Quicksand

Growing up quicksand was a big deal. The kids who grew up in the 80s were exposed to a lot of quicksand-related trauma as illustrated by this one minute montage and this article. If you have personally never been victimized by a serious fear of quicksand and are wondering what the hell I am talking about please listen to this excellent episode of Radiolab. They get it. The thing about quicksand that was always most scary to me was that the harder the person tried to extract themself, the further they sank. Quicksand disregards your efforts. Quicksand doesn't give a shit. Quicksand has you and it’s not letting go. Also, quicksand always looks kind of gloopy* and sticky and that, if you were able to get out it would be a real bitch to get off of your clothes and person. 

Quicksand popped into my brain the other day because I am a bit stuck. Not in actual quicksand (whew!) but I still don’t like how it feels. Here’s the deal. I have never been very excited to write because it was never really fun. I wrote essays in college** but those were on assigned topics with prescribed formats. I wrote a master’s thesis on a topic of my choosing, political corruption in Mexico (#lamordida), but was limited in how I wrote about it. Then I started doing academic writing in my PhD program and that was lame. I was limited in pretty much every way. Academic writing is formulaic, dry, and lacks an opportunity to swear or include photos; though I do enjoy a good footnote. Writing this blog is different. I enjoy it and I want to do it because I actually like it and not because I have to. The problem is I am running out of hours in the day. When I started doing this in August I promised myself two posts a week and I did that. Now it’s January. Classes are about to start again and sabbatical is over. In addition to my normal professor job I am still Department Chair, North American Editor of the Journal of Business Ethics Education, and a boatload of other things to other people so I am trying to be realistic (gross).  I want to do all of the things but I can’t and it’s bumming me out. I do not like feeling disappointed (I’m guessing nobody does) and am trying to get my head around how to let some things go in order to do all of the things I need to do. I started reading about how to deal with disappointment and found some great suggestions. First, we have to actually acknowledge it. 

I am in the valley of disappointment because I can’t spend all of my time writing fun things for the blog. 

Next, we have to accept things as they are. This is not easy. I will try:

I have a lot of obligations. Some are fun and some are not but I have to take care of them all. The blog is not an obligation but it is an outlet and I know that is also important. I will likely need to write less for fun in order to take care of everything but I am not willing to stop writing it altogether. 

To combat disappointment we can consider the opposite. Instead of letting it fester, flip it on its head. Take a look at this awesome wheel of emotions. The thought is that you may be able to counterbalance the disappointment with a feeling from the opposite side of the wheel. 

After acknowledging the disappointment (which falls under grief), instead of wallowing in it, you try on a little joy. What is making you happy right now? That doesn't eliminate feeling disappointed but it takes the edge off a bit. Here’s mine:

The other day a woman I have never met messaged me on IG to tell me she loved my blog and that it made her laugh. She found it because one of my friends who lives in the UK posted a link to it on a moms with PhDs Facebook group. That is amazing and random and how social media works and exactly why I am doing this in the first place. Knowing a woman somewhere read this and resonated with it; that’s all I want.

Speaking of joy, I started a new thing this year. Every day I write down one thing that brought me joy. I am never going to have a gratitude journal. I will never have any journal of any kind. But I can write two words a day about what made me happy. My thought was that, when things are feeling shitty, I can flip through all those little moments of joy and get back on track. 

I really like the idea that you are disappointed because you are passionate about something. I am. I am passionate about helping women (and myself in the process) extricate themselves from this shell game we are forced to operate in (#patriarchy). I am passionate about building my force field and helping other women do the same. I am passionate about women knowing they are not crazy; that all the “little” slights, comments, looks, and suggestions are happening, are not acceptable, and that there are solutions.  

I’m also learning that disappointment can lead to success (even HBR says so!) which isn’t something I had considered. I was so focused on the icky side of the feeling that I missed what comes next. What comes next for me is that I’m going to keep writing the blog when I can and I am going to move past the disappointment that I can’t dedicate more time to it right now. I have a long list of topics I want to write about and it keeps growing because insane things continue to happen in the world. I am looking at you Missouri House of Representatives. The success I am hoping for is that women continue to find the blog. That it helps women feel seen. That it leads to conversations that lead to connections that lead to me getting in front of even more women and that, together, we revolt. 

If you want to help me keep the blog rolling please share it far and wide + send me topics you think I should write about. I am not (yet) past feeling bummed out but I have a lot of joy too. I have new research in the works with fun co-authors that will allow me to remain a qualified Scholarly Academic (the blog does not count as “scholarly”). I have an air fryer. I made it into Dandayamana Janushirasana on several occasions recently and it would appear that feeling stuck in quicksand offers time to reflect in ways I don’t normally. Rather than what I would do normally (struggle!!!) I’m going to follow these actual suggestions for getting out of quicksand because most of them seem helpful for life in general. I’ll let you decide which ones work for you and if I see any of you walking around barefoot with your arms in the air I will know what’s up.

