Richmond Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: When Unexpected Life Happens

[Music] Well, now we're going to go to our next presentation. So, Elaine, can you turn your camera on and say hello? Hello. Hi. How are you today? Good. So, so while you're pulling up your slides, can you give us a self introduction? Absolutely. My name is Elaine McLuren and I am a director of sales support at Anthem Bluec Cross Blue Shield, also known as Elevance Health. I have been working um at Elevant Health for about 24 and a half years. and I am all for just sharing um amongst the business community and collaborations and I am happy to be here today. Well, we're excited to have you and you have your slides pulled up so take it away. The floor is yours. All right. Well, I really am excited about um just listening to the panel and all the excellent information and some of the information that was given actually goes handinhand with um what I'm going to be talking about today which is resiliency. Um but specific to one um when unexpected life happens um so it's always a privilege to share my journey and experiences um in hopes that it'll help someone the way that I've been helped just hearing other people's journey and stories. So, some of you may be wondering what is in front of you right now. Um, and this is a me card and it's something that um we do within my organization. But before I start that, um, besides being Ela McLuren, I'm also a wife to an awesome husband of 11 years, a mom and bonus mom to four amazing adults, a mother to one amazing teenager, amazing most days, um, an extremely proud Mimi to three of the best and highly energetic grandsons and two of whom are twins. An extra proud daughter to the best parents a person can ever have. Um, and like I said earlier, um, an employee of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, um, also known as Elevance Health. Um, and I'm currently, um, in the small group sales department. Um, so with this MI card that's in front of you at Elevance Health, we use this to get to know each other a little bit better. So, for the purposes of time, I'm not going to go through the entire card, but I'll pick one thing that I'm going to share, and that is the proudest moment. So, my oldest son, Rod, he has ADHD and it created significant focus issues and impulse control challenges when he was younger. So, he failed his first year of sixth grade due to these struggles. So, despite the challenges, with a lot of help and support, takes a village. Um, he was able to turn that around and at the start of his freshman year, we set a goal for him to complete high school in three years so that he could still graduate on time, which we did accomplish on June 6th, 2019. Um, a lot of the teachers was surprised that knew him from his first year of middle school. I wasn't surprised at all because resiliency runs in his DNA. And so, now that you know a little bit about me, I'm going to take you on a short journey of when unexpected life happens and um my journey of resiliency. So, going into 2022, it was such an exciting year for me. There was a lot to look forward to. the world was continuing to open up more and more as an extrovert. I was so happy about that. Um, things in my life were just lining up in just such an exciting way and I was finally seeing the fruits of a lot of hard labor. Um, and it always feels good when we start to see the results of our hard work. So, the highlights of the start of my 2022, my mom turned 65 in January. In February, my best friend of about 30 years and I resumed our monthly BFF dates, our first in over a year. Also, in February, my parents and I went to Florida for a conference, our first in about two years. What was even more exciting is all the detailed conversations we had about the nonprofit my mom was launching and how close she was to it becoming a reality after over 20 years of things that had been on her heart. So in March, my job had our annual sales conference in Williamsburg, our first in-person in about two years, and my department that year, one segment of the year, which was the cherry on top of everything. And also in March, I celebrated my first anniversary in my current role, which was really exciting because the first year was in the middle of the COVID craziness, but it was still still a very strong year with very strong results. So I was very proud of that. My daughter was pregnant with my grand twins at the time and so she had a long list of things that she was trying to take care of in preparation for their birth as well as being a mother to my oldest grandson who was five at the time. My mom came to my house on March 28, 2022, and she stayed the week to help my daughter with some important things on her list so she could help me out because of all the balls that I had already been juggling. She came in as usual with her cape. As promised, she spent each day that week focused on helping my daughter. And that Friday morning, she was delayed in going home because of some stomach issues. But after a few hours, she said she had got enough relief and she was good. So, as I was working, she came into my office and she said her goodbyes and she had my daughter and my grandson with her. My youngest son and I, we had plans to go to her house that Sunday for the week because it was spring break for him. So, I told her I would see her in a couple