(Kari) Welcome everyone to our navigating change in challenging times webinar. I'm Kari Uhlman, EAP counselor and with me today is Matt Gilbert he's also an EAP counselor. Welcome Matt. (Matt) Hello Kari it's an honor to be here, thank you. (Kari) Great to have you Matt. During these challenging times we're experiencing and continue to experience a significant amount of change. You might be feeling overwhelmed or you might be looking for ideas around how to manage the challenges that come with change. Today we'll talk about the human side of change to help you better understand what you and others are experiencing, how you are being impacted by change, actions you can take to navigate change based on your unique response to stress and we'll also provide resources and supports that are available to you. If you haven't done so already please go to the EAP website to download our handouts as we'll be using them throughout this presentation. We have a my change plan and a self-care at work handout you can get to our website by going to eap.wa.gov then click on COVID-19 resources and you'll be able to find these two handouts as well as our presentation right underneath the navigating change in challenging times webinar. If as we move through this webinar you find yourself overwhelmed or you have questions that we weren't able to answer during our time today, please know that you can schedule a time to meet with an EAP counselor you can contact EAP at eight seven seven three one three four four five five and also we'll provide more information about EAP and the services that we provide at the end of this webinar. So let's begin. You, we all experienced change prior to COVID 19 but with the sudden changes, the amount of changes that you've experienced in such a short period of time, and the stressors related to COVID -19 and in the world in which we live you might be feeling significantly impacted by the amount of change that you're currently experiencing. We all know that change is inevitable and it's part of our everyday lives. Science fiction novelist Octavia Butler, she wrote about resilience and adaptation in dystopian times, and she tells us the only lasting truth is change and as the character Spock from Star Trek says change is the essential process of all existence. Well even with the knowledge that change is inevitable and unstoppable I don't think anything could have prepared us for the sudden amount of change that we would experience and how quickly we would need to pivot and adapt. While we weren't able to stop the change that's happening right now or changes that are on the horizon we can learn skills to help us to manage our way through change so let's talk a little bit about what else we know about change now. (Matt) Thanks Kari. Well what we know about change especially during this unprecedented amount of change is that all of us have had to adapt in one form or another to the changes brought on by the pandemic whether that's engaging in social or otherwise known as physical distancing, working from home, home schooling your children, wearing a face mask, changing work processes, routines, or technology or increasing safety precautions such as the frequency of hand-washing. In addition to the changes with the pandemic we are currently experiencing an unprecedented amount of changes we've moved from the Industrial to the Information Age. In the Information Age information it really is a commodity that's quickly and widely disseminated and its available 24/7 there are both benefits and challenges to this. With the Information Age there's an increase in the ability of like-minded people to be able to quickly connect to create positive or in some cases negative changes such as political revolutions, seeking ways to solve problems or spreading false or negative information. Upset sense of control is also what we know about change with COVID 19 the reality that we aren't in control of many aspects of our lives became clear to many of us and as we've noted needed rather to shelter in place, physically distance and adjust to so many other changes we can find ourselves in unexplored territory and can feel a sense of losing control over our lives. Something else we know about change is that often we are, it presses us out of our out of our comfort zone right so with change comes new habits and thinking and new ways of doing things which really can push us out of our comfort zones such as learning new technology, not having key team member team members physically nearby to ask questions or even get support or have new or difficult conversations with our team members. Also change most often involves some sort of loss change also involves loss as we let go the old way and move toward the new we're going to talk a little bit further more about this as we continue through the presentation but first let's talk about a few more things that we know about change, Kari. (Kari) While having a response to change is universal how we each react and the adjustment period that follows really varies for each person it's based on our family history, our life experiences, cultural perspectives, and individual personalities so let me give you a few examples to illustrate this. Say for instance you were laid off during the Recession you'll probably have a different response to hearing about the possibilities of layoffs then someone else who hasn't had that experience. You may feel that well I've been through this before I can make my way through this uncertain time or it might bring up difficult memories and you might find yourself more stressed because of the life experiences that you've had. Another example is if you grew up in a military family where you