Chapter 3: Social Connection and Belonging
Beyond Self Care
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Book Club Notes & Take-aways
Question the assumptions & disrupt narratives
It takes a different kind of leadership
We already do this with students
Social connection needs and feeling emotional pain
Spaces to help connections or friendships at work
It’s a system thing!
Guests
Maureen Lee is a former District Principal of Inclusive Education in the West Vancouver School District and is now a professor at Quantlan Polytechnic University teaching Counselling Psychology. Her work includes teaching a class called the reflective practitioner which is about how to keep yourself well when you go into a helping field.
Suzanne Vardy holds a Masters of Education in Counselling Psychology from the University of Victoria and is a registered clinical counsellor with the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors. Suzanne has been supporting children, youth, and families in the Lower Mainland for 25 years working in a lower mainland school district helping to ensure schools are safe and welcoming places. She also has a private practice where she works with people to strengthen their understanding of and compassion for themselves and others.
“This chapter in particular really speaks to me …somebody is looking after themselves - they’re keeping up their social connections, they’re doing their walks, they’re eating right, they’re doing all this self-care. But if we are in an environment that isn’t supportive, that isn’t healthy and where we don’t feel connected, valued, and like we belong, then our well-being suffers. ”
The following conversation was sparked by one simple question: Where did you highlight or put sticky notes?
Question the assumptions & disrupt narratives
Maureen Lee: You got me at the subtitle: a culture of connection not competition. When you're building a team, when you're working on a team, when you're not competing, when you are actually working for a common goal and trying to enrich each other - that's the thing of beauty that's the sense of belonging. When we feel the least bit insecure or when our egos get involved, we think, “ I need to take the limelight for that” or “I need to show my worth” and you know those conversations that you have with people where you're trying to determine the things that work well and how do we improve learning, and how do we improve our interactions with each other but then we get together in a room and we lose that sense of we're all in this together. oh I'm not as good as they are and where it's coming from is a sense of I'm not as good as everybody else I'm not good enough. This whole section spoke to me and particularly questioned the assumptions and disruptive narratives of traditional systems that historically take advantage of some people and wisdom over others.
Suzanne Vardy: That section is what jumped out at me too - question assumptions and disrupt narratives of traditional systems. That so resonates with me. You've got a line in here Gail, if everyone thought the same way, there would be no growth or change to move people forward. When there's differences, being curious rather than looking at them saying, “oh, we're not doing that so I'm gonna disregard it” or “I'm going to feel a little defensive and get a little competitive about it.” Instead taking that really curious stance - oh that's interesting! What does that add? How does that work? How would that fit for us? That diversity is so important.
I also think when we're talking about well-being and environments where people's well-being is really impacted by the environment, oppressed peoples, for example, the LGBTQ community or bipoc community, indigenous communities - we have a lot of environments where they don’t thrive. We're having a lot more conversations and a lot of good people are doing some really good work, but I think that's so important to question our systems and disrupt these narratives. Need to realize that what might work really well for me is definitely not going to work well for everybody. How do we lift each other up?
Gail Markin: You know it when you're in those kind of groups, you can feel it right? We've been on teams where there's people from all over the place talking about the things that they're doing and sharing and It's exponentially more creative! Yet we all know those other kind of spaces where you don't feel heard or you wonder whether others are feeling heard. It doesn't feel like a safe space. We all have this intuitive knowing, but it's nice to break it down and think about the things that make us more connected.
It takes a different kind of leadership
Maureen Lee: Your book is all about leadership, so the question for me would be, in order to do this thing - to question the assumptions and disrupt narratives - that means you have to look at yourself and that puts yourself in a very vulnerable position. People are looking at you for direction and you're saying, “hey we gotta question everything" or “I don't have the answers.” I think that's an interesting position to ask someone to be in if they've never been exposed to that kind of leadership themselves. I think that's kind of tough.
Suzanne Vardy: It’s a new way of leading with a kind of confidence you have to have in order to be vulnerable.
Gail Markin: It shakes the system up a little bit. To actually start thinking that it doesn't matter where you are in the hierarchy, your knowledge is valued and your contribution to the group is valued. You don't have to pretend that you know it all because that's not the point. It's not one person that needs all the wisdom, one person can't have all the wisdom and so it has to be a group effort.
Maureen Lee: I'm thinking yes and no (and this is this is where it gets tricky) because when you're an administrator you have certain managerial responsibilities and you represent the board so there are certain times when you have to be “the boss” and you have to tell people this is what you will do. The trick is knowing when it's time to do that versus times when we need to make decisions together and talk as a human being. I can take my administrator hat off and, like in restorative practices, physically sit in a circle and the hierarchy is gone. No one will forget that you are the boss but when I'm sitting with you in circle, I'm coming with you with an open heart. I think that's the trick but it's not easy.
Gail Markin: I think it's around the clarity and the questioning of how the decisions are being made. How are we discussing it and then also questioning it. There is the things that we have leeway around and there are the things that are provincially mandated. It's that clarity and questioning about these decisions and ways of being. I think there are times when decisions need to be made in a directive way but I think there's also a lot of situations where that's not the case. I think we just do things on autopilot and I think it really would serve us well to have conversations - maybe it doesn't have to go that way or maybe there is someone else we can pull in and get their wisdom.
Suzanne Vardy: It's quite new that idea of sitting in circle and taking off the hat and having those questions is very new. Along with that sort of vulnerability there is this idea that there's going to mistakes made . We're not going to get it like a hundred percent. We're going to have these messy conversations and we're going to try these things that have not been tried before. There also has to be this permission giving for ourselves and for each other that that can happen. What's beautiful about that is that that's what we're asking our students to do. We're asking them to try new things; we're asking them to learn and grow; we're asking them to step out of their comfort level and do all these different things. If we're telling them that but we're not doing it ourselves, I don't think it's authentic. There's a real passion and a real gentleness that has to kind of accompany this.