of days. The next morning she called me and we talked for about 30 minutes as usual. She was still experiencing stomach issues. So she had me look up some things and I Googled just based on some of the things she was talking about because of course when you go to Webendy everybody's a doctor. Um and then I text her the information and I got off the phone with her not knowing that that is the last text and the last conversation I would have with her on this earth. She was rushed to the hospital later that evening because she became unresponsive. While she was in the ER, she had three CR she had three cardiac arrest and she had to have emergency surgery. It was discovered that she was experiencing some side effects of a surgery that she had about six or seven years prior. So, as I drove the 5 hours to the hospital, I was getting updates that did not sound good at all, but I was still very hopeful and I knew what a strong woman she was. By the time my family and I made it to the hospital, her body had gone through so much trauma. When we walked into the hospital room, it was very obvious that machines were the only thing keeping her alive. I was prepared for any outcome but that one. She was not only an amazing mom to me for 44 years, but she was one of my closest friends. as a fixer and always the strong one. For the first time, I was too broken to hide behind the mask of I'm okay. Which brings me to my first point. Be fair to yourself in the process. Most are familiar with trust the process and most hear that very often. But for me in this journey, I had to learn to be fair to myself in the process. Most have heard a lot of different journeys about leaning in and trusting the process. For me, I had to learn it is okay not to be okay. But also, I want us to normalize I'm not okay, but I need help because I don't know how to get better. I am not okay, but I am taking steps to get better. or I am not okay but I am getting better. What I'm trying to say is let's take off the mask as business women, as leaders, as mothers, as adult women to aging parents, and just as individual people that truly matter. We try to be all things to all people because we're okay. We're always okay. Why? Because we can handle it. That's what we all do. As a former fixer, that is how I live my life. For many years, when I didn't get it right or I couldn't save the world, I didn't know how to show myself grace. The beginning of last month, I had an issue with my tooth. I could feel it getting worse. I knew it was just a matter of time before it became intolerable, but it was tolerable at the time, so I was putting off going to the dentist. Towards the end of the month, the pain started to increase to the point where I could not eat on that side of my mouth or put pressure on the tooth without any sharp pain. I knew I had some trips coming up and I did not want to be out of town with an intolerable tooth ache. So, I found a tele medicine dentist to at least get an antibiotic to take care of the infection for now, knowing I would need to make an appointment to take care of the root issue. I had a meeting that evening across town, so I knew I wouldn't be able to make it to the pharmacy before it closed at 8:00 p.m. and it was not ready for me to pick up before my meeting. So, I had to ask my husband to pick it up so that I could take the first dose when I got home later that evening. I had 14 pills that I had to take every 12 hours. That was not my first rodeo with the tooth infection, so I knew once the antibiotic kicked in, I would get relief from the pain. It had been a while, but in my brain, from my prior experiences, I felt that I should start having relief within about 24 hours. I took the first pill that evening at 9:00 p.m. The tooth was sore through the night and very painful when it was touched in any way. I took the second pill at 9:00 a.m. the next morning. Same issues with no relief. I took a third pill at 9:00 p.m. that evening and the tooth throbbed through the night and was sore in the morning. At this point, I was frustrated because in my mind, the pain should be decreasing at this time, but it felt like it was getting worse. I took the fourth pill at 9:00 a.m. the next morning. I ate lunch around noon or 1, struggled to eat because it was very painful when the tooth was touched even lightly. As the day went on, the soreness decreased and the tooth was no longer throbbing. As the tooth was still tender, although the tooth was still tender, by dinner time, I was able to eat my food without feeling tortured whenever the tooth was accidentally touched. So, I want to stop for a second and I want us to take this whole process I went through with my tooth in steps. I had to acknowledge there was a problem with my tooth that I needed help resolving. Step one, take off the mask and acknowledge there is a problem that you can't fix and need help resolving. I had to reach out to the dentist. Step two, take the action of reaching out for help. I had to pick up the antibiotic from the pharmacy that the dentist prescribed, but could not pick it up that day. So, I had to call my husband and ask him to pick it up for me. Step three, ask accept the help and ask for additional help if necessary. I had to take two pills every 12 hours until all of them were gone. Step four, do the work that it takes to apply the help. I had to continue taking the