The Vital Role of Conscious Acts of Care in Building a Better World
Why Care?
Why do we need to talk about care? Surely, it’s all pretty obvious? We know how to take care of ourselves and each other, right? Well, I would love to say that the answer is yes, but as we all know, in this high-paced, constantly switched-on world that we work in, it can be tough to pay attention to caring for the things that matter most.
Societally, it’s leading to increasing mental ill health and rising levels of burnout. On an individual level, it can leave us feeling tired and worn out if we don’t incorporate the right level of self-care into our lives.
But I just want to take a step back for a moment to introduce myself and the work that I do to provide a little more context around why I’m here with you today.
I am Natasha Wallace, and I am an Executive Coach and Leadership Development expert, specialising in Conscious Leadership. I spent the first half of my career in HR and people development, and 7 years ago, I changed direction. Since then, I have been coaching leaders and teams to be at their best and stay well. My work centres on raising consciousness because, through becoming more aware of ourselves and the people around us, and through understanding how to take care of both, we can unlock our full potential. We can also find greater satisfaction and well-being.
I’m going to take you back a few years. About 8 to be precise.
Hailing a Cab
I was hailing a cab on Shoreditch High Street in London, and I flagged one down to pick me and my colleague up. A chap, pushing his bike, stopped me and asked me for some money to get a cab. He had a very bad wound on his arm, and he needed to get to the hospital. I gave him some cash and asked our cab driver if he could take this chap to the hospital instead. He said no and told me to get in the cab, with some urgency. I was pretty confused as you can imagine.
Once I was in the cab, he told me that the man with the bike was a scam artist and that he had been scamming people on Shoreditch High Street for years. He was laughing while telling the story, making fun of the guy because he was odd. At that moment, my whole world fell apart. In that moment, I saw the extent to which, as a society, we can sometimes forget to care. We can normalise things that are not OK, we can overlook people’s suffering, and sometimes even get to the point where we laugh about the misfortune of others. Or minimise it because it doesn’t affect us. Or we don’t want it to affect us.
The guy on the bike wasn’t well and he needed help. But people didn’t see him and what was really happening. They didn’t see the suffering, and the guy in the cab had become desensitised and, on that day, he had lost all sense of compassion. He didn’t care. I saw him as a mirror of myself. I was an HR Director at the time. I had been pushing for us as a leadership team to change the way that we did things, to create a better place to work. Many of our employees were unhappy, and I could see that we weren’t doing enough to respond to their needs. Every day was another nail in the coffin because I didn’t see enough care in the system that I was a part of. That day I realised that if things didn’t change, and as long as I stayed, I was no better than the cab driver.
On That Day...
Now, this is an extreme version of a lack of care. But on that day, I decided that I wasn’t going to be part of a system that didn’t care. I decided that I had to do more to support the people around me. I needed to play my part in caring more for people – and affecting some form of change.
And between that experience and my own burnout which happened a few months later – in part because I felt powerless - I developed the way in which I was going to play my part. Conscious Leadership was born out of a need to contribute to a caring society but in a way that would allow me to use my skills and passion - which was to create healthy workplaces in which people could thrive. I wasn’t able to help the chap on the bike, but I could help in other ways.
I Woke Up
Not only did I not feel able to take care of others enough at that point in time, but I also wasn’t taking care of myself. Hence, I burnt out.
I had been blind to myself and had never learned how to take proper care of myself. When I was in my early 30s, I had gone to see a homoeopath that I had known for around 10 years. He was always my go-to person when I wasn’t feeling great. On this occasion, I went to him because I was feeling stressed. I can remember him saying to me, “I want you to focus on yourself and work on a project called Project Natasha”. He had told me that I needed to focus on taking care of myself and had sent me off with the direct instruction to take care of myself. So, guess what I did? Nothing. I had no clue what taking care of myself looked like. I was so used to working, and working hard, that apart from the odd gym session, I didn’t know what self-care looked like. It would take me another ten years to start figuring that out. There are so many reasons that we find it hard to take proper care of ourselves. The physical exercise and healthy eating bit is easy – if we get that cracked (I’m still working on that). What I needed to figure out was what led me to be at my best. Which meant getting to know myself better and giving myself permission to take better care of myself. Now I work with others to help them to be at their best, I realize that it wasn’t a problem that only I faced. It’s a human problem. Most of us don’t know how to take proper care of ourselves, from a holistic perspective. Most of us don’t take enough conscious acts, to keep ourselves feeling the best we can feel.
Conscious Acts
But what do I mean by conscious acts?
Well, for me, now that I have learned more about how to stay at my best and take better care of myself, I had a lot of changes to make…I need to consciously act to take care of myself.
