You are angry.

Another COVID variant. The numbers are rising again. Colleagues are getting fired even though your team is already understaffed. Budget cuts yet some executives are making more money than ever. Vacation time is cut but not for some. Everything is supposed to be back to normal after all the sacrifices you made during the pandemic.

But it isn’t.

Nothing is back to normal.

You can feel the heat rising on your face, the catch in your throat and the tightness in your chest as you feel the pressure of having to produce more and more with less and less. Less time, less support, less money, less rest.

You see the ensuing chaos everywhere.

And you wonder, “who is really in charge here? And by what measures or values are they making decisions?” “Is profit or the bottom line really more important than doing the right thing?:

You did everything you were supposed to do. You got vaccinated. You worked overtime even gave up vacation time to keep your patients and loved ones safe. You feel frustrated because it feels like you are back at square one. Still exhausted. Still not having enough time to get your work done. Still missing birthdays, anniversaries and life events.

It all feels futile. Hopeless. A cluster____!

Staff shortages. Lack of Admin support. Even more expectations of productivity. Friends are quitting left and right. Suicides. Lack of autonomy. Litigation.

You feel conflicted about your values – ever mindful of your commitment to your Hippocratic Oath but feeling with increasing conviction that you cannot continue to risk your life and wellbeing to care for patients without the right support or infrastructure to help you be productive. . Or wrestling with the moral injury of having to violate your own values, what you think is right, for an organization that only cares about the bottom line.

It feels like things are at a breaking point. Yet you know you can’t afford to lash out or breakdown or be passive aggressive.

You are not alone.
Your anger is valid.
I see you and I hear you.

For many of us heart-centered, compassionate, positive, mindful, mission-driven do-gooders, anger is a difficult emotion to rumble with or even acknowledge. Many of us try to hide, mask or just pretend everything is ok but underneath, we are seething.

I am a naturally bubbly, smiley person – to share a pic of me not smiling is challenging but necessary- We need to overcome the society’s expectations for us to just grin and bear it. Enough with the emotional bypassing and toxic positivity. “Just pick another thought” is not enough. Same with facing our anger!

So, how do you deal with the anger? How do you deal with questions that haunt you like “Can I refuse to cooperate with demands that violate my values?” ”How can I continue to show up as the wholehearted, compassionate leader I am instead of armoring up for self protection?”

How do you deal with masked anger which shows up as cynicism and sarcasm? How do you deal with the mounting grief, regret, frustration, fear, sadness, despair, pain and other emotions underneath that anger?

As a Personal and Executive coach and facilitator for physicians and other helping leaders, I am witnessing unprecedented rage and anger. As one who lost my father during a physician strike and have spent the past 12 years since his death raising awareness about the importance of physician and helper-leader wellbeing, I have seen an uptick of strikes everywhere. But when I learned a physician group filed to unionize this past week, I knew we were at a tipping point. What I have been haunted by for the past decade is finally here and if we are not careful, people will die from the moral injury of having to break the oath of first do no harm in order to save themselves.

On Saturday, August 26th at 5:30 Pacific Time, I will be teaching “RUMBLING WITH ANGER” During the pandemic, I offered this session to healthcare workers, through my work with the Mindful Healthcare Collective, to rave reviews.

Come and learn about how to rumble (face the hard emotions, have the hard conversations) with the anger you currently have in a way that is aligned for you and serves the work you are doing.

Using the principles from Dare To Lead by Brene Brown and a few tips from The Dance of Anger by Hariett Lerner and Healing Rage by Ruth King, you will learn how:

• Anger is a secondary emotion, an iceberg And how to get to the emotions underneath. Cynicism and sarcasm often masks for it.

• Anger is a powerful emotion often ignited by injustice and how to use it as a catalyst for compassion, change, love, justice and courage.

• Holding on to Anger without tapping into its power to transform can make us sick, exhausted or crush our spirit

• Anger reflects on our boundaries, values, expectations and needs and how to make sure we are in alignment, expressing, meeting and enforcing them.

• You will also learn how to check the stories you are making up, how you are offloading your anger, and how to keep it from affecting your work and home life.

The 90 minute workshop is experiential – a combination of my teaching the principles, skills and frameworks for Rumbling with anger and some time for experiential exercises to help you process your own work. You are not required to interact with other participants or the host (me). Engage at your capacity, preference or level of comfort. Access to the recording will be available to participants only by a confidential link. When you sign up, your name will not be visible to other participants unless shared.

If you can’t attend but want to learn more about my 12 week virtual Dare To Lead workshop which covers this topic and other difficult emotions at work, you can see the link http://yvonneator.com/dtlsept2023 For several years now, I have facilitated Dare to Lead workshops for hospitals, residency programs, schools and non-profits, serving physicians, teachers, dentists, vets and so on equipping them with the tools and resources to rumble with difficult emotions including anger and vulnerability, living into our values, rising strong failures, setbacks and disappointments, how to take off the armor and put on grounded confidence and how to create and build trust in the workplace. The transformation of the individuals and workplace cultures from armored leadership (leading from self-protection) to daring leadership (leading from grounded confidence and values) has been incredibly powerful pre-, during, and post-pandemic.

Come join us! Sign up for RUMBLING WITH ANGER, Dare To Lead workshop or email me at thrivingidealist@gmail.com for more information. Have a great week and see you soon!