Redefining Happiness During a Time of Uncertainty
This last year and a half has allowed us time to focus on what truly matters for ourselves and the greater community. Our wellbeing has always been important, but now more than ever we have to push a little harder for our happiness since a lot of what we defined as making us happy is no longer available or has come to a long pause. In some ways, we are redefining our happiness by extracting the joy of simple human interactions, whereas before many simple pleasures were taken for granted. We are discovering how mental wellbeing is not just how you spend your free time, but how you spend your working time and how you find fulfillment.
What Being Well Means to LM
At LogicMonitor, one of our foundational initiatives, LM Well, exists as a space for our LMers to share resources, tools, and personal stories in order to get to know one another as whole people. By doing so, we can understand ourselves and others better. This collectively improves the LM work environment by cultivating happiness and ultimately moving everyone toward a work-life balance that is fulfilling AND sustainable.
LM Well promotes mental and physical wellbeing through various mediums. To start, we have a community Slack channel, which is one of our largest groups and includes LMers from across the world. LMers have shared engaging activities that go hand-in-hand with an array of wellness topics. Some get you moving, others are mental health resources and best practices, and some teach ways to fight against burnout, etc. These resources have been essential during the pandemic and help LMers create new paths to fortify their learnings for the future.
Another way we promote wellbeing is through monthly spotlights. A topic is selected for each month, i.e. nutrition for November, and an LMer will write a blog to share their personal experiences on what the topic means to them. It’s an insightful way to get to know our fellow coworkers, which is valuable as we are still working in a predominantly virtual environment and have few chances to connect in person. LMers share photos, recipes, tips, etc., that are meaningful to them in achieving a successful state of wellbeing, all in the effort to help each other find a smoother wellness journey for themselves and their families.
Mental Health Awareness
World Mental Health Day was on October 10th, and we put together some ways for LMers to honor this day (and ultimately themselves). We asked LMers to share how they spent this day and the posts were inspirational. One LMer spent the day walking, doing yoga, and playing with sound bowls. This inspired me to research the healing powers of sound bowls, which I would never have thought of, but now I feel a sense of comradery knowing a coworker shared this practice and experience. Another LMer shared that they took a yoga class and then plunged into the ocean before work. This reminded me of when I used to do this and how I felt so invigorated and ready to take on the day once I let the cold shock take over me.
We also held a session on mental health and wellbeing with an experienced HR professional, mental health speaker, and learning facilitator who uses psychology principles to help individuals identify and reframe unhelpful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Our speaker helped employees identify the negative feelings they have experienced and walked through ways to understand and find a purpose for the feelings. She shared examples of her past experiences and how they ultimately led her to enlightenment on how to cultivate happiness. It’s a constant battle, and some days are better than others, but that’s okay and we have to allow ourselves grace through this journey. She had delightful analogies and tools to help us battle through the storm, that serve as reminders for the future when we find ourselves in a negative situation again.
It means a great deal to know others are going through similar feelings and pitfalls that you are experiencing. It bands us together and helps instill more trust. This is why our LM Well community group is so vital to our success at work, at home, and in all of our interactions with our community. We instantly feel better knowing we are not alone and have support from one another to help us achieve our wellbeing goals and trust we can get through them together.