In North America, this is traditionally the last week at work before the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays when most businesses and organizations slow down or close up altogether. Rather than writing my typical Christmas Blog, I thought I would salute the end of year reflection with a piece on Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead published in 2013. Listening to the audio version of this book has been a great assist to my psychotherapy-informed coaching role with working professionals.

Written before the “Cancel Culture” and “Me Too” movements in 2015 and 2017 respectively, Sandberg scatters her chapters with pearls of wisdom that are applicable to all working professionals. She likens a person’s professional trajectory as a jungle gym instead of a ladder, and explains that most people’s climb up the proverbial corporate ladder is neither linear nor as planned as one might think. Sandberg actually challenges the use of developing long-term goals and instead fosters the importance of flexibility in the face of growth and change. It is as important to know when to move to another company, role, or line of work as it is to stay. Understanding the impact of ongoing obstacles at work in light of your own desires for growth and change may be a real indication that the environment is simply not the best place for you to thrive. She shares several examples where people move upwards in the face of adversity.

Over the course of the past six years in private practice, I have witnessed a number of high quality professionals feeling exasperated by a number of factors at work that mostly stifle professional growth and creativity. Often bogged-down by confusing processes for which few were accountable, many people just decided to leave and move on to new positions. High quality professionals and subject matter experts do have options, and have exercised them pre and post-Covid. Many workplaces have learned to accommodate up and coming talented employees who simply left environments that failed to understand the needs of growing families, team work, the impact of family medical emergencies on work, and the role of health insurance and financial benefits on health and wellbeing. Most successful companies have updated their approach to recruiting and maintaining productive professionals.

Sandberg cites many sources in her book that support her views about the impact of being female in the workplace, most specifically the negative impacts. Sandberg suggests that women benefit from male mentorship, especially in light of the persistent reality that men dominate most of the top-tiers of business, government, and industry. In many ways, her book developed a post-gender model of mentorship where people engage and contest issues based on fact, productivity, and merit. Sandberg’s lengthy professional career and personal life as a working mother provided her with many anecdotes and firsthand accounts about working in fast paced growth environments where rumour and gossip prevented women from advancement. Perhaps, the explosion of data-based decision-making in all fields is an effort to minimize the negative blows on workers based on gender, race or lifestyle choices.

The current claim of data-based decision making is that your business – whatever it may be – has outcomes that can in fact be measured. For example, if your business is in retail and aims to sell a variety of products, then the the number of items sold is the data that would indicate your on the right track. Service industries that aim to build and retain a client-base for which particular services are provided measure success by the number of clients served, as well as client-retention over time. Industries that make and create products report data based on the numbers of items produced, and usually how widely these items are sold. There are also many other types of organizations that aim to improve the environment, reduce crime, increase affordable housing and more. Everything can be converted into data and measured once the unit of measurement in your industry has been identified. Even your personal wellness can be converted into data, once you decide what is the best way to measure your own health and wellbeing.

Data can also be helpful during difficult situations at work, where individuals appear to be difficult with peers, negligent in their duties, or absent from team work. Establishing clear measures of success and productivity can help to re-incentivize disengaged professionals and teams to work together in ways that bring out the best in one another and where everyone feels there is room for creative contribution and growth.

As we all begin to turn our minds to family traditions, and to slow down to appreciate all the goodness in our lives here in Canada, it is a fitting holiday time to re-appreciate Sandberg’s publication in the spirit in which it was written, and in retrospect of the important social movements of recent times that yelled loudly at us all for attention. As we inch towards a New Year with trepidation, excitement, and uncertainty with which each new beginning hails, there is some reassurance that the data may in fact help to lead the way forward.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Lisa Romano-Dwyer PhD, RSW Owner, Lakeside Wellness Therapy Affiliates

Scientific research on mental health and wellness continues to show that healthy habits are essential for both physical and mental health. The Amen Clinic in the US is perhaps one of the leading centres on promoting “brain warrior” health, that is, ensuring that everything you do nourishes, protects, and heals the brain. Dr. Amen’s research relies on a fusion of psychiatric and neuroscientific diagnostic brain-scans followed by customized treatment options that include talk-based counselling and psychotherapy, and a range of holistic services such as nutritional, vestibular, and other integrative medical and paramedical approaches. This exciting research underscores the importance of the brain in every aspect of your life.

The ability to perform mental math is one simple example that may reveal how well you are doing. For those of us who were taught in early childhood to do simple calculations by rote, that is rigorous early instruction based on memorizing multiplication tables, and learning basic addition, subtraction, and division tasks, deep memories of facts and cognitive functions are stored in our brains. In this sense, it is not only the retention of facts that is important, but also the neuropathways created when learning to conduct basic mathematical operations. The brain has thousands of neuropathways that support cognitive functions of every kind.

Recently, I was in a local grocery store that had cereal bars on sale. The items were listed in small and larger boxes wherein 8 were selling for $2.99 and 16 were posted at $6.70. It only took me a few seconds to calculate that the smaller box was actually more affordable than the larger one per unit. In fact, the larger item was seventy cents more expensive. When I approached the sales person at the counter to inform her about this discrepancy in costs, she replied by saying that she had “no control over the pricing of items in the aisles”. Despite the social justice issue created here for people purchasing items in a hurry and buying for larger families paying more per unit than those with the privilege of time to mindfully compare costs, I was reminded about the importance of mental math and its impact on health and wellbeing as we age.

