How are you doing?
It's happened twice in the last few months: the words "how are you doing?" appear in my Messenger from someone who is a Facebook friend but not someone I'm in touch with regularly. My initial feeling of "how nice, someone is checking in!" changes quickly to my recognition that this person's account has been hacked. I'm struck by two things: my first always positive reaction and my following sadness that even the kindest gesture is now being used for deception.
We've had the loveliest summer in Maine — warm, sunny, low humidity days with the bluest sky I can remember. While the virus is still out there, Maine's lucky to have low COVID-positive rates so people are out and about enjoying the natural beauty of this amazing state. Despite staffing challenges and inflation issues, the coffee shops and eateries and bars are buzzing. There's art in the parks (a piano one day!) and bountiful farmers' markets. But there's also alarming news daily, and an anger and fear that's palpable. I'm an optimist, most days, and these last few months even I've felt down some times.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe, I texted the words "how are you doing?" to my friends who are girl moms. I wanted them to know that I was here for them, if they needed support. I hope you have friends or family who do that for you: check in just to check in. And, who take the time to listen. The second part is the hardest, of course. I'm lucky to have a grown son who is the best listener. When he asked me the other day how I was doing and I said "ok," he responded "just ok?" which said to me he heard some sadness in my voice. Hearing my son acknowledge the qualified answer I gave made me feel better.
Some of the “meh” feeling a lot of us are experiencing is tied to a widespread "sense of stagnation and emptiness." Adam Grant, the organizational psychologist from Wharton, first talked about languishing last winter. He also spoke with Yale's Laurie Santos about this on her podcast for The Happiness Lab. No surprise that languishing has been called the "dominant emotion" of the pandemic era. It's also something I see sometimes with clients. It's understandable that this happens in the job search, especially now! Job searching in the best of times is hard work with the wait time for responses, the range of emotions you feel with each application, and the rejection that sometimes comes.
My work is as a career coach, not a licensed mental health counselor. I've benefited from talk therapy myself as I was going through transitions in my life. Many of my career coaching clients also see a therapist. If your answer to "how are you doing?" leaves you wondering if you should be seeing a professional counselor, let this be the sign to take that first step. If you don't have a referral from a friend or trusted advisor, check in with your primary care physician or other health care provider for a referral. The answer to "how are you doing?" doesn't need to be "fantastic," but you deserve the help you need today and every day.
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Hymn For The Hurting by Amanda Gorman
Everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed and strange,
Minds made muddied and mute.
We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.
And yet none of it is new;
We knew it as home,
As horror,
As heritage.
Even our children
Cannot be children,
Cannot be.
Everything hurts.
It’s a hard time to be alive,
And even harder to stay that way.
We’re burdened to live out these days,
While at the same time, blessed to outlive them.
This alarm is how we know
We must be altered —
That we must differ or die,
That we must triumph or try.
Thus while hate cannot be terminated,
It can be transformed
Into a love that lets us live.
May we not just grieve, but give:
May we not just ache, but act;
May our signed right to bear arms
Never blind our sight from shared harm;
May we choose our children over chaos.
May another innocent never be lost.
Maybe everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed & strange.
But only when everything hurts
May everything change.
