Today I am discussing how to actually take a sick day without guilt !.
In this episode I discuss how:
Show notes and the transcript can be found here: https://michellekevill.com/guilt
Today I am discussing how to actually take a sick day without guilt !.
In this episode I discuss how:
Show notes and the transcript can be found here: https://michellekevill.com/guilt
[00:00:00] Hello, everyone. I hope you are well. And if not, I got you. At least you are here. Okay, so I just want to give you a really quick little warning. There is a lot of housework. Well, not even a lot of housework. It's just it's sunny today and it's been, like raining for a couple of weeks. So my partner is like, I need to I need to do all the gardening and stuff. And there are people gardening all from my neighborhood. Everyone's like, got their lawn mower on. So you may hear some stuff. I have tried to play around with the settings here and yeah, well, we'll just see how we go, but you may hear some gardening stuff. So today we are talking about how to take a sick day and how to get over sick day guilt. I didn't even know there was a thing called sick day guilt. I was like, when I was researching this episode, it popped up and I was like, Oh my God, this is like still me to a tee. Sometimes it is a lot more in my own business and which I have done a lot of work mentally to just get over it. But I have had to do a ton of practice in my corporate job around getting over sick day guilt. And you know who you are. You are the workaholics, you're the perfectionists. You are the ones that when you are sick and are sitting there thinking, Should I go into work? Should I stay home? It's like, either option you choose it still.
[00:01:35] It's shit. Either way, if you go in, you feel like shit and you know, you obviously like get other people sick and you're like, Oh my God, I wish should have stayed home. Then when you're home, you think, Oh, I'm not that bad, or you're trying to like rest and you feel so guilty about it that both options are just terrible. And I'm telling you right now, it just extends your sickness. And it took me a while to really just shift my mindset around when I'm sick. I'm just not going to be producing the same level of work and I'm going to go all in it. I'm going to talk to you about like, you know, some of the research I've done around this, around how it's been popping up. And I'm going to give you my take on it and I'm going to give you some little mind tricks that I use to really on in my self coaching journey that are going to help you. And also is just some of the thoughts and thought that I needed to do so. Now when I am fucking sick, I literally am like, right, I'm taking the day off and I'm doing what I need to do to get better. And then I will come back when I'm ready, which I know for some people listening it's like, What are you going to give me a whole heap of like stuff and thoughts and like, that's totally fine as well.
[00:02:52] I will go be going through some of this as well, the same the same thoughts that I probably had as well. And of course, I'm talking about this from a corporate job perspective. It's so funny. Like my my sister may be listening to this, but my sister, she's a nurse and sometimes she listens to these and she's like, Michelle, I can't do what you do. I am a nurse. And it is completely like shift work is completely different. So I do empathize with that. So here we go. So it's really interesting when you look up stuff around like how to take a sick day. It's so much like it feels very how to avoid judgment, like how to almost how to do practical things to just make yourself feel better, that you're taking a sick day, like how to write a note to your boss and you know, how to like articulate this and like set it out of office and stuff like that. And then it has like stuff that I've always hated that people have told me, oh, my whole life, which is like just, you know, don't stress because it's going to make it worse. And it's like. Of course I'm going to stress. I'm going to stress. Don't stress just doesn't work. Like if there was a button, do you not think I would be pressing the don't stress button and being super chill like this is not fucking optional.
[00:04:07] I am stressed that I have to take time off. I am stressed if I go in sick like I have a ton of thoughts about it and like, why do we feel this way? Well, I've talked about this before in earlier episodes, but going around it a little bit here and I want to deep into a sorry, deep into I want to dive into presentism, which is basically the like basically the belief of like being like in the office, being like literally being present. And I think we thought potentially post-COVID that would reduce. And I do think right looking before COVID and obviously for me that was before thought work, I think it was generally more acceptable to come in with like a flu or a cold. I could still get judgement like I do remember going to the office once like heavily. Like I just should not have gone in. But I had my own thoughts about having to be in the office and like coughing in the bathroom and like some people like were like, what the fuck? Like go home and stuff like that. And I think now if that was the case, it'd be like pretty much like, dude, go home, like do not spread your germs around here. So I think that has definitely changed. But what I'm still seeing is I'm still seeing presenteeism.
