Pathways to Resilience: Learning to Trust Again—Even Yourself

Survivors of domestic violence are often left feeling a loss of a sense of self —less in charge of their life, less sure where they stand, even less able to trust their own instincts. As a longtime social work professional, Melissa Santos was well aware of the effects of trauma, but when intimate partner abuse came into her life, she found herself struggling.  Community Solutions’ Adriana Marquez, host of the Solutions to Violence Community Corner,  spoke with Melissa about her journey to reconnect with her inner strength and spirit. 

To view the live Solutions to Violence interview, go here https://youtu.be/5nMpDjCuB2c 

 Community Solutions’ Adriana Marquez: Thank you so much for sharing your story. To begin, can you tell us when the abuse happened, and for how long? What were some of the barriers that were preventing you from leaving that relationship?

 MS: It started about six years ago and went on for a couple of years. I remember feeling stuck and not in control. There was the manipulation and the emotional abuse that was happening, but also my fears, shame and embarrassment of allowing this in my life and my home. I thought I could somehow heal the trauma of my partner, control his alcoholism, and fix it. Looking back now, I think I knew from the very beginning (that it was not possible), but I was in denial. I’d been in social work for nearly two decades at the time—there was no way this could be happening to me.

 And then it was not knowing how to get this person out of my life safely, because of all the threats. I had my six year old  daughter home with me at the time. It was a lot to hold.

 AM: Do you recall a specific incident that first made you consider leaving?

 MS: We were away for a holiday weekend in traffic and there was an incident that triggered him and he started yelling at me, and my daughter was in the car. I asked him to get out of the car, and he called me names as he got out. He walked off and went into a bar and I drove off crying with my daughter asking me if I’m okay. When we got home, I remember the moment when I locked my daughter and myself into my bedroom. I had never felt unsafe in my home before.

 Eventually he came home, and things weren’t good. He was banging on doors. That was the first time I called the police. That was the first night where I thought, “How did I get here? How am I letting this happen?” I remember the shame and guilt and blame, and feeling like I didn’t have any control to change it.

 AM: I’m sorry that you went through that. When did you actually decide to leave?

 MS: It took a bit for it to get to the end. The culmination came at the point where I was pregnant with his child. I had just chaired a successful charity event in town for a local foundation. He was there with me and began drinking, and the emotion of being seven months pregnant and all that comes with that, and then trying to control his drinking, all while doing a live auction—there were so many things. When we left the event, he couldn’t even walk straight, and when we got home he started going off on me. I said, you have to leave. He got angry and threw a bottle at me, and then an iron. Thank God it wasn’t hot, but he was trying to strike my stomach with it, it instead hit my forearm and neck. I managed to run upstairs and call 911.

 The police took him that night and orchestrated an emergency restraining order. I was scared, exhausted and so unsure of what to do next. But the officers were fantastic and caring. One of them handed me some paperwork in case I needed support, and it included a brochure for Community Solutions. I was so taken aback to be holding the brochure. It made it real – I was a victim of domestic violence.  I told the officer, “I’m a director at this organization.” He reassured me that this happens in all kinds of homes, all kinds of people. And truly, that’s what helped me leave. So while serving as an employee of Community Solutions, I also became a Community Solutions confidential client.

 My advocate came to my house and we did what needed to be done so that the district attorney could file charges and a restraining order. I only had to go to court once. I think the reputation of our advocates and our agency is that if we’re there, it’s a real case. It’s the real deal.

 AM: How was your mental health affected once you decided to leave? Sometimes people believe that once you leave, you feel free, everything is good now. Was that your experience?

 MS: No, I was more scared when I left than I was when it was happening. But at least I felt in control. I knew where he was. How did it impact my mental health? Certainly depression and anxiety during the relationship. And then isolation. I’m usually a social person, house always open to friends, and love having people over for dinner. During that time I was making a lot of excuses not to do that kind of thing, and just wasn’t letting people in emotionally. I wasn’t talking about my relationship to my friends.

 I was at risk for postpartum depression, too. I had gotten it with my first daughter, so I had put safeguards in place to try not to have it impact me as much the second time. But with all of this happening, I had perinatal mood disorder kick in before I even gave birth (distressing feelings that occur during pregnancy). And then it was deep depression, unable to eat or even get off the couch. Thank goodness my friends insisted on coming over for a 24/7 vigil. But, when I went to the hospital, he was there, so I didn’t let anyone in. I didn’t let anyone come see my newborn baby. The  doctor and my daughter’s pediatrician and the nurses were all squeezing my hand and hugging me, whispering if I was okay. And I thought, my gosh, am I just really missing how bad this is? It must be really bad if people are noticing. So at that point it was depression and PTSD. Even now, if I see a vehicle that looks like the one he drove, every hair on my body stands up.