This ability to perform quick mathematical computations in our heads is certainly an important life skill that we can practice on a regular basis as a measure of our abilities to think. At the age of 16 years old, I was the “head cashier” in a Shopper’s Drug Mart where making change to customers was also calculated in our heads. The cash registers back in those days did not calculate change. The line-ups at the check-out counters were as long as they are today, and the customers as equally demanding. We had to ring in the items, collect money, and ensure that customers received the accurate change. One of the roles of the head cashier was to calculate the overall earnings at each till at the end of each shift, and to ensure that every till balanced within $20 of the total earned for that shift. I prided myself on balancing the till most evenings even when my cash register surpassed $10,000 dollars per shift. Today, there appear to be many cashiers, perhaps too many who struggle to make simple change. Many cashiers are stumped whenever you hand over small change to help round out the total. I find this new normal sad.

As we age, the ability to remember becomes increasingly challenging. So, it is more important than ever to focus on brain health as well. I worry about generations of young people who are unable to perform simple mathematical computations without the assistance of a calculator or device. What are we collectively doing to the brain when we fail to promote health neuropathway development in young children and youth? I understand the modern argument is that there will always be devices to assist us in calculating simple equations. However, we simply do not know enough about long term impacts on overall cognitive functioning and wellbeing when less rigor in early mathematical learning is normalized.

The notion of Math Anxiety has been circulating for several years now as well. It seems clear to me that emotions are evoked when solving problems, especially when it is hard to figure out a solution. The level of tolerance to frustration increases when people cannot understand the steps required to solve a problem. This is as true in solving problems in everyday tasks of daily living as it is in math. Some frustration is common in all forms of learning – it can be struggle to see something new for the very first time until you do.

As a clinician, working in an educational milieu for many years, I have always viewed a connection between learning and social wellbeing. Students who struggled with learning, often struggled in social situations as well. The inability to solve problems in math often seemed to be associated with a generalized inability to solve problems with friends and family. To me the equation is simple, learning basic math in early childhood builds the sophisticated cognitive neuropathway support for everyday problem solving as well.

Lisa Romano-Dwyer BSc, MSW, PhD, RSW

September is a beautiful month that invites you to prepare for the next season and year. Most people equate the spring season as the most generative time of the year, but many bulbs are planted in the autumn as well. As the days shorten, and the weather grows cooler, you likely find yourself engaging in annual traditions that mark the closing of the year. Packing away your summer clothing, preparing your children for a healthy start to school, and closing up your cottage are all familiar rituals that people engage in to prepare for winter.

Hopefully, you created space for repose and restoration over the summer months. The health benefits from a restful summer vacation will reinvigorate your body and help to sustain all of the tasks involved in your return to work and school. Enjoying the company of friends and family restores your heart and grounds you in love. Tending to your garden and personal belongings are wellness activities that both mobilize and demarcate your experiences. It is a healthy time to sort through your stuff and to decide what you will keep, donate, or throw away. The fall is an excellent time to clean up, declutter, and reorganize your living spaces. It is also a time to reclaim items and memories that matter most to you.

Lakeside Wellness Therapy Affiliates is moving at the end of September. For the past five years, I have been located on Queen St East in the beaches in Toronto. The community has been especially supportive and welcoming, especially in light of the challenges to small businesses through Covid. In fact, the pandemic started soon after I signed my commercial lease agreement. I had no idea that for the majority of the time, I would be working remotely from my new therapy offices. Over the course of time, I mentored four new start-ups and supported clinicians professionally. My fields of social work counselling, psychotherapy, and coaching have evolved. Although a few people still prefer to meet in person, most clients favour the convenience of online care.

My small business will mostly operate virtually from my home office. Of course, there will be some monthly business expenses associated with accessing in-person therapy spaces closer to home, but overhead costs will reduce dramatically. So, I have also been sorting and packing things up this fall. As I engage in this ritual of closure, I am taking note of the emotional impact on me, and all of the things I learned as a small business owner. I feel so very grateful to all of the clients I met over the past five years. Some have chosen to continue to work with me as longer term clients. I have witnessed such amazing growth and healing in so many people. I continue to be awed by the capacity of the human heart to overcome and to carry on. I have been privileged to journey with people in their stories of recovery and to witness healing.

During this ritual of closure, I have also had time to reflect on who sought out my services over the past five years and why. It has certainly been an intense five years in Toronto! Thankfully, my clients reflect the cultural, ethnic, racial, religious, and gender diversity of our city. I feel honoured and humbled by their collective faith in my ability to provide a safe and non-judgemental space to gain clarity and to heal. It has reminded me that, in my view, human suffering transcends the divisive limits created by radical identity politics.

Much like planting bulbs in autumn, the closing of my office on Queen St. this fall brings with it a sense of hope for new beginnings as well!

Lisa Romano-Dwyer BSc, MSW, PhD, RSW