"There's nothing that we can do to recover until we identify the damage. So take some notes, from your body, from your mind, from your heart, from your spirit, and from your relationships. Take some notes on what has changed, what is broken, what is damaged and what needs attention. If you're determined to continue to serve from the heart, you have to stop for a moment and assess the damage. "~ PBJ
Join Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson as she talks about assessing the damage and gives you an exercise to help you prepare for the "next" normal.
To connect with Dr. PBJ, go to www.aspoonfulofpbj.com
Do you need a dynamic transformational speaker? Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson is ready to serve. Check out Dr. PBJ Speaks
Follow Dr. PBJ on IG @drpatricebucknerjackson for #aspoonfulofpbj every Monday.
"There's nothing that we can do to recover until we identify the damage. So take some notes, from your body, from your mind, from your heart, from your spirit, and from your relationships. Take some notes on what has changed, what is broken, what is damaged and what needs attention. If you're determined to continue to serve from the heart, you have to stop for a moment and assess the damage. "~ PBJ
Join Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson as she talks about assessing the damage and gives you an exercise to help you prepare for the "next" normal.
To connect with Dr. PBJ, go to www.aspoonfulofpbj.com
Do you need a dynamic transformational speaker? Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson is ready to serve. Check out Dr. PBJ Speaks
Follow Dr. PBJ on IG @drpatricebucknerjackson for #aspoonfulofpbj every Monday.
Hey, hey, hey friends, it's Patrice Buckner Jackson, but you can call me PBJ. Welcome to another episode of Heart Work with PBJ, where we are disrupting cycles of burnout. And listen, this is for you. This is your place that you can come. This is your place that you are understood. This is your place where we speak your language. This is your place where you get to retreat. This is your place where you get some tools, so that you can keep doing the work that you've been called to do without losing everything that means everything to you. Listen, I know this word cost, you know, the way that you serve cost you and my heart is that you can come here and be refilled and be refreshed. And I hope that's true for you. Listen, friend, wherever you are listening, will you help us get this message out by subscribing, downloading thumbs up leaving a comment, whatever you can do on the platform that you're watching, listening? Will you do that for us? That helps us get this message out faster to other heart workers. So going and do that right now. Whatever you need to do, press the button, do whatever you do right now, so that you can help us with that. And listen, I've got a new episode for you. You're ready, let's go. All right, friends. So here we go. I've been stuck on this concept of recovery. For a long time, you may remember back in July of last year, 2021, I had an episode on it's time to recover. And friend, listen, it's still time to recover, we still haven't done it, we still have not done it. So I want to talk about what that means. But I want to bring it home to you today. And I want to talk about you and where you might be and what you might be able to do to start the recovery process. Right. So this is about, you know, us coming out of the pandemic. But it's also about us coming out of burnout, any major trauma that we've been through recovery is necessary. You know, I've been hearing this language for over a year now new, normal, new, normal, new normal, if you're here with me in 2022, you know what I'm talking about, everybody's running towards new normal, because we're so tired of being in the pandemic. And we're so tired of all of the restrictions and all the things and all the fear and all the sickness and everything that has come with it, that we quickly prematurely want to run into what we're calling new normal. But I'm here to tell you friends, that there's a phase of crisis recovery, and it's called recovery. There's a phase of crisis management called recovery. And it's the fifth phase of crisis management. And it's necessary. Because the longest phase is the steps that we take to get to whatever next normal is going to be friends, we don't even know enough yet. We know that we've been impacted forever. You know, if you just consider the pandemic, we had over a million people die. In the United States, our number is over a million I think back to 911. And how it changed our lives, I think we had less than 4000 people died then not less significant. But in comparing the two events. When you talk about a herd of friends say this, they heard some speaker so it's not mine. I don't know who to credit. But my friend said that when you think about 911 in this country, we always say never forget. But when we think about the pandemic, we quickly want to get it behind us. And that is not how this works. I've been talking to colleges and universities about this topic and encouraging them. What if we just embraced that for the next two or three years or more, we'll be learning what next normal is that we don't even have enough information now to define what our next normal is going to look like. The students we serve are different. The staff