 When I came back to the office a month later, I had lost a lot of weight because of the depression, and everyone said how great I looked. People expect you to show up a certain way in the world because that’s the way you’ve always been. When all this is going on internally, either from a domestic violence perspective or a mental health perspective, there’s nothing on your forehead that says, “Careful, I’m super depressed right now.

 As I reflect back, it shows where my healing needed to happen. It’s one of the reasons why I stayed in the relationship: the need for external approval. It’s great that I can show up in a room and bring joy, and most of the time it’s completely authentic. But it can also be a challenge for me because I can put that on even when it’s not what’s really going on. And, so part of my healing has been really coming into my authentic self and not having to seek external approval.

 AM: Was it difficult to engage in other relationships without this trauma affecting you?

 MS: It didn’t impact my trust in the world, which I’m grateful for. I have such a strong, spiritual grounding in knowing that things are always working out for me and that I was always going to be here in my current experience, and all those things can manifest on a daily basis. But it made it difficult for me to trust and have a relationship with myself because I should’ve known better. I teach across the country on alcoholism and on healthy relationships, I’ve been in the field for so long, and I let that happen to me. I worked for those two years to convince my inner being that this was fixable and this was the right place to be, and manipulated my own spirituality in some ways. So, really the relationship that impacted me the most was my relationship with myself.

 AM: How did the pandemic help you work on trusting yourself again?

 MS: Life stopped. Distractions stopped. Busy-ness stopped. I can fill a weekend agenda like nobody’s business, and every night of the week, and that doesn’t leave a lot of time for inwardness. I had already done a lot of work in therapy, and spiritually, and I felt somewhat connected to myself. But this past year (in the pandemic) just kind of stripped away all those distractions. You couldn’t hang out with anybody. And I’m horrible at phone relationships, even with my best girlfriends. So I wasn’t seeking approval and validation anymore, and I was able just to focus on myself and my girls and the two dogs that we rescued and adopted, and my home and my deepest desires. Grounded in gratitude, doing the meditation that I tell everybody to be doing in those mindful moments.

 AM: If there is someone hearing you share your story who can identify or relate to what you were going through, what would you say to them?

 MS: I would say that the inner voice is already telling them anything that they would want to know. My inner voice was already talking to me, and I would have ended things sooner if I had listened, if I had trusted the people around me that they weren’t going to judge me, that there wasn’t going to be shame.

 Know that there is help, even if you have no support around you. There’s help, and it’s easy help. That feeling of stuckness doesn’t have to last long if you let others in. And be patient with yourself, because it may not work the first time. Tell one person, let one person in, just so that you have that trusted person to reach out to. And trust yourself.

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Anyone can be abused, regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, income level, race, religion or physical ability. NO ONE deserves to be abused. Community Solutions has many services to help residents of Santa Clara and San Benito Counties. For more information, please call our 24-hour hotline at 1.877.END.SADV (1.877.363.7238). If you or a loved one are in danger, please call 911 immediately.

 Melissa Santos

Melissa Santos is passionate about breaking the stigmas that surround mental health, addiction and domestic violence.  She seeks opportunities to bridge the gaps between communities and cultures and build empathy, understanding and resilience through the common experiences and trauma that bind us.  Melissa is Senior Director of Strategy & Community Development at Community Solutions in Santa Clara County, CA overseeing internal clinical training, leadership development, community-based training and strategic initiatives.

She has over 20 years of experience in the behavioral health field and is a national trainer and CA Lead of the Celebrating Families!™ evidence-based curriculum for families impacted by addiction. Melissa has been a member of the Santa Clara County Touchpoints training team for over 10 years and facilitates training, conference workshops and webinars on trauma-informed care, mindfulness, recovery and organizational leadership throughout the country.

 

Adriana Marquez is the Program Manager of Solutions to Violence Prevention Program at Community Solutions and is the host of Community Corner that is produced weekly on Facebook Live where clients, advocates, and managers have shared their stories of resiliency and advocacy. She is the proud daughter of Mexican Immigrants who fostered her passion of helping the community.   Adriana and her team are leaders in the fight against gender-based violence and providing culturally affirming support to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking. 

