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DARE Impact Consulting

๐ŸŽค Is this thing on?

Published about 2 years agoย โ€ขย 1 min read

Issue #23

Weekly evaluation inspiration for...

Non-profits who DARE

Sometimes it feels like I write this newsletter as much for myself as for anyone else. I've had some really powerful experiences over the past few days and that's what's inspired this week's message.

A while back a colleague of mine fell and broke a bone. Our boss said that they had a lot on the go so it wasn't surprising that they got hurt. As a perpetually clumsy person, I thought this was a pretty weird thing to say. I've hurt myself at my lowest stress times and sometimes in high stress I have the reflexes of a cat.

Then, this week, while rushing around running errands, I scraped someone's car in a parking lot. The last time anything like this happened to me, I was a newly-minted driver in 2004 (late bloomer). Now, in 2024, I was completely perplexed about how I could suddenly forget the dimensions of my car.

My old boss' words about stress leading to accidents finally made sense. It's not any one thing that's stressing me out, just an overall busy-ness and really not listening to myself when I know my brain and body could use some rest. When you pack your brain with too much stuff all at once, something's gonna give.

It made me think about how we show up when we're stressed. I can look calm and collected, but my nervous system is working on overdrive and hoping people "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain".

All of us, and especially women and people of colour, have been socialized to keep it together and play our cards close to our chest. The truth is, trying to break patterns, confront systems, and commit to doing things differently is hard. It requires us to recognize when our ego is kicking in, when we're at risk of getting defensive, and to give ourselves permission to feel our feelings. When we don't give ourselves time and space for reflection, can we really hold that space for others?

What are some of the clues that stress is getting to you? In Windsor-Essex and know a good body shop? Hit reply and let me know!

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