members that we work with are different. Our faculty members are different. Our world has changed. It's the same thing for your life. Your world has changed. You never seen anything like the last couple of years, and your whole entire life. So what if we release the burden of trying to be normal and embrace the reality that we have to learn what normal is we have to relearn and unlearn some things in order to get to our next normal. And that's what the recovery phase is about. Recovery is about shepherding us into what normal will be. The metaphor that I like to use is, if we had a hurricane come through our city. Let's say for the last 24 hours, we've been battling a hurricane, right? But the winds have stopped, and the rains have stopped. And now we can come out of our basements and come out of our homes and actually look around, the last thing we would do was tell somebody go back in your flooded house and be normal, the storm is over. That will be ridiculous, it would be ridiculous to tell a town that has been torn apart by a hurricane. All right, the winds have stopped, the rain has stopped, we still have flooding, but just go be normal. We will know better than that, we will know that there were several steps that need to be honored before we can call it anything normal. I remember my last trip to New Orleans, it was a few years ago now. But in touring the city of New Orleans, there were still parts of the city that uh, ravaged from Hurricane Katrina, over a decade ago. But you can still see the damage of that storm, there are some things that were changed for ever. Friend, it's time to recover. It's not time to pretend that we're normal. It's time to recover. So I want to talk to you a little bit about what recovery is? And what are the steps to recovery? And what does that look like for my life? You know, so we have our work that needs to recover. We have our cities in our world that needs to recover, but you need to recover. As an individual you need to recover, whether there's damage from the pandemic, or damage from burnout or damage from being overwhelmed. No matter what you've been through, maybe your life has changed in some significant way. Friend, you have to honor the phase of recovery. Don't pretend like things are normal. I'm not saying give up and put a blanket over your head and never come out. Again. That's not what I'm saying. I know we have to keep living. But can we live by honoring that we're learning. We're learning what this new normal looks like? Can we give honor to the recovery phase. So the steps of recovery, the first step I want to talk to you about today is assessing the damage. Now let's go back to our hurricane example, right? So when it was safe enough to come out of our safety bunkers, to come out of our shelters, right, we would look around, the first thing we would want to do is go back to our home or our business. So that thing that's connected to us, and we would want to identify or assess the damage. So what is broken, what is damaged, what may need to be replaced? What has changed as a result of what we've been through. So whether you're thinking about the pandemic, or whether you're thinking about burnout, or all of that together, maybe working through or living through the pandemic has brought you to a place of burnout, I would encourage you today to assess the damage, what is missing? What is broken, what has changed as a result of what you've been through. And I know it's not comfortable, it's really scary to get out there and to actually look and put your eyes on or to identify those things that are broken. Because so many thoughts come through our head about how we're going to fix it. How can we afford to fix it? What do we need to do? Can we handle it? But I would encourage you today not to go to that level just today? Can we just assess what is broken? Can we just identify what is damaged? Friend, it can't heal if we won't identify what's broken. So can we just take a moment to do this assessment. So I'm going to walk you through it. And I'm going to ask you to participate with me like it's just you and me. Like it's just us talking, nobody else is watching. I want you to walk through and identify and assess the damage. And this is about you today. So when I do this work, sometimes I do it with a company or an organization or department. But today I want to do this with you. And I want to walk through this with you. So if you're open to it, I would encourage us you if you're not driving bleep be safe, of course, but I wouldn't encourage you to sit in a comfortable posture, whatever is comfortable for you. If you're in a space that you can close your eyes, you may want to close your eyes. And I'm just going to ask you a series of questions. And I want you to just identify what you find. Identify what you become aware of, and you can consider it visualization. But we're just going to walk through and assess the damage together. Okay. So again, sit in a comfortable posture, whatever is comfortable for you. And if you would like to, I invite you to close your eyes. And you can take a deep breath, just give yourself a moment, put yourself in a position that you can really see. And the first thing I want to ask you is, how is your body? So how are you physically? Is there pain? or discomfort? That you identify? There a headache? Is there discomfort in your digestive