Pathways to Resilience: Healing in Community with One Another

Connection can be the first step to resilience. Janet Childs’ life’s work has been about helping people in trauma feel less alone in their suffering, find safe spaces and safe ways to express what they’re feeling, and begin to find a new way forward. We spoke with Janet about how crisis intervention services and tools can make a difference in the lives of people suffering from grief and loss.

Melissa Santos, Community Solutions: After 45 years of service, you retired in February from your role at the Bill Wilson Center as Director of Educational Services. But, having known you for many years as a partner and friend to Community Solutions, I know your commitment to this work is never done! As the creator of the Bay Area Critical Incident Stress Management team, I’d love to hear more about your continued work with the team on delivering crisis intervention services to those in need.

JC: We formed the Critical Incident Management team about 40 years ago to work with both responders and the community to build resiliency in the aftermath of a critical incident. In May, we had a mass shooting here in San Jose where our team is located, and we are still responding to both the community and to responders that were involved in that incident.

While we can’t stop critical incidents from happening, what we can do is to create a safe place and a safe way to acknowledge and express, and to know that your reactions are natural and normal, and that quiets a lot of the anxiety around how we’re responding to stress. And we give people a chance to be in community so that they’re not dealing with it alone.

MS: What kind of event can be a critical incident?

JC: When we say critical incident, we mean any incident that causes unusually strong reactions in the people involved or in the people responding. It can be any incident that touches our heart or stays with us in a critical way. And while some are very universal, such as a mass shooting death of a coworker or a friend, or the death or injury of a child, there are also individual critical incidents that we can go through depending on what’s in our “backpack.”

MS: Our backpack?

JC: Our stress backpack. It’s all of the things that we have gone through in our past, the trauma that can be easily activated by what’s happening to us in present time. What may seem like a small incident from the outside may be a huge incident for you if it taps into that backpack. So the real way to identify a critical incident is to ask, “Is it impacting you? Are you thinking about it? Are you feeling about it? Is it affecting your life, your work, your daily activities? Are you experiencing secondary trauma through media coverage that’s creating even more stress?”

MS: When we’re experiencing mass trauma like the pandemic and mass shootings and hate crimes in our community, they’re universal, and yet they’re individualized in so many ways for the people that are really experiencing them. How do we heal from these incidents?

JC: We can’t heal unless we first acknowledge and express our trauma. Years ago, our first letterhead at The Centre for Living with Dying program had a quote by James Baldwin that we used with his permission: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

And, it may be an event that happened yesterday or it may be an event that happened 10 years ago. The racial inequity and social injustice and online hate we’ve all been exposed to lately can be triggering for people of color, both on our teams and in the community. We call it 360 grief because every area of your life is impacted. You can’t go out the door without thinking, am I going to be profiled? Am I going to be attacked?

When we acknowledge and express it, and we do that together, we actually create a safety net for each other. It gets it from the inside to the outside, so we’re not carrying it by ourselves. That expression doesn’t have to be verbal—it can be in writing, it can be doing art, it can be whatever works for you. But the key is to do it in community, because that creates a safety container within which we can deal with it.

Our team has a tradition started by a firefighter who brought a candle to our meeting many years ago. To this day, we continue to light a candle to remind each other that we are the light for everybody that is watching, that you are the light for your community, and we need your unique light. We need your unique support, your unique energy to help build safety.

MS: Following COVID-19, many of us are experiencing re-entry anxiety based on real survival fear around our health and safety at a time when our community may not feel safe—there has been so much division in our country. And we can’t quite remember how to do things the way we did before.

JC: Absolutely. We often say that we were in the first wave, we’re now in the second wave, and we’re moving toward the third wave. We’re not going back to the first wave. That’s incredibly traumatizing, and meanwhile we’ve become used to sheltering in place. And now our children are going back to school and our entire daily life is changing again and we’re not sure we want to go back to the workplace. It’s incredibly scary. Let’s acknowledge and express and explore those fears. “What are you most scared of about coming to work? What are you dealing with at home? Our kidlets are going back to school and what happens?. When we try to shove it down, it just gets worse. It just gets heavier in the backpack. So what’s an action step we can do for ourselves, and in the community, to create healing?”

We need to have teams within every caregiving organization and in every business organization, because whether you’ve been having a work critical incident or a personal critical incident, your best support can be your coworkers—your work family.

