Early this morning, I was talking to a nurse in the emergency room about the depravity of our mental health crisis in New Jersey and the exposure we (as emergency responders) see on a daily basis. The young lady stated “I don’t know how you guys do it. You have to listen and be around in 24/7, listening to people’s problems and dealing with everything else that comes along with it. I give you lots of respect because this (ER work) is a great first step, but I couldn’t deal with what you guys deal with.” Indeed, it is true that not everyone is equipped to work in behavioral health and even more importantly, it is a stark reminder that emergency workers in the field need to practice self-care. In return, I commended this young lady for the work she does on a daily basis and said ‘thank you‘.
Often we find ourselves in an abyss of chaos from the day-to-day activities and responsibilities were must complete. Even afterwards, we (as a society) feel that more time is needed in the day to accomplish our tasks at hand. I am writing this article for the simple fact that saying thank you with a genuine heart needs to be practiced more or kindly saying ‘I appreciate you’. Speaking for myself, in the eight years of behavioral health that I have been working, I have received more thank you’s from clients, consumers, families and patients than I have received from leadership. I believe this is part in fact that leadership is hyper-focused on performance and statistics for quarterly QA reports that leadership fails to recognize the hard work that yields outstanding outcomes.
The art of thank you derives from the pathways in which cards and little notes of appreciation are left when someone performs an act of gratitude or goes above and beyond their duty. Alternatively, the best way to say thank you is with an authentic and genuine approach. If the thank you comes from a good place, then the receiver will interpret this as its pure form. However, if the thank you comes from a place of negativity or saying it just to say it, then the receiver will interpret this as a sign of ignorance. In the world of chaos, pure hatred and social isolation, I demand that we (as a society) learn to love and spread peace into one another’s life.
The result of COVID-19 has forever altered the way we live and how we operate in our jobs, family duties and self-care. The world has be shaken, tossed and crushed by unnecessary acts of medical martial law taking the lives of our geriatric and youth, as well as, exposed our front-line workers to more post-traumatic stress and compassion fatigue. So, I challenge you to find a positive in each day you live and journal it down in a notebook, write a post it and stick on your mirror or tell a friend. Lastly, a bonus gift in this challenge is to deliver a genuine thank you to anyone that is deserving whether you know them or not.
Let me be the first to start and say: THANK YOU to all of you!
Stay blessed, stay positive, spread love and plant peace in your lives…
Sources:
Griffin, J. (2018). The Value Of A Well-Written Thank-You Note. Retrieved from:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgriffin/2018/08/07/the-value-of-a-well-written-
Maynard, M. (2020). We need to revive the lost art of the thank you note. Retrieved
from: https://www.considerable.com/life/etiquette/bring-back-thank-you-notes/
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