, I don’t know what that word means” without feeling lesser (capable, worthy, intelligent).
Most importantly, I realized that you can’t help the things you feel, only the things you do. And that is where you will have to sometimes start – at this boring, awkward, vulnerable-mental housekeeping.