I became a widow at 26. My husband died of a heart attack on the three-year anniversary of the day I lost my mom to a brain aneurysm. Showing up at work in the midst of my grief was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.
I was a psychotherapist. I knew about grief. But knowing about grief didn’t make working through it any easier.
I only had two days of official bereavement time, but my physician diagnosed me with acute stress disorder (the precursor to PTSD). That allowed me to tap into short-term disability benefits for almost two months. But when that was up, I had to return to the office. I had a mortgage to pay and clients who were patiently waiting. All they knew was that I had a family emergency.
Those early days back at the office were especially rough, but the whole first year was hard. I was sad, but I had to concentrate. I was anxious, but I had to help other people with their anxiety. I was angry, but I had to stay calm. I was exhausted, but I had to show up.
If I learned anything from my emotional pain, it was that I didn’t need to have everything figured out. I just needed to know what I could do right now to get through the next challenge — one step at a time.
I tried plenty of strategies to help me keep showing up and stay professional, even when my life was hard. The strategies I turned to during those early days — which I outline in a new book — not only helped me during my worst days but have helped me thrive as my career has expanded over the years.
Here are three of them.
1. Use the 10-minute rule to get started
The hardest part of a hard day is the beginning. Getting out of bed. Getting in the shower. Getting in the car. On the mornings I doubted if I could even get out the door, I made a deal with myself: just 10 minutes.
I’d spend 10 minutes getting ready. If at the end of the 10-minute mark, I lacked the energy to keep going, I’d quit and call in sick.
Once I started getting ready, I never quit. All I had to do was get over the hurdle of getting started.
Research on behavioral activation — an evidence-based treatment for depression — backs up the idea that engaging in action first can help shift how you feel. In multiple meta-analyses, simply getting people moving through scheduled activities produces significant improvement in mood.
The same trick works for any task you’re dreading. Whether you’re procrastinating on a report you need to write or struggling to tackle your inbox, commit to 10 minutes and give yourself permission to quit. Once you start, you’ll likely be able to keep going.
2. Name what you’re feeling before you walk into the room.
Before I walked into the office every day, I’d sit in my car for a minute and silently name what I was carrying. I feel sad. I feel anxious. I feel frustrated. As soon as I put a name to those emotions, I instantly felt a little better.
Naming an emotion is one of the most well-established tools in clinical psychology. Studies show that labeling your emotions reduces their intensity. When you put words to what you’re feeling, brain activity shifts away from the regions that drive emotional reactivity and toward the regions that handle reasoning.
I couldn’t make the grief go away, but I could name my specific emotion and get a little bit of relief. It also made me think more about how my emotions might affect my decisions that day. If I was sad, I knew to be on the lookout for tendencies to withdraw; if I was anxious, I knew I’d be tempted to shy away from new opportunities. Just knowing those things gave me confidence that I could counter the tendency to let my emotions cloud my judgment.
3. Schedule time to worry so it doesn’t flood the workday.
There were a lot of things on my mind during that time in my life. How was I going to pay the bills? What if that noise the furnace is making means it’s about to quit? How am I going to get the snow cleared off my roof?
Telling myself not to worry didn’t help. So I gave myself 30 minutes at the end of the workday to worry on purpose. When a worry showed up at 10 a.m., I’d tell myself, It’s not time to worry about that yet. I’ll worry about that later. Then I’d get back to the client in front of me.
This was a strategy I’ve taught my anxious clients for years. A 2013 study found that people who scheduled a specific 30-minute “worry time” experienced significant decreases in anxiety, less worry, and significantly better sleep. It works because you’re not suppressing the worry — you’re telling your brain you’ll get to it later. Once your brain trusts you’re going to address it, it no longer feels the need to keep pinging you about it all day long.
This was one of the most helpful things I did for myself during that stressful time when so many things felt outside my control. Scheduling time to worry about everything helped me stay focused on my clients throughout the day.
What I learned
Showing up at work on your hardest days isn’t about feeling strong. It’s about having tools that work when you need to hold it together. After all, it’s during the hardest times in life — like when you’re going through a divorce or an illness — that you often need the pay and the benefits the most.
I certainly didn’t feel strong when I had to go back to work. But knowing I had strategies up my sleeve for when I felt like crying at my desk or lacked motivation gave me the confidence I needed to keep showing up. And 20 years later, these are the tools I still reach for — and the ones I share with my clients who are going through their hardest times.
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