1. Supporting Ourselves and Each Other Materials needed this session:
Pens
Handout
Dry Erase Board or Flipchart with Markers
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Supporting Ourselves
and Each Other

2. SAY:
Let’s briefly review some of the emotions that can be experienced in transition. Change is experienced as personal and this is why self care is crucial to sustain positive change across our organization.
[Pause to have people think through and share their answers]

3. SAY:
Now it is also important to acknowledge that not everyone experiences change in the same way. This model can help us better understand the different ways in which we might experience transition in our organization. The idea is that every person feels more comfortable or has more skill with some activities, people and situations. This is referred to as the comfort zone. It feels familiar and can lead to stagnation if a person limits her/his life experience and work to this zone. [e.g. biking from home to work] The second zone is know as the growth zone and it is where learning happens. It consists of activities, people and situations that are somewhat or completely new. It is common for people to feel some discomfort in this zone because it requires dealing with the unknown. This zone is where a person or organization grows [e.g. signing up for bike the barns over the summer]. However sometimes new things and dealing with uncertainty can be overwhelming and a person or even an organization can enter into what is known as the panic zone. Here negative feelings and thoughts such as feeling threat impede one’s capacity to learn or grow and if experienced a person must ask for help and/or self regulate back to her or his comfort zone [sign up for iron woman next September]. .
[Pause to have people think through and share their answers]
Many things change when an organization is committed to further diversity, inclusion and equity from within. In the next activity we will have an opportunity to see for ourselves and each other how is transition impacting in our everyday work experiences. To do this I will ask you to image three concentric circles on the floor of this room as comfort, growth and panic zone [clear point to these areas and their boundaries]. In a moment, I will ask you to stand up and walk towards one of these areas and it best fit your personal experience with the current transition process in our organization. Any questions? Are you ready?
Now that you are standing in the zone you feel it best describe your experience with the current transition process in the organization, pair up with someone close to you and briefly dialogue about what makes you stand in this zone.
[give the group about 5 minutes to dialogue and harvest some insights]
ASK:
Please go back to your conversations, this time sharing what keeps you sane, on purpose and growing in this process?
[give them 3-5 min] and harvest some insights

4. Best Practices for Navigating Change
Acknowledge it
Know yourself and how your own reactions
Talk with others
Address fears and concerns with leaders
Don’t rely on the grapevine
Ask for more information – but be willing to accept that it might not be available.
Take things one step at a time
Focus on getting to new beginnings
Move to glass half full – focus on the positive
SAY:
[building on what was shared before distribute handout]here are some other ways to sustain ourselves and each other in transition, let’s read through these strategies together.
Acknowledge the Change : Understand what is changing and that there may be multiple changes.
Know yourself: Examine your own feelings about the change and be aware of how it affects you and others. Where are you on the change curve and where do you need to move to?
Address Fears and concerns: Talk to your manager to better understand the change and the impact of the change. Express your concerns.
Address the grapevine: When things are unclear, people tend to read into the situation and make up stories. Rumors take up a lot of energy and don’t provide accurate information. Come to your manager if you have questions.
Ask for More Information: If there is something that you need more information about, ask. Part of this program is to communicate back to top leadership about the things that people need more information on. Sometimes there isn’t more information because things haven’t been decided or it isn’t the right time for information to be released. If that is the case we will tell you that.
Take things one step at a time: Let yourself acclimate to the change and move forward with incorporating the change one step at a time..
Continue to Focus New Beginnings: Focus on the goal. What do things look like after the change? The disruption of this change will end and things will stabilize.

5. Put your oxygen mask on FIRST!
SAY:
As you can see, there are many things we can do to sustain ourselves and each other while we keep advancing to further diversity, inclusion and equity throughout our organization and its work. Because of this, it is common to often forget to care of one self. Take a moment to think of something you want to commit to practice to take care of yourself in this process [give them some time to write these, maybe deliver post its]
ASK:
As you can see, there are many things we can do to sustain ourselves