Preserving Energy on Zoom

There is entirely too much going on this week, and that's not even including the deadly pandemic that has been ravaging our world for almost a year now.

If you're in a position of authority, I implore you in your meetings (if you're having meetings) to acknowledge what's happening in the world. This is really triggering and traumatizing and we need to bring this to light and to speak to it, to give it words. Most of my calls these days are starting with kind of death stares while we orient ourselves to what's happening. It's important to give voice to the significant scariness of this moment.

Beyond that, if you have to be in meetings, how can you protect and preserve your energy, particularly on video-conference? The biggest thing to remember is that video-conference software actually picks up a lot more of your vocal volume than you might think. People are projecting and really exerting vocally when they're on Zoom and this is causing them to be drained at the end of the day. So instead, pull back your vocal volume to about 75%. Trust that the software will pick up your voice.

Also, we are used to conditioning ourselves to take a deep breath when we're feeling stressed or scared. I want to challenge this. When I'm trying to preserve my energy or I feel unsafe, I modulate how deeply I breathe. I'm still going to do intentional, conscious breathing but I'm only going to go down to a surface level because if I take a big deep breath sometimes it’s too intense, like breathing in the trauma. By modulating how deeply I go, I feel more in control.

We may not always have choices about our work environment, but you get to choose how much you take in the space around you and how much you're exerting outward. We talked a few weeks ago about not nodding so much on Zoom—that's a big part of it too. And for those of you who've worked with me you know how I feel about leaning back. That's going to help all of these behaviors manifest too.

So this week, what can you do to protect and preserve your energy? Energy that is being depleted by forces all around us on a micro and macro scale.

Wishing you moments of being able to be with yourself this week. To reflect on how scary the past four years have been. Wishing you compassionate leadership and the ability to be heard.