MS: So, what’s next in building your legacy?

JC: As I am settling into retirement, I continue my work with the Bay Area CISM team responding to critical incidents in the community. It’s been gratifying to work alongside CS over the past several years to build your staff’s capacity and resilience as you provide urgent services to the community. From our work together responding to the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting to our recent joint response to the VTA shooting in San Jose, you are a dedicated and highly skilled organization. I’m grateful that this work will continue with Community Solutions’ new CISM team, beginning in August and all that will come from your leadership in providing urgent care in Santa Clara County.

MS: One last question. How do you define resiliency?

JC: Resiliency for me equals peace. It’s the ability to accept and compassionately process whatever is going on for me or for my community at any given time. To be able to honor it, acknowledge it, and express it, and then take an action step to go from out of control to in control. Then to reconnect with what still is good in my life. If I can reconnect with that goodness, I can find the meaning in surviving the critical incident.

Resiliency is truly about being at peace with whatever is going on with me, being in loving acceptance of myself and others, and bearing witness to each other. One of our paramedics went to Uganda with Doctors without Borders, and they have a saying there that describes critical incident stress management perfectly: “I stand beside you. In essence, I can’t do anything to fix it or make it un-happen, but I can stand beside you while you gain the strength to make your own meaning out of what’s happened, and to create that toolbox of resiliency of things that work for you.

When we can be and hold ourselves compassionately, and stand beside our coworkers, loved ones, friends, and community, we can move through whatever comes our way with grace, with togetherness, and with love.

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If you or someone you know is struggling with grief, loss or trauma, please reach out to the Bill Wilson Center at 408-243-0222 and ask for an intake counselor.

The Centre for Living With Dying provides emotional support to adults and children facing life-threatening illness or the trauma of having a loved one die. The Centre also provides crisis intervention services and broad-based educational programs on grief and loss. Individual and small group grief support is available for adults, children, teens and families. The Healing Heart Program is a special grief program for youth ages 5-17, as well as parent/caregiver groups to assist adults supporting children through the grieving process. Other services include Centre for Living with Dying Support Groups (Registration Required), Bay Area Critical Incident Stress Management Team and Certified Community Education (law enforcement, nurse, clergy and mental health training and support groups for survivors of suicide, homicide, breast cancer, among others).

Janet ChildsAfter 45 years of service, Janet Childs retired in February 2021 as Director of Educational Services for the Centre for Living with Dying and creator of the Bay Area Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) program at the Bill Wilson Center. Janet has been working in the field since 1976 and has been active in crisis intervention counseling for the past 32 years. She has also been an active trainer providing services in the areas of death, dying, grief and loss, trauma management, CISM, rape and suicide prevention. In retirement, Janet continues her work with the Bay Area CISM team and conducting training.

Melissa SantosMelissa Santos is passionate about breaking the stigmas that surround mental health, addiction and domestic violence. She seeks opportunities to bridge the gaps between communities and cultures and build empathy, understanding and resilience through the common experiences and trauma that bind us. Melissa is Senior Director of Professional Development and Organizational Initiatives at Community Solutions in Santa Clara County, CA overseeing internal clinical training, leadership development, community-based training and strategic initiatives. She also provides consultation services to small nonprofits and foundations in strategic planning and organizational development.

She has over 20 years of experience in the behavioral health field and is a national trainer and CA Lead of the Celebrating Families! evidence-based curriculum for families impacted by addiction. Melissa has been a member of the Santa Clara County Touchpoints training team for over 10 years and facilitates training, conference workshops and webinars on trauma-informed care, mindfulness, recovery and organizational leadership throughout the country.

Pathways to Resilience: HR Leader Finds Compassion for Self by Sharing Compassion with Others

Jeff Jacobs knew something was wrong when a routine sprained ankle triggered symptoms of a heart attack.  He’d known for years that he lived with a generalized anxiety disorder, but as a senior human resources professional, he’d built his career on sweating details, pushing himself to do better, and caring about others’ needs more than his own. It took a fall down the stairs—and an ambulance ride to the ER—to realize that his own struggle mattered too. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the work place unlike any event in modern history, catapulting employee mental health and wellness to the top of the agenda for today’s Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) all over the world, and fundamentally changing the relationship between employers and employees.