We already do this with students
Gail Markin: I think in almost every one of the chapter podcast conversations, we've talked about the connection between the classroom and the workplace. I think we do a great job at belonging and connection, we're so aware of trying to work on that with our students and making sure that everyone feels that they belong that they're connected. Moving it into the workplace conversations is so fascinating!
Suzanne Vardy: We know that the number one way to teach things is through role modeling, they're watching all the time, they pick up on everything. If we're going to teach this in a really authentic way we've got to role model.
Social connection needs and feeling emotional pain
Gail Markin: What do you guys think of the brain and the pain research?
Suzanne Vardy: I love Matt Lieberman's reserch I've always been fascinated by his research so I love that you included it. He talks about how emotional pain is located in the same centers in our brain as physical pain, which it's just astounding to me. I think that is so magnificent and hard to articulate in a really succinct way. I thought you did that so well in the book, Gail. Our ancestors needed social connection for survival. You needed the group to survive and so our emotional pain centers are the same as our physical pain because it really is life and death.
Gail Markin: The one that also really got me was that idea that when you describe physical pain you describe it in quite descriptive words. But when you talk about that emotional pain - like rejection or not feeling like you're part of the group - you actually start re-feeling that or re-experiencing it in your body. If you ask people what's the most painful experience they’ve ever had, they will not tell you about the time they broke their leg or childbirth or any really painful physical experiences, they'll tell you about their broken heart. Why are our bodies designed that way? It was a thing to help us survive. When we then move that into our workplaces, what does it feel like if you don't feel like you're part of the group? If you don't feel that you have value to contribute?
Suzanne Vardy: It's so deeply embedded as well. I remember hearing about a study that when we're learning something new, or we're seeing a new TV show, or we're hearing about a new book, our brains are already making social connections. We're thinking, “who could I share this with? Who else might like this book?” You may or may not follow up on that but we're making those social connections all the time. It’s such an old part of our brain and it's just so deeply embedded.
Spaces to help connections or friendships at work
Suzanne Vardy: Here's one that I underlined - the quote on page 57: “the important part is not for you to be friends with everyone on your teams but to have some connection with all team members and care about them.” I love you bringing attention to that because it's not about being friends with everybody and I think that it sometimes where people go. You don't need to be friends, you need to have a connection. That’s feeling safe and being able to feel like you can be vulnerable and that people have got your back.
Gail Markin: Everyone needs that feeling of value. I think you're right, you don't have to be friends with everyone at work but the other side of that is the value of having friends at work! The research is that it's actually really good to have friends at work. We spend about a third of our lives at work, so it's nice to have friends.
Suzanne Vardy: I like this piece too, (I underlined it, you wrote it) it says it's not your job as a leader to organize the friendships but if you create space for them to happen naturally they will. It can be physical space or time-kind-of-space but if you create those opportunities it will happen.
Maureen Lee: Some of the high schools have all these little rooms that departments have lunch in and no one's sitting in the staff room - that's a new designs of a lot of the schools. When I started off my career, that's where I met people, that's where I first learned how to play Crib! It was the culture of that school to rush down to go sit at the crib table. It’s how I learned about what was going on in the school beyond my classroom. If we start from the ground up architecturally, we can think about those areas where you want people to gather and create those spaces.
I remember one of the schools that I was an administrator and I sat in their very first budget meeting. I could not believe the way that departments were talking to each other, saying, “no you can't have that money because you don't need it.” When resources are scarce, that's when the claws come out. The next year we started having these potluck lunches once a month and I tell you the budget meeting was a little different! You cannot be saying things like that to somebody who you just sat next to talking about what you're going to do on the weekend with your kids. The whole tone was different.
Suzanne Vardy: I really appreciate what you're saying about the crib table. If I imagine a traditional staff room, it's a large table with chairs around the outside - a bit like the boardroom but homey-er because there's a kettle and a sink. Not very conducive to smaller conversations. I really like the staff room we have, it's set up with booths and there are little tables and a couch. It is set up for more intimate conversations. I think places that are built where there are options are ones that work well for people naturally finding friends and naturally gravitating to connection.
Gail Markin: I think staff meetings - we all bring in our laptops or our phones and we're trying to get the last little bit done before the meeting starts. We miss those opportunities for conversation as you grab a snack. They're simple connections but they make a difference.
Suzanne Vardy: I would love to see meetings where EAs and custodial staff and front desk staff are a part of staff meetings. There's a lot of other adults (beyond teachers) in the building too. When we're looking at systems, how do we begin to help everyone feel connected? And if it's not possible there, then where is it possible? Where can we make room for it? Where can we be creative and see it happen more?
Maureen Lee: Part of it is the structure of non-teaching staff who have a certain contract and support staff who have a different contract and are paid by the hour. You can invite support staff to come to your staff meeting but they might not be getting paid . If you want to pay them, where are you going to find the budget ? Contractually they don't have to be there.
It’s a system thing!
Suzanne Vardy: And that's a systems thing! What do we want? How can we start creating that wiggle room? How can we start asking these questions? How can we start looking at the bigger system to address some of these pieces?
Gail Markin: No one said it was going to be easy! Messy, complex, relational - when we start having those conversation and making some of our decisions with that lens and listening to when they let you know. I really wanted to make an effort to get people to connect with their hearts as well as their heads. Thank you so much for joining me today and for talking about this chapter and I look forward to us sharing it out with even more people!