pills even when it felt like it was not working. Step five, don't give up on the process. And most of all, don't give up on yourself. Allow the time needed for the process. I'm sure you have figured out by now the unexpected loss of my mom had a tsunami level impact on my entire life and family. It will take way too much time that I have left to go into too many details about what life looked like at this stage. But I would say it was very dark and a pain my family nor I have ever experienced prior. Although it was very dark and a very dark and traumatizing time, life could not and did not stop. While the outside world knew there was an unexpected death and and all that knew me, even just a little bit, knew how close I was to my mom, what was going on behind the curtain was so much more. So, just to name a few, a scramble to figure out the tangled web of business affairs. Moving my dad from South Carolina back to Virginia in a very short period with many moving parts, literally and figuratively. Planning my mom's celebration of life service. Writing the eulogy that I read at the service. Inconsolable waves of pain and anger. Fighting the subconscious guilt of the whatifs. Navigating secondary loss. The loss of who I was before. The loss of what I thought my life was going to be like at this stage. The loss of the normal I knew prior. The loss of my family dynamics. And I can go on and on. My loss was my mom. But just keep in mind there are many losses you may be struggling with that is not a physical death. It could also include divorce, job loss, friendship loss, any type of transition and on and on. The definition of resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or change. Adapting in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, or threats, ability to bounce back with strength. That does not mean something happens and you're over it in 2 seconds. There is a process and that process does not look the same person to person or situation to situation. Resilience in me may look very different than resilience in you, which is why comparison is so dangerous. Listed in front of you are some of the bricks it takes to build up resilience. Adapting to your circumstances, even if you don't like it, gives you leverage to be solution focused, which helps with problem solving. As leaders, we all experience a lot of change daily. We don't have to like it and even necessarily completely agree with it to accept it and focus on the things that are within that are within our control to be change agents. Having a positive perspective in the midst of challenge helps you identify what you can do which is in your sphere of influence. For me, even though this journey has been the hardest process I have ever navigated, this situation has forced a level of growth and transformation that has made me a better leader. It has helped me learn to better appreciate the sunrise in the midst of the darkness. It has also helped me learn how to be able to rely on people, to be able to delegate better, to be able to trust people. Being self-aware helps you be intentional about how you respond to people, especially in high stress situations. It is key to helping with being responsive and not reactive. I have learned a different level of emotional intelligence and really owning my stuff without using circumstances as an excuse. Being able to laugh and find joy in the midst of heavy challenge is a form of self-care. Laughter actually stimulates many organs and enhances mental and physical health. I have truly learned the difference between happiness and joy. And when you understand joy, you can still laugh and find humor no matter how dark it is. And having a good support system, that's the foundation of all of this for me. Your village may be smaller or it may be bigger. The size doesn't matter. It's the quality. I'm learning I don't always have to be the strong one which for a former fixer that's huge. So some examples of how this looks for me positivity which is really mindset and perspective really. My mom had numerous conversations with me about this and the uh few years prior to her passing, I would say right before COVID happened, we started getting into a lot of very deep conversations just about perspective and mindset where you can have the exact same situation, exact same circumstance, but based on your perspective and your mindset, it impacts you very differently. Same circumstance, but just different impact. So, I've been practicing this for quite a few years, but now I understand why it's so important. My grieving journey has given me the ability to hope despite navigating heavy tragic pain. So, the picture that I have is from April 23, excuse me, April 23rd, 2023. I spoke at my church um at the youth group service and I went into details about my first year of my grieving journey. And that was the first time that I had spoke about it publicly. So in order to really prepare for the message, I had to go through my journals from the past year, some of the textes and other things to remind me because I'm at a different place now. And then I was at a very different place than I was when I first started this journey. And so um because of so much happening, there were chunks of things that I don't remember without reminders. But it was quite interesting as I was going through everything. Although I'm still navigating a lot of pain