“Mental health, purpose and social responsibility are now critical components of the (employer) value proposition,” and employee experience is ranked as the top priority for HR leaders in 2021, according to a 2020 Gartner survey of more than 800 HR leaders across 60 countries and all major industries. So, today’s employees are coming forward to share their needs and their stories like never before.

This is one of them.

We spoke with Jeff about the mental health challenges he has faced, how he has learned to understand and manage them, and how helping others with their growth and resilience has helped his own.

In addition to his role as Director, Organizational Effectiveness at Adobe, Jeff is active in organizations dedicated to prison, retreat and music ministry, advocacy and empowerment programs for individuals with disabilities (Project HIRED), and the advancement of the human resources profession. He is currently enrolled in a Stanford University program studying applied compassion and mindfulness. Jeff is also a board member of Community Solutions who prior to Covid, spent two days each month providing music for clients who have experienced emotional or psychiatric episodes through one of our residential programs.

Melissa Santos, Community Solutions: Tell us who you are and a little bit about your career.

Jeff Jacobs: My career always starts with the purpose behind it, and that’s my family. I’ve been married for 30 years, and my two sons are 26 and 21. Over the course of my career in HR, I’ve held roles from talent acquisition to business partnership, employee relations to performance management, learning and development to my current passion – organizational effectiveness, in which I work with senior leadership teams on tailored engagements and interventions covering team effectiveness, change management, and leadership development.

MS: We all have strengths, and we all face challenges along the journey of life, but you had an unexpected challenge. 

JJ: While it is something I have faced my entire life, a “wake-up call” of sorts came about 16 years ago. I was experiencing extra stress at work—ironically, the positive kind, since I’d just been promoted. I was going to be overseeing a good-sized team, and it was very exciting for me. Then, I started questioning whether I was really up for it.  I reached out to the company’s employee assistance program, thinking I’d have a couple of counseling sessions to come up with some coping mechanisms to help me be successful in this new role. It soon became clear that the stresses that I was experiencing were not typical, and could be linked back to my early childhood.

Even though I had received a lot of positive feedback in my career, I’d always felt like what I was producing was never good enough. It was the same dynamic growing up, around grades, friends, even chores and hobbies. Those first few counseling sessions turned into many, and then into referrals, and ultimately a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder with obsessive compulsive tendencies.

Working in HR, I’d taught a lot of people about growth mindset and the power of feedback, but practicing these things myself was very hard because I was operating from a place of tremendous insecurity.

MS: How did this condition impact your life?

JJ: I was carrying more anxiety on a regular basis, and I didn’t know it. I was always trying to solicit the approval of the people around me, frequently to the point that it was hard to discern my own voice in the process. Trying to please everyone was a recipe for disaster. Perhaps because her love was unconditional, my wife was frequently and unfairly deprioritized – the worst possible thing I could do, and something I am trying to make up to her and my kids to this day.

Ironically, there were silver linings when it came to work. I found that I had this overdeveloped sense of empathy, which enabled me to be a better coach and facilitator to the people around me. It became a passion for me to tap into the people I was working with and be able to take the conversation wherever it needed to go. It’s probably one reason that I seek out trying to be of service to others through compassion work and ministry—it helps me move the focus from myself to other people and alleviate some of the anxiety as well. It’s ironic that activities like public speaking, performing music, and even walking into maximum-security prisons actually ease my anxiety.

MS: So, your pathway to resilience came out of these silver linings, in a sense. Often resilience isn’t about putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation to try to push against the grain, but rather getting into the flow and allowing that flow to be part of the healing and coping.

JJ: There was a time when I was reaching out to a group of peers for book recommendations, and Lisa de Silva from Community Solutions suggested a book by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu called the Book of Joy. It referenced Stanford’s compassion program, which I ended up enrolling in for an 11-month certification, and one of the epiphanies that came to me is how foreign the concept of self-compassion was for me.

A past client of mine practiced yoga and mindfulness regularly, and she talked to me about the power of just calming your mind. She challenged me to see how long I could sit without doing anything. I lasted seven minutes. That was about ten years ago, so coming back to this idea of mindfulness now, and realizing just how challenging it is, and how challenging self compassion is—that’s part of the resilience that I’m building.

MS: You can show up as this compassionate, empathetic person that can connect so well with people, but at the same time there’s a cost when it becomes all that matters. How do you balance that out now, being able to give to others while also having self-compassion?