[00:05:25] Like something I hear a lot is I'm sick, but I'm working from home, so I should just continue to work and I'm like, But you are sick and I'm like, really frickin ill. And it's like, No, no, I can still like it's almost like, well, working from home is just more comfortable and easier, so I should still work. And I'm like, this is just, it's the same thing. It's still presenteeism, it's still, I'm at work, but you are genuinely not feeling well and you're like, okay, well I'll still log on and I'll still slog away and I'll still keep doing it. So again, talked about this before it comes down to the fact that and this is like my take on this now capitalism doesn't have any room really for rest. So it's all about and we hear this all the time in society, like hustle, culture, working, always, always being productive like 24, seven, like always growing and doing things. It doesn't take into account like human beings and getting ill and sick and needing time to take off. Let's take an example. I think I've been in this example myself where like sometimes you're in a corporation or you're set up in a team that just doesn't have enough people, and then one person is out sick and that impacts the whole fucking team. Then you come back and the work piles up. That is what I mean when I say it's not set up for people to necessarily get sick.
[00:06:56] It's like. It's not. Yeah, it's like literally not taking that into account. It's like everything is expected to work and go a certain way. Everything is expected to be productive. Everyone is almost expected to be like a robot, but that is not the case. There are times when like you're going to be out, etc. Now I don't want to go into a massive debate around how society and corporations should be set up and stuff like that, because the fact is that's never necessarily going to change. Like there was always going to be, you know, I've worked in various roles where there isn't enough people in the team or there is enough people or things can get shifted or things can't get shifted. Like the environment that you're working in is always going to change. But what you can change is your brain, how you think and what you do from that place. Because I am telling you right fucking now, I'm giving you a piece of hard truth when you are working, when you are super sick, you're not getting anything done. I know you think you are and you probably are getting a little bit done, but like I read this all the time or oh, I only got half of what I got got done. Yeah, no shit. You're fucking sick. Like, here's what I say all the time. Have you not seen this yourself? Have you not been in this yourself where you take a day off and you're like, okay, one day and I get better and then the next day you're still really sick.
[00:08:23] You are not well, but you push through it. You're like, Nope, the one day was what I needed. And then you go in or you go to work or whatever you do, and then you're pushing through it, you're feeling like shit, and then you end up needing to take more time off like you're in, in, you're out. The amount of times I have done that, especially pre-COVID, when I would go in so sick, which I know it's like looking back now, it's like, well, no, do not do that. And I think post-COVID, I'm so much like different now. I'm just like, no, no, no. If I'm ill, I will basically make the decision. Do I can I do bit of work? Should I like take a proper sick day? Because another thing as well, sometimes I'm I'm talking about sick when like you're waking up with a frickin fever, you are coughing. You maybe have had a terrible like night and you just feel awful like, you know, in your body deep down, you know, you need to take a sick day anyway. You basically still have this belief that if I'm doing something, if I'm just doing shit like, you know, the work that's piling up, for example, you're getting it done, you're not getting it done effectively.
[00:09:34] You are not when you are in that state. And this is the trick that I realized through thought work that I that I want to also teach you. I've talked about it a little bit before around how, you know, like if your stress response kicking in your prefrontal cortex isn't turned on, it's kind of the same thing when you are sick. Think about how much you're focusing on how you physically feel. Think about how you are judging yourself. Think about how you have this sore throat and you have brain fog. The brain fog. And you were trying to get through things. You're not working efficiently and you're taking it. You're making you getting better take longer. You honestly are. But because you do not want to sit with the uncomfortableness of resting or dealing with those feelings of telling your boss, Hey, I need to take some time off. All the thoughts around, Oh my God, you know, my work team, my whole team has slumped and now I'm taking time off and I feel terrible. You don't do it and you actually make it worse in the long run. Whereas if you took the 2 to 3 days and obviously I'm using this as an example here to get better, like fully better, then you can come back as yourself, like, as like ready back and like ready to go. And again, I do need to make it clear I'm talking about this from my own experience of like a corporate job, which yes, there is a little bit more flexibility in the sense that it's not shift work.
[00:11:04] You can do the job from home. So if you're not feeling a bit well, you can still stay home. I understand that this experience is going to be very different for people and that I do have a level of privilege when it comes to what I am talking about and what I can help with. Is your thinking around these scenarios? Because I think everyone at one point has been sitting there with this level of guilt. And, you know, we go in or like, regardless, here's a problem. Right. My argument here, isn't that necessarily a no, it's coming off that way that you have to stay home, excluding like public health reasons and stuff like that. It's really in either situation, whether you go in or whether you stay home, you're still creating all this mental drama that makes you just feel even worse than you already are. At least do the work on your mind so that you can, whichever decision you decide to make, like go in it without the mental drama around it, and do in your gut what you really feel is necessary for this time. Because the amount of people I would see in teams and also in my clients where they are coming in or they're online, super unwell, just pushing themselves.
