Reflections on Connection-Centered Leadership - Issue No. 19: Staying Connected in Seasons that Could Pull Us Apart

Photo Credit: Darin Swonger; Pictured: Melissa Swonger and her daughters

Rest is not something I engage in easily. I don’t mean forced rest from injury or illness. I don’t mean seemingly being at rest as my body is still, but my mind is racing with all that I “should” be doing. I mean, rest that is restorative because I am worth it and my body needs it, rather than something I feel the need to earn.

I have the red light panels. I understand the importance of grounding, sunlight, hydration, and movement. Shoot. I even have the treadmill, walking pad, yoga mat, and weights by my desk. It isn’t a knowledge gap or a lack of access. It’s an internal rhythm that prioritizes work and others over self.

In this season, I have felt the mental and emotional shifts. Transitions can be tough, and when we don’t mitigate their effects, the pressure builds. We can try to ignore it, but, as the adage states, the body keeps the score.

This week, the baby of the family turns 20. For fifteen years, I have had teenagers. That chapter ends this week. With one hand, I am clinging to the moments that are flying by, acutely aware of how fleeting the full houses are with girls who prioritize “home”...my home. With the other, I am holding onto the future that is full of so much meaningful work, at depths and levels of engagement I could not fully entertain while young ones were the priority.

With both hands full, what slipped is any thought of what my body, mind, and spirit may be needing to operate at full capacity. This week also marks the one-year mark since I fell through a trap door and had my second freak accident. I broke my back in two places, had a pelvic avulsion fracture, and tore the hamstrings in my left leg, which used to be my good leg. Rehab with strength training should begin in earnest at this point (really before this point, but don’t tell my daughter, the PT that I know that). Fatigue that tries to whisper its need for rest is stuffed down deep to a bare murmur. Tense muscles from hours at the computer, unresolved stress, travel, and in strange beds (not to mention my neck during the times my pillow can’t make the flight with me) scream for attention. We’re readying a house to sell in one state after the sale we thought we had fell through, navigating family in two more states, and trying to make the most of the time I have on weekends with my husband, who often travels for work during the week.

So, how is Maycember working for you? LOL

Finishing research and starting a new business venture, Mind Shifts Lab, in the middle of the organized chaos can feel like herding cats. My business partner, Erica Elliott, and I are no strangers to the frustrations of being human with bodies that don’t always cooperate at the capacity of our wills.

Here are ways we’re making sure we stay connected when our circumstances encourage disconnection from self to optimize achievement.

1. We pay attention before the body forces the issue.

For years, I functioned with the mindset that if I could still move, still think, still produce, then I was fine. But functioning and flourishing are not the same thing. Many high-capacity people become incredibly skilled at compartmentalizing discomfort in order to continue meeting demands. The problem is that ignored needs rarely disappear. They usually grow louder.

Sometimes leadership looks less like pushing through and more like paying attention early enough that we do not have to collapse to finally listen.

2. We work with our wiring rather than against it.

There is a difference between discipline and self-betrayal. Understanding how we are wired mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually changes how we approach our days. It changes how we structure transitions, recovery, focus, relationships, and expectations.

This is one reason I write and teach so much about connection-centered leadership and integrative transformation. Awareness is the first step. When we understand what is happening internally, we are far more capable of responding intentionally rather than reactively. Shame tends to fragment us further. When alignment follows awareness, we can reconnect.

3. We create intentional moments of reconnection throughout the day.

Not every reset requires a retreat or a week off. Sometimes it looks like stepping outside into the sunlight for ten minutes. Sometimes it is worship music in the car instead of another podcast. Sometimes it is a walk while processing emotions, instead of suppressing them, or sitting, stuck between moments, overwhelmed by the transition between tasks. Sometimes it is texting a trusted friend and admitting, “This week feels heavy,” or praying for each other.

The goal is not perfection. It is staying connected enough to ourselves that we can recognize what we actually need instead of endlessly overriding it.

4. We stop viewing rest as something that must be earned.

This one is still difficult for me.

Many of us learned, either explicitly or indirectly, that our value is tied to usefulness, productivity, endurance, or what we can carry for others. Rest can feel uncomfortable when our nervous systems have been conditioned to equate slowing down with falling behind. For me, after childhood illness and two freak accidents, I can equate the stillness with being broken or ill. I can push through to prove I am well, seemingly looking death and disease in the eye and not flinching.

This game of chicken no one can win, because we play against ourselves. Our bodies are not machines. Neither are minds. Neither are spirits.

Rest is not always the absence of work. Sometimes it is the presence of safety, support, laughter, movement, stillness, prayer, honesty, or sleep. Sometimes it is allowing ourselves to be human without apology.

5. We reconnect vertically, inwardly, and outwardly.

I continue to find that the sequence matters.

When I begin vertically, grounding myself spiritually and remembering that God is God and I am not, the pressure to hold everything together softens. When I move inward, I can acknowledge what is happening internally without condemnation. From there, I am far more capable of connecting outwardly with presence rather than depletion.

That does not mean life suddenly becomes easy. The demands still exist. The deadlines remain. The transitions are still real. But connection changes how we carry them. Loving ourselves in the midst of the day, rather than pushing it off to ‘someday,’ is, ironically, extending our capacity.

Leadership always begins with leading ourselves well. Perhaps that is part of what healthy leadership actually is:

Not performing wellness. Not pretending capacity is endless. Not ignoring ourselves until something breaks.

But learning to remain connected to mind, body, and spirit while fully living the lives we have been entrusted with. This increases our creativity, productivity, and engagement. And perhaps that, too, is part of being present in the moments that matter. 

— Melissa, Architect of Connection-Centered Leadership

The Sage Hill Project

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