JJ: It’s incredibly hard to balance because I had, and still have, so many blind spots. Of course, we all do. Illuminating them is part of my work. My blind spots came at a cost to relationships and family. I could get defensive and shut down in the face of criticism, which frequently felt personal. And my needs and the needs of my wife and children were frequently trumped by what I perceived as the more “urgent” demands and expectations of work or extended family.

It’s funny, when I got my diagnosis, I thought, “okay, generalized anxiety; I’ll take some pills so I don’t feel as much stress.” Not being someone who focused on self-compassion, I never even Googled the disorder. I never even looked into OCD. I thought, “so I make lists, whatever.” And I sat with that diagnosis for about 10 years before I was forced to look at how it influenced my behaviors along the way. Ironically, some of this made me more successful at work, but some of it also hindered me, at home and at work. I’m still trying to find that middle ground.

MS: And what a gift to yourself, the awareness that there are blind spots. I hear so much curiosity about yourself in those blind spots, and in the way that you’re describing the journey that you’re on.

JJ: I firmly believe that the best gift I’ve given myself in the last six months or so is my focus on living in the present. By virtue of my struggles, I was perpetually rehashing past things that I didn’t think went well, as if there was some way to go back in time and change the outcome. Or I was rehearsing for the future so that I could be prepared for these situations that may or may not even come up. And the present got sacrificed in the process. I’ll never get that back. Being now more focused on the present makes things a lot easier and gives me the confidence to have a conversation like this with you. I’m more secure; I feel less at risk. Age helps, too.

And the word risk is key because I’ve had numerous conversations with trusted confidants about whether I was making a mistake to go public with this. Would I lose out on certain opportunities if I was seen as not up to the task? Or would it seem like an excuse or rationalization? Years ago I probably wouldn’t have done it, but now, this is more important.

Last summer a friend of mine encouraged me to speak about my experience and offered a unique avenue by which I could do that. When we had this conversation, it was shortly after George Floyd was killed, and Asian hate crimes were rising. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that a successful middle aged white guy is going to complain about a little stress in his life. So, I turned her down. Then, I shared this thinking with a dear friend of mine who has spent her life in a wheelchair, and she slapped me around and said “this isn’t a competition.” She stressed that I can reach people that others might not be able to by virtue of my experience. So, a few months later I was invited to speak on a panel on mental health and anxiety. I still didn’t trust my own judgment, still needed external validation, which I got from two other friends with disabilities who convinced me that I needed to do this.

It was just a half-hour panel, and it went by in the blink of an eye, but much to my amazement, we had over 800 people tune in. So many people reached out and thanked me for the vulnerability and appreciated the validation that they were not alone. Given my role as a facilitator and executive coach, it wouldn’t have occurred to them that this is what was going on—you know, this calm duck on the surface of the water, paddling like crazy underneath. That feedback gave me the courage to say “I don’t want to stop.”

MS: Sometimes vulnerability has a negative connotation because if we’re vulnerable we might be at risk of attack, but it’s also at the heart of human connection. So many people who struggle with things get caught in a place of, “who am I to complain compared to all these others who can’t even meet their basic needs?” But, we’re all a part of showing up as our most authentic, most vulnerable, most honest selves—that helps the greater whole.

JJ: In all the organizational engagements I’ve facilitated over the years, I don’t know if there’s one that’s gone by in which I haven’t used the word vulnerability. And, you know, shame on us if we haven’t created the psychological safety and the trusting environment people need to feel that. A lot of companies talk about bringing your whole self to work, but we have to create an environment where we’re comfortable doing that. It’s the employee’s responsibility to own and drive their own career, and it’s the manager’s responsibility to create the environment where those meaningful conversations can take place.

The only way you can learn and grow is if you admit you have space to learn and grow. As long as I’m hiding that or don’t feel safe with that, I can’t make that progress. I have a manager at Adobe who I was able to have this conversation with, and he encouraged me to speak publicly on the topic. He was willing to advocate on my behalf, to try to be a leader and create a place where others can come forward as well.

MS: Why now? 

JJ: Well … when Covid-19 sent us all home, we all brought with us additional stresses that we may or may not have realized. Add to that race relations, political divisiveness, and personal issues, and I tried to shoulder those extra stressors,  without giving it much thought. Then, in July of last year, I took  a wrong step coming down our stairs and sprained my ankle. I hobbled to the couch and immediately started getting hot flashes, sweating, tingling in my arms and legs, and heart palpitations. My body effectively said, “enough!” I had to turn to my sons and tell them to call 911 before I passed out because I was exhibiting all the signs of a heart attack. An ambulance brought me to the emergency room, and it turned out I’d had a panic attack—first one since I was seven years old. And, that made me say, “I need to look at this more seriously, I guess. I need to explore this. I need to understand this.” And, it was at this time that my friend invited me to talk about this publicly. An opportunity presents itself, one thing leads to another, and all of a sudden there’s too much momentum to turn back.