[00:12:27] And I used to do this as well and just making it extra more like just adding extra torture to everything. So tip ones get over sick day. Guilt is really a flip it on its head. This really helped me at the start and may help you as well. It's just knowing that I get look, I can literally get less work done when I am sick, so I might as well take that time to get better and then I can get better in the shortest amount of time so that I can go back earlier and quicker instead of like, you know, you go in and then you go off and then you go in again and then it's just like a stop, start, stop start thing that kind of happens. You can just you just, you know, be sick, get better, and then, like, get back to it. That really helped me because I was just like, I need to be productive all the time. So I'd be like, But we'll be more productive if we just take the time off. We will just save more time. And for me, I genuinely did like at least, at least like 60% believe that and kind of went with that. Obviously. I also did like models and thought work on it as well separately. But what I saw really quickly was when I did decide, okay, I am going to be home, I'm just going to take the day off.
[00:13:39] And and I really took care of myself is I was back how much I was more able to cope even though my work had piled up. And I will go into that in a little bit. It's so much better than when you stop and you're not fully better. And then you come back thinking, Oh, I just want to get ahead of it. But you're sick and you're trying to like it's like you're running and the goalpost is moving even faster. And then it's just like you can't keep up and then you're just half less productive. And then here is the thing I want to go into the judgement that we have when this is happening, when you were in. No, not well. So you've taken a day off, you come back in, you've got like a ton of work and you're like, Oh my God, there's so much I got to get on top of it. And you're just constantly judging yourself. You're just pushing that goalpost even further. You are making it worse for yourself. You're creating all this mental drama because you are judging your performance whilst you are fucking unwell and then being like, No, I have to get back to where I was like feeling better and all with it like now. But you're not what you are fighting an internal battle within yourself. Like, no, it's just it's not going to work. So recognise when that is happening, recognise how that is feeling in your body and potentially some of those thoughts.
[00:15:00] For me I wasn't thinking it out loud, but I would just notice how I would feel. I would get so cranky when nothing was going my way, when things were like changing like more than usual. Because in my brain I'm like, well, you're already like, you know, not ahead of your fucking deadlines. Now, all this shit's happening. Like, this is your fault for getting sick. And that's the other thing. Blame We're human beings for the love of God, we get sick. You know what's so funny? The amount of people I talk to, who when I go through this with them and when we're coaching one on one and then, you know, we write out like how you're treating themselves. I will read this back to them and I'll be like, Now. Would you do this to your friend or your colleague? And I'm like, Oh, God, no. And I'm like, Well, what if their colleague was like, you know, another person was telling you everything that you're doing now? I'd be like, Oh, no, I, I tell them the, you know, to take time off and and I'll be there and I can help and I can take some of the workload, blah, blah, blah. Like I'm literally like, why are there different rules for you versus everyone else? The amount of times when someone in the team is sick and you know, there is so much shit going on in the team and I'm like, Dude, I do not care.
[00:16:14] Like, put it on me. I got too much to do, but like, let's like fuck you as sick. Like we're human beings. We like, have empathy. And I just think it's so interesting that we don't put that empathy on ourselves. Yes, I know sometimes it is challenging when you have these thoughts in your head and you're like, Oh my God, the team that already got so much on. And at the same time you are not well. You need to get better so that you can come back and help. I also see my team as like a sometimes how I view it is it's almost like a football. I don't watch a lot of sport, but think of like soccer or football and you have people on the bench and then the people like come in and off. It's kind of like that. Like the way I see it is when I am sick, there are people that may need to take, you know, some work or deadlines and there's more stuff on their plate and vise versa. Like we're a fucking team. Like, yes, it's the same thing when they're sick. I'm going to do the same for them. Like it's the in-out of like we can't have everyone on at the same time. We need some people standby on the bench or whatever it's called.
[00:17:24] We need some people on the bench so that they can come in feeling fuelled and refreshed, and then those people who aren't feeling the best can come back out. I know that's probably not what happens in sport, but think about it. They have people who are ready to go in and play that haven't been playing for a bit. There's also, I'm pretty sure, like a logistical reason as to, you know, if you're playing for a massive time and you like swap them in and out. So it's kind of that's also how I see it as well. And that really helps me because it's like, okay, I need to go off the team for a little bit, go off the soccer team and sit on the bench, get better, and then come back in and then someone else is going to do the same. And like, that's okay, we're all humans. Another thing people, or at least I didn't realize at the time, all your thoughts, the shame, the guilt, all that stuff you have about. Should I take a sick day? Yeah, blah, blah. It's all about you. It has nothing to do with. The team with Oh my God, work and stuff like that hit me up. What I realized was that me taking a sick day was just a reflection of all my deep rooted beliefs about me as a person. You know, taking a sick day meant I wasn't good enough at my job.