Turning off my laptop a little earlier in the day
Setting clear boundaries between my work and home life – for the sake of myself and my children
Asking for help more often and realising that I can’t do it all on my own – even though I really wish I could
Following the 80/20 rule and avoiding being a perfectionist - good enough is often good enough – yet I have to be very intentional about that as I know my default is to overwork things until they are perfect
I now delegate work to others, even if I can do it myself – recognizing that if all roads lead to me – I will break myself again
I now have a mentor, and even though I struggle to be vulnerable sometimes, as I don’t like admitting I haven’t got it all figured out – I know that being able to tell the truth helps me to make sense of what I need to do next and how to tackle some of the challenges I’m facing
It means being on holiday when I am on holiday – so learning how to unplug myself from the matrix – it’s not always easy but I set an intention to make sure I’m as disconnected as possible
It means patting myself on the back for doing good work and making progress – as I have learned that when I notice my progress I feel better – because I was always just focused on the goal
I take time out now to reflect on what I am grateful for because we can become consumed by what we don’t have or what we haven’t achieved – that doesn’t do me any good and I have a lot to be grateful for
I now spend more time with friends – previously friends didn’t play an important role in my life until I learned that quality relationships are the most important contributor to long-term health and well-being – we live longer when we have good quality relationships – who knew – not me
I now have weekly therapy – I had a lot of old trauma to process – and I’m not talking about truly terrible things that happened to me, it’s the way my life experiences contributed to my lack of self-worth and an inability for me to see that I mattered – when you don’t think you matter that much, self-care becomes so much harder
I journal every few days, I light candles, I book beauty treatments, I watch more Netflix – because I rarely made the time to sit down and relax before.
I try not to take things so seriously
I try not to take things so personally
I’ve got more perspective
I am kinder to myself
I have removed people from my life who didn’t make me feel great
I could probably list another 15 or 20 conscious acts, and it took me a while to figure out what worked for me and to make these regular features in my life. And you may relate to one or some of these conscious acts - either because you do them too or because you realize you should.
I didn’t ever really think about conscious acts before I burnt out. I just worked. I didn’t think about managing my energy, I just got tired. I would have thought that focusing on me, and taking care of myself, was being selfish or unnecessary. As long as I could keep on going, everything was fine.
Unconscious Acts
My life was filled with unconscious acts.
I loved work; in fact, I didn’t have much else in my life. I hadn’t really been validated as a child and finally, I had found something that made me feel worthy, and like I had some value. Work was also a great escape for me. I never stopped for long enough to really consider how I was doing.
I had normalised feeling stressed.
I had normalised drinking at the end of a hard day.
I had normalised taking my laptop on holiday.
I had normalised cancelling on friends.
I had normalised breaking down in tears fairly regularly.
I had normalised feeling overwhelmed.
I just didn’t think I had any choice but to just push through.
Now I realise that I may have been an extreme case, and we all have different things that we need to work on in our lives – mine was improving my relationship with work and the relationships in my life.
But we can all benefit from being more conscious about what we need to sustain ourselves and to be at our best. Because we’re generally on pattern repeat and carry out unconscious acts as a consequence.
Spotting the Signs
My burnout came as a massive shock to me. I had always been very resilient and I didn’t see it coming.
When I started to have panic attacks while I was driving, I didn’t see it.
When my back got really bad, I didn’t see it.
When I got increasingly stressed, I didn’t see it.
When the doctor told me I had anxiety, I didn’t believe him.
When I Googled symptoms of a nervous breakdown, I didn’t see how close I was to burning out.
I was putting my system under so much pressure and I didn’t see it. Now I pay a lot of attention to it. I take care of myself because it’s neglectful if I don’t, and I’m letting others down too because I can’t be at my best. I now know what brings out the best in me.
Having gotten to know myself a lot better, I have healed parts of me that needed to be healed. And I have found greater peace and satisfaction in my life. Through paying more attention to myself and through conscious acts of self-care, I can be at my best more often.
Until I learned what self-care was – for me – until I gave myself permission to take care of myself – I was rarely at my best. Now I work more effectively most days, I think more clearly, and I’m able to help more people. I can take better care of the people around me because I’m taking better care of myself.
Conscious Care
If self-care is about many conscious acts in service of ourselves, how do we take care of others?
Well, conscious acts matter too, like buying a gift, taking a friend out for a coffee, or listening to someone share their problems and worries – maybe giving them some practical advice, but it is so much more than that.
When we really care about the people around us, there are a number of conscious traits that we display. These traits show real care and they have helped me hugely in the work that I do in helping others. They help me to care in a way that makes a positive difference.