of the physical loss, what's greater and what really stuck out to me is the growth I've experienced, the wisdom I have gained, the gratitude for the many years I had with my mom and the understanding that the pain that I was going through in my process, it represents the massive impact and force she was in my life, which I've also been able to actually apply on my job, especially from a gratitude perspective when there's a a lot of stress going on and a lot of heaviness because of a lot of different changes and especially when you're dealing with the busy seasons of the jobs. Just really looking for gratitude in all of it. A sense of humor, which my dad has set an amazing example of. He is a fully retired disabled vet. So, at this stage in his life, he has a lot of time on his hands. And so I've included some texts where he's always questioning if I have a real job or I'm just saying I'm working to avoid his calls. What makes these messages extra special to me is I know patience is not his strongest trait. And for almost 48 years, he had my mom catering to some of the impatients. Literally overnight at 66 years old, he had to start learning a completely different life. and both of his closest supporters, which is my sister and I, have very busy lives with very heavy responsibility. So, the capacity is not there to be Johnny on the spot like my mom was. I know it bothers him at times, but he has leaned into humor to cope and handle it in a healthy way. Attitude to life. Growing up, my dad used to always talk about having a can do attitude, which is one of the many traits I inherited from him. going into every challenge with I can do this. My mom left a strong legacy and that will continue not only in me and all the people she helped but also as a nonprofit that will be launched sometime this year. I can't do anything about her not being here to complete the work she started. But I can carry on her legacy and ensure it doesn't die. What you see is the logo. Everybody that knew my mom knew she had such solid faith and she had an unconditional love for people. So the roots on the logo symbolize her faith and the heart-shaped leaves on the branches symbolizes the love that was produced from her faith. At the beginning of this journey, someone told me that grief is love with nowhere to go. Well, this nonprofit is a place for all the love that I have for my mom to go while changing lives, which is the perfect way to honor her memory. And then support system. My village is the best quality of people a person can have and I'm learning who's supposed to be what to me. So I have reasonable expectations. And I think that's a good point to really emphasize. Disappointment comes from unfulfilled expectations. Knowing who is supposed to be what is very important. If you're expecting someone to be something or someone that they're not meant to be to you or not capable of being to you, you will continue to be disappointed. And for some, you may need to be proactive with finding your village if you don't already have one. And my final point for this for on this particular topic for everybody is to have at least one person that can tell you what you need to hear even if you don't want to hear it. and it's called an accountability partner. What I have learned during my journey is the importance of making a choice to grow through it and not just go through it. And finally being intentional with leading with I get to do this and not I have to do this attitude which leads to a life of gratitude as a default. And I just want to just sit here for a second. One of the things that um I struggled with when I first entered this very unwelcome journey um is there is always always always going to be some light in the midst of any challenge. There's always going to be something that you can take and you can flip. And so in this process, what I'm finding is at my job as a leader, I've done a good job with focusing on count accountability. I've done a good job with focusing on collaboration. I've done a good job with focusing on partnerships, not working in silos. But one of the things that I did not have on my radar is gratitude. Gratitude being really a key pillar of what helps navigate through our spaces of stress and where there's a lot of health a lot of heavy things that are going on and where everything feels really dark. Especially in frustrating moments where it doesn't seem like nothing's lining up, but we have accountability and expectations that that we have to figure out in the midst of. But the gratitude because what that does is it helps you look for something to be happy about. It helps you look for something to lift your spirits. And what I have found surprisingly is I have been able to find way more solutions in some of my darkest times of this journey when I thought that I was the least productive because I focused on something that led to solution. Um, and gratitude keeps a very clear head under a lot of immense pressure. I recently read a quote that said, "No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom. From fear can come courage. From suffering can come strength if you have the virtue of resilience." And I'm learning more and more that most everything is a two-sided coin. And I need to choose my side wisely if I want to grow through it, whatever the it is. and the it is always going to be something. And so I want to thank