“It really is just honoring your needs and acknowledging that you have needs to begin with. As mothers, we forget that. You can go to all the empowerment meetings where everybody’s like, ‘self-care this’ and ‘do that’ but a lot of times it goes nowhere because you have no idea what actions to take next. Or the type of self-care everybody’s talking about is just too big,” said Terri Huggins-Hart, Journalist, Editorial Consultant and Advocate.
Being open about what we want and acting in alignment with our needs or values, is an overlooked part of self-care. It’s also much more accessible in our daily lives than a spa day. How often are you on the receiving end of the dreaded, “run around?” when you ask for something? Busy culture has become the norm. Combine that with cancel culture, and few people are willing to have candid conversations. So, we find ourselves increasingly stuck in a vortex of gaslights or stoplights.
Yes, there are times when it’s in your best interest to disengage. But emotional labor, is already the price of admission for many of the spaces we enter. And it’s often expected that we give up and walk away empty hearted when we hit roadblocks however, you don’t have to.
Emotional Labor Comes with a High Price
The term ‘emotional labor’ was originally coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild in her book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling to explain suppressing real feelings in the workplace. For example, for people in client service roles where “the customer is always right” even if that customer is verbally abusive or wrong. It not only sparks anger over time it creates cognitive dissonance. However, emotional labor doesn’t just happen at work.
We are socialized to please others, yet we’re wired to act in alignment with our values. If we swallow disappointment and pretend everything “is fine” over time it can lead to anxiety, mental and physical fatigue. Whether it’s in your workplace, friendships, or community, learn how to find your way out of the tunnel and emerge with your intentions intact.
How Quickly do you Want Action?
Terri specializes in helping people infuse personality into clear and compelling professional communications. Including, elevating the out of office email. She’s also a disability advocate. And approached her local government to make the playground more accessible for neurodivergent kids with a communication board.
She explained, “It was not a short process. In all honesty it took a year and a half because I was doing this by myself and what they say is true, ‘if you want to go fast go with others. If you want to go slowly go alone’ but I also wasn’t in a race. I was okay with doing this by myself and taking a long time because I didn’t have the bandwidth to organize a team.”
What Are Your Desired Outcomes?
Terri started her quest by reaching out to the key decision maker. “I started with a Facebook message then the mayor asked me to e-mail him. And he just kept giving me the run around for a very long time, like a year.” Bureaucratic structures, like government agencies, are known for their lack of speed. However, how quickly you can impact change can depend on a lot of factors.
Assess Your Capacity and Preferences
As Terri shared, community groups can accelerate change but there’s also a lot of energy and time required to harness the power of others. It helps to understand your personal change management style. She said, “There are people who love to organize and work within a group and there are people who prefer, even if it’s just in that moment, to do things on their own.” Where do you fall on that continuum? It’s one of the key questions you can ask yourself to set up your ‘ask’ for success.
Analyze the Situation You’re In
Surface the key aspects of what you are trying to do. Then decide how to approach the challenge.
- Are you, like Terri, trying to make a change that involves convincing the government?
- Do you need to influence a single person or a group of people? If it’s the latter, how many decision makers are involved, and do they have a structured process to make decisions about your stated needs?
- The last time you convinced someone to do something different than the default, how did you do it?
- And what type of influence feels good to you versus draining?
Escalate Your Request
Whether you were overcharged by your bank, advocating for more afterschool programs, or seeking better parental leave at work, you need someone willing to help. If the person you start with is not “your person” you will need to find another channel of communication, connection, or way of creating urgency.
Terri said, “I just spoke to anybody that I could find. I’m an editorial consultant and have a background in media so, talking to a bunch of strangers regardless of their title, does not phase me. Not everybody feels that confident or comfortable so, it’s important to share that.” If cold outreach is not your superpower, see if you’re connected to someone on LinkedIn or within your community who can make a warm introduction.
After contacting a lot of different people, Terri found her way in. “What made the big difference oddly enough was making a post about it on the town Facebook group and then suddenly, people started jumping on it.”
Find Your Champion
Terri explained that the Facebook post attracted comments from a handful of people, but it was enough to create more visibility. And demonstrate support for this need. “Somebody who worked in the local government sent me a message. She said, ‘did you reach out to the mayor about this?’ I said actually I have I have spoken to the mayor, the parks and rec department and everyone says they’re going to get back to me. Fortunately, that person was on the town council, I gave her the information and she took it to the board meeting. And that’s how this got put up.”
Represent for Others
Part of advocacy is allyship. And creating awareness for the needs of others, even when their circumstances might differ from yours. Terri said “My husband works at a university so, he’s very fortunate to have a lot of vacation time. He could just take vacation days to go to our son’s IEP meetings because he has a lot of them. But I’m like, ‘no you have to take the paid leave so others can see that it is okay for them to take paid leave.’ I told him to exercise it and then let people know, maybe using his out of office e-mail, that this is happening.”
Be intentional About Your Happiness
Believe in your power of persuasion. And commit to seeing what you want, modeled or executed, especially in the spaces where you have the most influence. Women, especially mothers, tend to self-silence. We’re socialized not to “create a fuss” and “keep the peace” but we have a lot of ideas, innovations and empathy, to improve our environments. There has never been a better time for your voice to be heard so, free yourself from the strain of emotional labor. It’s vital to your wellbeing and efficacy.
Terri said, “I have two boys and one time when they were filling out those big first day of school boards, my oldest son was 5 at the time. He answered the question, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ by saying he wants to be a ‘happy big boy’ and I’m like you know what? That’s the goal right! What do I want to be when I grow up? Happy.”
Many thanks to the talented Terri Huggins-Hart!
Learn more about her work on her website and follow her great adventure on LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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About Terri:
Terri’s Superpower? She’s proudly too much…
Terri Huggins [Hart] is an award-winning journalist who lives in the constant state of an identity crisis: deciding if she aligns more with her maiden name (Huggins) or her married name (Huggins Hart) at any given moment. Nonetheless, she’s excelled in following her calling of telling stories of advocacy and triumph. In the last 15 years, she’s had the opportunity to contribute meaningful reported stories and personal essays to national publications. Terri is also a fervent advocate for members of the disabled, Black, and parenting communities.
As an editorial consultant, Her primary focus is helping professionals breathe life into their work through self-exploration. Through it all, she continues to follow her hack for living life with no regrets: do what you love, give love, and lead with love; and hopes you’ll learn to do the same.