tract? Is there nervousness that you feel that is manifesting in your body? Is there an ache? How about your joints? down your spine? Your toes, your fingers? Arms, legs? Your chest? Your breath? How's your body? Or body speak to us? What is your body telling you? Sometimes we can run and run and run and not start to listen, that our body is speaking to us? What is your body saying to you? Is it pain? Is there discomfort? Is there an area that needs attention? How is your body? How's your body? Now? How's your mind? How's your mind? What thoughts are resting on your mind? Do you have racing thoughts? Do you have peace? In your mind? Are you struggling with something? Is there a fight going on? In your mind? Do you feel overwhelmed with the thoughts? Do you feel overwhelmed with your obligations? What are you thinking about? What are you focused on? What is at the top of your mind? What keeps you up at night? Are you resting?Are you resting not to sleeping? are you resting? What's on your mind? What is on your mind? What comes up in your mind? Over and over again? How's your mind? How's your thinking? Is there any damage? Anything broken? Anything missing? They they needed to be fixed or supported? How's your mind? How's your heart? The seat of your emotions? How are you feeling? What are you feeling? What are those feeling words? How do you describe how you're feeling? Can you even identify what you're feeling? Are your emotions pretty stable? Do they feel all over the place? Is there a swing from extreme to extreme? How are you feeling? How's your heart? I always say and I got this from my pastor. You meet Mackey feelings are gay. It's not a guy. So we don't make decisions based on how we feel. But we need to honor and identify how we feel so that we can use that as a gauge a barometer to measure how we're really doing. So how's your heart? How are you feeling? What feeling words would you use to describe where you are today? Now how's your sleep? Spirit? How is your spirit? How is that part of you? That is connected to something everlasting? How is that part of you? That is connected to something more than you? How is your spirit? Are you still connected to what matters most to you and your spirit? For whatever spirituality means to you? Are you connected there? Are you acting what you say you believe? Are you doing? What matters to your spirit? Are there practices in your life that align with what you say you believe? How is your spirit? Do you feel connected spiritually? How is your spirit? How are your relationships? The ones that mean the most the ones that matter the most? The relationships that you are unwilling to lose? How are those relationships? How's your communication with the people who you love the most? who love you the most? How's your connection with the people in your community that have and continue to support you? How are those relationships with the people in your life that you never want to let go? How are your relationships? What's missing in those relationships? Are they sustaining? Have they sustained? Are they broken? Is there concern? In your relationships? Have you lost? Or are you losing someone who is dear to you, who you don't want to lose? How are your relationships? And friends, after you walk through this assessment, I want you to take a few minutes to jot down and write down what became present to you what did you notice? What is missing? What is needed, what is broken, what is damaged, what has changed. There's nothing that we can do to recover until we identify the damage. So take some notes, from your body, from your mind, from your heart, from your spirit, from your relationships, take some notes on what has changed what's broken, what's damaged, what needs attention. What needs attention? And after you do that, our next step is to identify resources. And we'll go into that in our next episode together. But for this week, I just want you to identify the damage, assess the damage, what is missing, what is broken, what is damaged, and what has changed based on the storm you've been through. So take a breath. Take some notes, write it down. Identify it, this is just for you. This is not about shame. This is not about judgment. This is nobody else's business, not even mine. It's nobody else's business but your own. But if you're determined to serve in wholeness. If you're determined to continue to serve from the heart, we have to stop for a moment and assess the damage. We have to stop and recognize that life has had an impact on us, not just the pandemic but especially in America levels of pandemics. All of the levels of things that continue to happen in our world. They have an impact on us. We're not robots. And it may not be direct trauma. Maybe it's not you who've lost a child or you who have lost a loved one to gun violence or maybe you who have lost a loved one to COVID-19 but if you're in this world right now, you've been impacted. There's an impact in your life. And until we're willing to stop and identify and assess the damage. There's nothing we can do to fix it. So I applaud you for doing this work. I applaud you for walking through it. I applaud you for acknowledging that there is damage. That's step number one to recovery. And next week, we're going to take this a little bit further. Friend as always, you are powerful. You are significant. And you are loved. Love always PBJ