you for allowing me to share a part of my journey of resilient leadership and I hope that there is something in this that you can take away. Yes, Elaine, thank you so much for sharing the story. We've received a lot of um tips and questions that have come in the chat and everyone really appreciates sharing your story. I think we have time for maybe one question before we move on to our next presentation. So, this is an interesting one from Danny. And Danny says, "Any tips on what you should share with co-workers when you're going through tough personal times." Yes. And that is an interesting question and I am so so happy that you asked me that question because I have struggled. So, as a leader, I am not traditional at all. Um, I am very much a person that leads with heart. And so as I have grown into the different positions within the organization, I have broken out of the box of you should not show emotion and business and personal should never mix and you should show up with the mask really is the message that I have gotten a lot of my career which completely goes against everything that I am. I am a very very um sensitive person under the surface. So, I have learned to compartmentalize some of that, but I'm a person that um leads with being human. And so, my very first meeting, so me and my sister both only took off one week. Um we stayed the whole week and started coming up with our game plan of what we needed to do to start transitioning my dad. But because of our roles that we had in our jobs, my perspective, which wasn't the healthiest, but my perspective was as a fixer, I could not do anything about my mom's situation to save her, to change any of it. So, what I wasn't going to do is I wasn't going to let down the people at my job as well. And so, after a week of taking off, I did what a fixer always does. I put on my mask. I rolled up my sleeve and I have my first meeting and I cry. I was not expecting it. Um, anybody that has gone through a certain level of grief understands that it's not predictable. It could be just nothing that happens and you're a mess or it could be something that triggers it. And so it's the beginning of the meeting and I just cried. Um, I got myself together and I was honest and I said, "I'm struggling. I don't know why I cried in that moment." Um, I said, "But I'm having a hard time with navigating everything with my mom's loss on top of all the stuff that we have to to do." So, um, so I I am just struggling right now with the balance of it. Um, so I appreciate you being able to let me have a moment because what I did not want to do is I didn't want to number one, um, make it a thing of I have to apologize because I shouldn't be human in this moment. Um, but what I also did was, um, I gave space enough to allow them to say whatever they needed to say back to me. Um fortunately it was two people that I have worked with for a lot of years. Um so they were comfortable enough to you know apologize for my loss and ask me a couple of questions and then we moved on with business. Um I have other parts of my team where um I have not worked with that part of the team as long so the relationships are a little bit different. And so in some of those meetings, I've shared enough for them to know that um all is not completely well, but I am I have a great support system and I am doing everything I can. So I'm just asking that you be patient if I have a moment. Um I'm doing the best I could under my circumstances. But I did not go into as much in the conversation on personal because that's not the relationships and and and quite frankly those group of people um they're more business focused and and they could care less about going into all the other stuff even though they're really good people and they did really care but having those details like that wasn't that wasn't the right audience. So I'm saying that to say it's not a one-sizefits-all answer. It is based on relationships. It is based on time and place. It is based on environment. And so what I've done is I've allowed myself to be human. And if it's an environment where it's not time and place, then I had a human moment. I don't apologize for being human, but I thank whoever I'm dealing with in the moment for their patience. And I quickly pivot to focus and get back to business. And then in those moments where it is more of a safer space to allow a more open door to be transparent, um I say go for it as a leader because I feel like it's made us a better team for them to see their leader saying, "I'm not okay, but I'm still showing up." That is the one takeaway that I have had from this whole journey is in the moment of my life where I felt the weakest, I showed up the strongest by being human and not apologizing for being human. It's a balancing act. It's not a perfect act. There are some days that I had more capacity than others, but showing up as human and allowing your team to see that I think has made a huge impact because what that does is it gives them permission to show up as human. It gives them permission to have that day or that moment without beating themselves up, without being stuck in this spiral because they feel like they should be chastised for just being human. Life happens for everybody. Well, Lane, thank you so much for being vulnerable and for sharing your presentation today. We really appreciate your time. Thank you.