Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Back 2 School: Social Graces

meetings, back to school, bad behavior

I think my problem is that it takes awhile to remember that there are actually other people around.  I'm used to just traipsing around by myself all summer, only having to interact with my own children. And then suddenly, I'm thrust back into a workplace with professional colleagues, many of whom demonstrate top-notch manners and act like confident, respectable adults. 

Okay, so all this is my way of saying that I failed my very first back-to-school meeting.

What happened was my boss was talking about mindfulness.  Obviously I'm down with mindfulness. I have an app and I meditate while soaking in Dead Sea Salts.  I breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. I did a whole six part meditation thing about the power of gratitude. Do you know that the science behind gratitude is solid? It is! I already knew this, way before this morning's faculty meeting. Thinking of things you're grateful for makes you more empathetic and more physically healthy, in addition to helping you make friends and improve your self-esteem. No one could argue with the benefits of gratitude, and certainly, encouraging self-care in the form of gratitude journaling is a really great workplace practice. Even better, in my opinion than free Fitbits.

It was the phrase "gratitude buddies" that made me laugh out loud. BUDDIES. I couldn't help it. BUD-DIES. 

After I disrupted the meeting by laughing out loud, I committed myself fully to gratitude buddies. I'm going to be the best gratitude buddy, and my buddy is going to be so grateful that he has me. I feel like he probably already is.


4 comments:

mm said...

OMG! I hate back to school meetings.

LH said...

I'm not too crazy about the faculty meeting genre.

Susan @ The Susannah Project said...

This cracks me up. I also have a problem staying quiet when something strikes me as funny. I once came down with a case of uncontrollable giggles during a meeting with the entire Women in Leadership group of a Fortune 500 company. Very classy. "Buddy talk" at school would make me do the same, I'm sure.

For some reason, middle daughter (aka Peasy, age 4) has been going around lately talking about buddies too. "Do you need a buddy?" She sidled up to me on the couch last night while we were watching a movie, saying "Mama, I will be your buddy!" So stinkin' cute. Maybe you can just imagine Peasy as your gratitude buddy?

MartyJane said...

OMG! I laughed out loud at your laughing out loud. I have done that so many times and even said, "Did I laugh out loud?" I also sometimes snort and often roll my eyes, or at the very least shift around like I'm very itchy. So funny, you are!