[00:18:44] I'm weak, you know? They're going to find out a little bit of imposter syndrome. Like then, like, I won't be able to, you know, the work will pile up and then I won't be able to handle it and it'll be terrible. And when you do take the sick day, you don't want to sit with those thoughts. You don't want to sit with that shit that you'll be flogging at yourself around. It's called the I should like I should be in. I'm really not that sick. I feel fine. Like, God, you, you know, you're breathing. You're breathing. So you're like, what's going on? Like, you should be working, you cannot be resting. You are like, crap, whatever, etc. I don't think anyone wants to sit with that shit. So of course we're going to be like, Oh my God, I feel bad. And you know, the whole letting down the team thing that's all about you. Like, why does it like what's the issue? If you say you do let down the team, what does that mean about you? That's the question you've got to ask yourself. For me, it meant like I wasn't good. Like, literally, I'm not a team player and I'm not good and I'm a selfish person. Just such hateful shit that I was spewing at myself. And of course, you're not going to want to take a sick day because you don't want to sit with that. And then also you may like yourself into the office and then guess what? You got the other side of the coin.
[00:20:08] You've got your brain being like, Oh my God, I feel so sick. This is terrible. Why did you do this? People are judging you. Oh, I can't think I'm not performing. It's actually the same thoughts in two different scenarios. One is shaming you for just being a little like biatch, and then the other one is like, You should do more. You came in, God show strength. Like it's it's really ridiculous. It's just shame. It's shame either way. And really what we gotta do is start to let go of some of that, which is challenging. But this is the biggest thing that I teach people as well. And I'm also going to teach you here today. I want you to think of an example, or maybe you're listening to this sick and you can do this right now. I want you to write out how what like the scenario, like you wake up if you're sick, you know what's popping up in your head, what you're thinking about and all the actions you take. I just want you to write that down like a little story, just a little recall of what you do. After you do that, I want you to look at it, and then I want you to say, if a friend was doing this. What would I say to them? And then I want you to write all of that down.
[00:21:19] And I really want you to imagine, like a third person, a friend, even your child, like your parents partner or whatever, saying all this stuff like reliving it and then you giving them advice like, no, no, no. Like you should do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then I want you to look at that and really sit with that, and I want you to fucking write out. Why can't you take your own words of compassion? What are you making that mean? Why can't you accept that love to yourself? Because that's really what it is. It really links in with all of my self compassion stuff. It's about being compassionate to you as you are. It's not making it mean that you being sick just proves your failure. It's saying I'm a human being that is ill, that is going to need to take some time off. And I'm going to sit with that and get better and then come back when I'm ready. And that is really hard for a lot of people. This includes, by the way, the whole work from home thing, too. They see people, they're like, No, it's working. I'm working from home, so it's fine. I'm like, okay, are you that ill that you can't think or you are coughing all the time? And also, by the way, this isn't defined by me. This is defined by you. You need to check in with your own body if you think I need you.
[00:22:45] I'm sick. I need to close my laptop at home. You shouldn't do it. It's you. I want you to be your own internal compass. Because here's the thing. Everyone is going to experience sickness differently. Like my sick. Someone's like, that's not sick. Whatever. Like, give me an example. My, my mom gets really horrible migraines. So my version of a migraine is like her going into work with it. She's like, Oh, honey, this is not a migraine, but that's just an optional like thought. That's their opinion. Everyone is experienced their own experiences and are going to therefore perceive it differently, if that makes sense. Like I've never gone to Vertigo. I don't know what Vertigo is, and I don't doubt if when I get Vertigo the other times where I thought I was a bit dizzy, it's like, Oh, that's nothing to compare it to. So there's no one standard. It's not like, okay, you know, this is the standard of sick and then then you're allowed to take a day off. It is what you define it as. It's if you are feeling unwell in your definition, if you are not necessarily going to be at your best, then do you need to take that time off? That decision sits with you. But what I want you to drop, I guess, is all the shame and bullshit thoughts that come from your own self. Doubt about whether it be your abilities or from what society has told us about how we should be, how we should be present, how we should always be working and contributing.
