Reflections from Laridae’s summer retreat: talking about boundaries and overwhelm

Photo courtesy of Madison Sweet, who brought a film camera to our retreat.

Reflections from Laridae’s summer retreat

By Danielle Rocheleau

The Fall has kicked into high gear, with everyone hitting the ground running. Some of our clients are sharing with us that they’re feeling renewed and refreshed after some downtime this summer, while others are still looking forward to some much-needed time off. For reminders on why taking time away is important, see our post about rest as resistance.

I empathize with the quick start to the new season that many are experiencing. Along with it comes increased levels of stress and overwhelm. In service-oriented, social-purpose organizations we’re consistently striving to do more, reach more, and support more.

But where do the healthy boundaries come in? How can we create a culture of rest and renewal in our teams? How can we effectively support each other, knowing that stress and overwhelm are likely inevitable?

I don’t have all the answers, but I wanted to share some activities that the Laridae team engaged in together to build understanding, allow for open and honest conversations, and identify ways to support one another through what will be a high-flying, busy, and hopefully fun Fall.

In late-August, we saw an opportunity to bring the team together (we are remote after all) from across the province for a retreat. Surprise, we even facilitate retreats within our team – like true planning enthusiasts.

Exploring stress, anxiety, and overwhelm

We opened this time together with a team discussion rooted in the first chapter of Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart entitled, ‘Places we go when things are uncertain or too much,’ in which she explores emotions like stress, overwhelm, anxiety, worry, avoidance, excitement, dread, fear, and vulnerability.

Everyone was asked to come to the gathering having read or listened to this chapter. We then posed the following questions:

  • How did this chapter resonate with you?
  • Where does it show up in our work?
  • What strategies can we put in place to support each other when we feel this way?

The conversation was honest, vulnerable, and productive:

  • We learned about how we can tell when others on the team are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or anxious.
  • We explored ways that we each feel comfortable accepting support from others during stressful times.
  • We identified language to communicate when we’re feeling full-on, unable to determine the best next step, or overwhelmed.

We had some good laughs in the process. And we’re already starting to use the language in our check-ins.

In the end, we decided to communicate full-on overwhelm with the phrase, “I’m 5 seagulls in,” an inside-joke reference to the fact that “Laridae” means “gull” in Latin. Hence the laughs.

Exploring boundaries

Following our discussion about emotions, that may or may not have resembled group therapy, we dug into another topic: How to create healthy boundaries.

Our colleague, Caitlin Patterson, facilitated a session that allowed us to better understand our habits, explored Indigenous worldviews in comparison with Western perspectives of work and productivity, and reinforced what we will and won’t do in our work.

Ultimately, we decided to make a commitment to support each other in creating healthy boundaries by normalizing healthy behaviours to:

  • Prioritize the right things for us, and not try to prioritize ALL the things
  • Pause before agreeing to do something
  • Ask for help when things feel too much

Making real change takes practice, and we need to build our own comfort levels with setting and maintain healthy boundaries and behaviours. We’re actively exploring ways to build our capacity as a team, together.

Like podcasts?

In addition to Brené Brown’s many books exploring how we show up in the world, a podcast with a relevant episode popped up for me this week. “We Can do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle”’s podcast episode entitled “How to De-stress: Relaxation Intervention with Amanda (and You)”. For those of us who resist rest, argue that there’s no time for relaxation, or feel like it’s ‘just another item on our To Do list,’ this is a listen for you.

Next steps

If you’re interested in having these kinds of conversations with your team, we’d be happy to facilitate.