Conscious Traits
The most important conscious traits that have helped me hugely in my life and in the work that I do are here.
Showing Radical Love
This is a concept that has helped me to navigate through some challenging situations. What I mean by radical love is the ability to accept others and be forgiving of them, no matter how hard that can sometimes be. It’s about tolerating differences in others and accepting them for who they are. It’s about suspending judgment, so that we can give others the benefit of the doubt and avoid jumping to conclusions and applying our own logic or beliefs to the situation.
Radical love allows you to rise above the situation. It allows you to see people for who they really are and for what they are really going through. It allows us to ask why someone is doing what they are doing or what the person has been through to lead them to behave in the way that they are.
It would have allowed the taxi driver to share the story of the cyclist with more compassion. It would have allowed me to show myself greater compassion when I felt like I had failed. Radical love is what is needed when your natural inclination is to be cynical, judgmental, and punishing. It’s the ability to bring humanity to situations where others may find it hard. And we can be our own worst enemies when it comes to being kind and humane. We can be incredibly unkind to ourselves. Our worst critics.
This is why I call it radical love. Sometimes we have to radicalise the way we would naturally think or push against the way that society would naturally think, to show compassion. Whether that is to ourselves or to the people around us. It requires us to be conscious rather than just following the same old rhetoric and thinking that has been normalised.
Keep Things Drama-Free
We also need to try to reduce the drama. It’s not helpful to any of us.
Often, when we are experiencing stress, conflict, and pressure, it leads to heightened emotions and ‘drama’ which doesn’t help us to solve problems. We end up in a drama triangle where we play one of two roles. The role of the prosecutor is where we act as a critical parent and criticise and blame others. The Rescuer is where we act as a nurturing parent and try to solve things for others (which often doesn’t help them to own their own problems). Or we feel like a victim, where we feel like we have no power at all. Of course, we always have power. Even if the action we must take doesn’t feel particularly comfortable.
When someone is stressed or upset and they are playing one of these three roles, we often think that to make the other person feel better, we need to step into the drama triangle too. But we don’t. The best thing we can do is to provide an ear, some objective advice, or to ask curious questions that allow the person to explore the problem from a new perspective. Taking the heat out of the situation rather than injecting heat into it is far healthier and more productive in the long term.
That means acting as the adult, who is the objective and supportive friend who helps the other person to see what their options really are. Because there is a solution to every problem, even if it’s not easy or clear to see what that solution is.
See Them
But in order to show radical love and to keep things drama-free, we need to ‘see’ the other person.
We did a piece of research a few years ago called Project Bright Spot, where we interviewed lots of people about their best experiences as leaders. We decoded all the feedback we got, and one of the top leadership traits that made the biggest difference to people was being seen. This was about the leaders listening to them, being present, working to understand them, and connecting with them and asking them how they were. It was this experience of being seen that made people feel valued and cared for.
When we ‘see’ others, we notice them. We spot changes in behaviour. We learn more about them. We connect with them. We offer warmth and kindness that is built through understanding. It requires us to stop. To pay attention and to listen to hear, rather than listening to respond. It requires us to be present. It means accepting all of who they are, rather than looking for flaws or critiquing them.
This is not only the most powerful trait for helping others to feel cared for, it’s the most powerful leadership trait. Many of the issues that I help teams to deal with when I am doing group work stems from a lack of being seen and heard. Being seen creates a sense of belonging and empowerment that brings out our best as people. It gives us a greater sense of self-worth and contributes hugely to the way we feel about ourselves.
It’s what leads to the best friendships. The best relationships at work. And it improves our well-being.
So, just seeing the people around you makes a positive difference in the world and contributes to people feeling cared about.
Be the One
When we show radical love, when we de-escalate the drama to help find the solution, and when we really see others, we create an environment where people feel cared about. And when we start with ourselves, by using conscious acts to keep ourselves on track, we build excellent teams, excellent working relationships, and better lives.
And if you are ever worried about someone, because you notice something has changed and you can’t help them yourself, speak to someone who can. We should all be here to look out for each other. And being the one to notice how someone is means you are making an important and positive difference to the lives of others - which in turn builds a better society.
Don’t be the cab driver. Don’t stand by and look at the brokenness and feel like you can’t help.
We can all help. We can all BE THE ONE to make a difference. To do it differently to the way the people around us are doing it.
We can all listen. We can all ask if someone is OK. We can all notice if someone is acting differently and ask if we can help. We can all work harder to see the people around us.
And we can all take better care of ourselves so that we can be the best possible versions of ourselves – improving our lives and the lives of the people around us – and building a better world.
Self-care is not selfish. It’s essential for humanity to thrive.