[00:24:12] Because that. Isn't helping you. It's doing the fucking opposite. I keep saying this on this episode, but the amount of times I've done this and I see this all the time that you get sick, you take a day off, you're like, Fuck it, I have to get better in this day. You go in and then it's this on off, on off thing. And it just creates so much like drama for yourself. It extends it for me. It extends the sickness because I'm like, trying to push myself when I'm still sick versus just staying home, getting better, going back in when I'm ready. And here is the thing. Whatever you decide to choose so seriously, take this exercise that I have decided. But I also want you to look at look, it took me a while to kind of get to this place. And I have made, I guess you could say mistakes is when I say mistakes. It's like I've gone in or I've been working when I really shouldn't have. But what I've done in that moment is just observed what I was thinking and what I'm feeling. That's really key in those moments. If you can do that, an either scenario, even when you've decided to stay home and you're judging yourself because you want to see those root thoughts that are popping up and it's going to take time.
[00:25:24] It's going to pop up like straight away. But just notice what you're thinking. Just be more observant and present. Instead of being all in your own head and kind of going down the rabbit hole, you can still think it, but it's just like, look, if you're listening to this right now, maybe you like Google, not Google search. If it's searched it and you're just like, How do I deal with this? And like great opportunity to start observing this stuff. And my final tip as well, and this is especially if you're like, yep, I am going to take the sick day. You're not especially if you just start doing this right, you're not going to enjoy it like he's the thing people think rest is like sometimes it's like wholesome, beautiful thing. Like even when we're sick. Like, you know how sometimes when you were little, you were sick and someone would make you soup and you'd, like, sit there and you'd like, you know, maybe suck on a lozenge and watch some cartoons. When you have all this mental drama about it, resting is going to feel like complete shit. And it's actually accepting that. It's accepting like that was really hard for me and I would still hate it. And my brain would be like, Well, if I'm home, then I should clean. And I'd be like, No, we are not cleaning.
[00:26:36] I don't know if anyone else does that. It's like, I should do some stuff around the house. Like, I need to keep being productive. It's like, No, no, no, no. So what I would have to just almost accept is my brain screaming at me being like, We need to do shit. And it's like, No, we're going to lay down here, we're going to watch all these cartoons and, you know, just, you know, we're going to try to sleep and that's enough. And it's terrible. It's not fun. I still have challenges with it now because I still have a lot of hard thoughts about being productive, showing up and stuff like that. Well, what's made it a whole heap easier is just applying that level of self compassion and working out what those thoughts really are and doing the work to really change them. Looking at How do I want to? If I could, if I could click my fingers, how do I want to feel? Like if I want to feel, I don't know, calm. Well, what I be doing if I'm calm. I would literally just be like sleeping, for example, sleeping. Not doing anything. Resting, not looking at my work phone. Know what do you think you create for yourself? I'll probably get better in a faster amount of time. I know everyone's different when it comes to sickness, but I seriously like when you're adding mental drama, you're making it worse, at least mentally.
[00:27:58] Okay, what would I need to think? What do I need to think in order to feel just a little bit calm? Maybe something like it is acceptable to be resting? Or the one that I used to always use all the time was basically like it was just and it was going in on some of my negative thoughts. This is what I mean by at a start, you can just bypass some of these shit, like some of the more wholesome thoughts just with like one, such as you'll be more productive if you take the rest, like you'll be able to go to work faster. Literally, I'd, I'd feel calm. I'd be like, Yeah, okay. Well, if I had my brain, like, that perfectionist, all that shit kind of would come in and be like, okay, like, we can do that. And then I would start to see the evidence of that, which is why I have so much less drama. I'm not going to I have a human brain. I have a human brain first, and I'm a coach second. Of course, my brain, whether it be corporate or even my coaching business, is going to be like, yeah, like you see stuff like that. But I have the skills to handle it. I am like so much better when it comes to treating myself when I'm sick. I even did like when I got COVID. Oh my God. The compassion I had to give myself was such a challenge because I was really just out for weeks and it pushed my limits a little bit.
[00:29:22] I'm like, No, no, no, I don't want to be sick for weeks. I cannot do this. But I had to teach myself a lot when it came to self compassion and how to think and how to, you know, this has happened and how to just let myself be so that I can get better. And look. Do you feel better when you're sick? No, I'm not telling you this to get rid of the sick like you're still going to have a sore throat. But you know what's great, getting rid of the bullshit mind drama, you fucking have that, you know? So you've got a sore throat and at the same time you've got all these shitty thoughts being thrown at you. Let me tell you, it's a much more balanced experience when you can just kick that shit to the curb or know how to handle it when it does pop up. And I have these skills for life and this is what I go in depth with with my clients one on one to teach them how to deal with this mental drama. So if this is something that you are interested in, then book in a one on one discovery call with me. It is a free chat where we see what's going on in your life and how I can help you. This is the end of the episode. Thank you for listening. See you guys later. Bye.