MS: I appreciate so much your trusting this space to be safe enough to share. Too many people who don’t feel that sense of safety—they feel like they could risk their careers talking about this stuff at work. Companies give the message to bring your whole self to work, but then also give the message of leave your personal stuff at the door. And, we know that none of that stuff really gets left behind—it might get stuffed in a closet, but it comes out one way or another.

JJ: All of a sudden, people have more permission to talk about it. You see all the conferences and papers about wellness, mental health and taking care of ourselves, and suddenly we’re mainstream. But, we still need to do better. We need to take care of the people in our workforce. It’s not just about humanity—given the challenges in hiring and retention, it’s become an absolute business necessity.

MS: There might be people reading this who are at the beginning of their own journeys. How can people take their lives and mental health into their own hands in a way that helps them feel better even if their workplace circumstances aren’t ideal?

JJ: It’s a great question. It’s very easy for someone to say, “you need to take care of yourself,” but there are many different aspects to that—physical and emotional and mental, but also financial. Not everyone has the luxury of knowing they can always get another job. So some people are working in environments where they can’t afford to bring their whole selves to work because it will put them at real risk. They end up having to balance that risk, and the pain to their internal selves, with the security of providing for themselves and their families. People do need to take care of themselves, but the risks associated with revealing yourself at work are real, and we have to be very careful about how we do that.

But, they can hopefully still seek out support, whether from trusted friends, or through an employee assistance program like I did, or in a therapeutic environment like Community Solutions—there are ways of getting help without forcing it to be forefront in their work environment.

There’s a desire and temptation to have that relationship with your manager where you can confide, but working in human resources, I’ve been in plenty of rooms with conversations questioning whether someone is up to a job. Sometimes you know you have to choose what’s the right thing. I’ve been passed up by people who had been my peers, or people who’d been more junior than me, and that hurts my ego a little. But, I also recognize that that’s not me talking—that’s a voice in my head about what society might think – that success is a competition exclusively about climbing the corporate ladder. Professional titles and advancement may be part of success, but there is so much more! I’m learning to better discern my own voice and define what success is for me. Ironically, as much as my “self-talk” has caused me pain over many years, it has also helped me gravitate to people, roles, and organizations that allow me to be myself, and be of service to others. There is an expression in my faith circles – “You can’t outgive God.” What this means to me is that every time I try to help someone else grow, develop and build their own resilience, I end up further building my own.

What challenges and struggles have you faced, and what experiences, insights, and practices have helped you build resilience?

Jeff JacobsOver his 30+ year career, Jeff Jacobs has held a variety of HR leadership roles across Retail, Healthcare, Higher Education, and Technology.  He is thrilled to currently be serving as Director, Organizational Effectiveness for Adobe, as well as on the Boards of Project HIRED and Community Solutions.  Jeff is married with two children, and also devotes time to music, retreat and prison ministry.

Outside of his family, his greatest joy comes from helping individuals and teams identify and address obstacles to their happiness, productivity and success.

As a board member of Community Solutions, Jeff  helps others on their own pathways to resilience, just as Community Solutions does for thousands of children, teens, adults, and families in times of crisis each year throughout Santa Clara and San Benito counties.

Melissa SantosMelissa Santos is passionate about breaking the stigmas that surround mental health, addiction and domestic violence.  She seeks opportunities to bridge the gaps between communities and cultures and build empathy, understanding and resilience through the common experiences and trauma that bind us.

Melissa is Senior Director of Professional Development and Organizational Initiatives at Community Solutions in Santa Clara County, CA overseeing internal clinical training, leadership development, community-based training and strategic initiatives. She also provides consultation services to small nonprofits and foundations in strategic planning and organizational development. She has over 20 years of experience in the behavioral health field and is a national trainer and CA Lead of the Celebrating Families! evidence-based curriculum for families impacted by addiction. Melissa has been a member of the Santa Clara County Touchpoints training team for over 10 years and facilitates training, conference workshops and webinars on trauma-informed care, mindfulness, recovery and organizational leadership throughout the country.

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