*Not goopy. I do not want to use any word that could possibly be confused with a mention of the brand name Goop. Gweneth Paltrow is a scammer. Goop’s “wellness” products are snake oil. $525 for a gray turtleneck sweater (G. Label by Goop) inspired by what Gweneth wants to wear is both a crime and eye-roll inducing. You can either get “luxury-grade investment pieces at direct-to-consumer price” (barf) or an equally cute sweater from Everlane ($100) where they ethically source materials and transparently share their costs and supply chain. Oof. That was a bit of a rant. Gwyneth really bugs me.

**I once took a summer class at the University of Pittsburgh on political history. I was not excited about that class. I didn’t proofread my first essay so I did not realize that my printer had not printed every other line. I turned it in. For my second essay I wrote about Karl Marx except I spelled Karl with a C!!! Carl Marx. That professor probably told his friends about me. I don’t know how I passed that class. I’m a professor now. Dream big kids!

Here’s to your guts!

I have started using evenings in my quiet office to get a lot of work done. Sometimes I’m the only one around. The other night I walked out to refill my water bottle and there was a guy I never saw in the hallway. My gut reaction was fear. Why? This man did not jump out at me, he did not yell, he was wearing khakis and a button down chatting on his cell. He was likely a graduate student and the scariest thing about him was probably the student debt he is incurring. 

This got me thinking about gut feelings. We all know what gut feelings are because we have all experienced them. They are that pit in your stomach, getting the butterflies, or just knowing that a situation is not quite right. Some think of these as our intuition, but whatever you call them I thought a lot about them in grad school.

My dissertation was about gut feelings and moral emotions. Specifically, guilt, contempt, sympathy, and inspiration. I wanted to know if the organizational context in which we work impacts how we react to these emotions. 

For example, if you work in a place that encourages competition, loves to use sports metaphors, and feels like a locker room, are you more likely or less likely to listen to your gut instincts and moral emotions? 

In this case I found you were less likely to listen to your gut. My hypothesis was that the (dude-centric) context sent signals that emotions aren’t a thing we do around here. You punt those someplace out and focus on results!

I thought it was a cool idea, it went through three rounds of revision at a great journal and was then rejected. Academia is super fun. Anyhow…

Since I finished my PhD, a lot of new research has come out about what is being called the gut brain connection and it is cool! Turns out our brains have a direct link to our stomachs, and intestines via the vagus nerve and vice versa. Because of this two-way street, when your gut is a mess so is your brain. Some research is positing that better gut health can lead to less anxiety, depression, fatigue, and chronic pain. That has yet to be totally confirmed but it’s promising but how do we make sure our guts are good? Do we just eat a shit-ton of yogurt and call it a day? Sadly, no. Turns out you have to eat healthy (preferably filled with fiber and non-meaty) food, take a probiotic, exercise, and try to limit your stress among other things. So, next time we hang out let's eat some sauerkraut and go for a walk. That way we get our probiotics in and our farts out.

SMART Goals

Good morning blog readers! In my first post a few weeks ago I laid out my SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely) goals for sabbatical. As a reminder here is my plan:

• Weekly or bi-weekly blog posts on academically-adjacent ideas about the invisible burdens on women @ work and tightroping

  • I am consistently posting Tuesday and Thursday @ 11am

• Monthly blog posts where I rant about how Sheryl Sandberg sold us all a lie and that leaning in is a bunch of bullshit and/or stories about my son

  • Son stories ✔️

  • Sheryl Sandberg post coming next week ✔️

• Six or seven completed book chapters

• An additional dog

• A book contract with an actual company so that I don’t have to make hard copies of what I write to give as gifts

It’s been less than a month but I am feeling good and that’s probably because making progress on your goals is shown to make us happier. It feels great to write and, weirdly, science also shows that it also makes us happier. You know what else makes us happier? DOGS!!!

Please meet our newest family member: Mango San Carlos 🥭

His brother, Mr. Crenshaw Sniffers (L) wavers between indifference and slight jealousy. Human son is very happy with this development. A New Life Rescue was wonderful if you are looking for a dog-faced friend. I can officially cross this (measurable) goal off my list!

I already knew how much I love having a dog but the actual research on what they bring to our lives is so interesting! Dogs are shown to increase our levels of oxytocin thus literally making us feel better. They also decrease stress levels in us and our kids and can make us healthier. This begs* the question: do these benefits carry over to work? It looks like they do! Workplaces that allow (well-trained) dogs in the office decrease absences and increase employee retention. They also increase productivity and communication between employees and it’s a great way to attract younger employees. There are clearly people who do not appreciate doggie licks or barks during meetings so having dogs in the workplace can be a tricky thing to establish. Understanding your employees is crucial to making this work and there are some great suggestions if this is something you want to implement or pitch at your office. If just thinking about having your furry friend with you all day sounds like a dream here is a list of companies that will let you.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a baby dog belly to rub!

*unintentional dog pun