moved around a lot and your supervisor asked you to move offices or change your job description well with your childhood experiences you might feel that it's pretty easy to adapt to those changes or you might find it more difficult. Similarly if you, if your family immigrated to the US when you were a child or a teen and then you felt pressure to assimilate quickly you might be impacted and your response to change by this life experience that you have had and are having you might find it easier to adjust to change or you might find that it's a little bit more difficult to adjust to change based on your experiences or perhaps you're experiencing a recent death of someone in your family or you're caring for an elderly parent or a child with disabilities these experiences they might impact your ability to manage change. You may want to consider for yourself what are the factors that impact how you respond to change. So having a greater sense of self-awareness in this area it can be really beneficial in understanding yourselves and then understanding how you show up in the world and once you have a better understanding of that then you can create a plan of how to support yourself in managing change. Also when you find yourself being confused or maybe judging other people's response to change it's good to remember that you know if they've been on their own life journey too and that can possibly be impacting their reaction or their response to the change as well so it can be helpful to know that having a response to change it's universal. You're not alone in experiencing the ups and downs that come with change particularly during this pandemic so learning to navigate change you know that it's an essential skill in this day and age and it's essential for us to all be able to weather the storm of this pandemic and in the information age that we're currently in to help us both personally and professionally. Well the good news is that you can develop the skill to navigate change the skills and today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about some ideas to help you to be able to do that as Jon Kabat-Zinn, he's the creator of mindfulness based stress reduction meditation, what he says is you can't stop the waves but you can learn to serve so let's start by identifying what change you're currently experiencing. (Matt) Great thanks Kari and when we think about changes in in your life you know we're all experiencing a lot of changes as Kari mentioned let's take a moment to identify some of those changes that you are currently experiencing and which ones are having the most impact in your life at this time obviously we are experiencing changes both in our personal and professional lives and in relation to the community and world in which we live in and so in preparation for this webinar you should have found a PDF document titled my change plan if it's helpful you can create a list utilizing the my change plan PDF and create a list of changes that you are currently experiencing to have a better sense of all the changes you are experiencing. For many at this time that might feel a bit overwhelming but for some it may be helpful you decide for yourself what would be most beneficial to you and for this webinar. I'd like you to pick one change you'd like to have in the forefront of your mind as we move through the remaining portion of this webinar. Examples of possible changes could be working from home, returning to the work site post-COVID or maybe a change at your job role or duties or the way you get your work done. Consider adding this one change to the my change plan handout which you can also find located on the EAP website at eap.wa.gov and you just simply click on COVID-19 resources and you'll find the link. Now let's talk about various types of change. Well when we think of change we need to consider that there's both external and internal changes. External changes are what's changing on the outside. For example the need to physically distance during the pandemic, working from home when you used to perhaps work on the jobsite, learning new technology or software, changes in job duties, wearing a mask you get it and so on. Rather than focusing on what's changing externally, internal change is about what's happening on the inside the physiological, emotional, psychological process that occurs in response to the outside world. An example would be the need to physically distance to slow the spread of the corona virus, the process or active physically distancing is the external change internally though there is the physiological process the human side of change where we all experience different thoughts and feelings in relation to the change that's taking place. In fact it may take us a while for us to even come to terms with some of the changes. Some people might have experienced or are experiencing things like denial, anger, fear, resentment, or some other feelings. You might reflect back on what it was like when we first began sheltering in place to remind yourself of the internal process you were going through at that time and are most likely still going through to some degree as we continue to focus on flattening the curve. For this webinar our focus will be on the internal change the psychological process occurring in response to the change again the human side of change. Also as noted earlier because the internal process includes letting go the old and moving towards the new the process usually includes experiencing grief and loss as we internalize and come to terms with the change so let's talk further about the internal process of change. We're going to start by taking a look at the quote that you see here on this particular slide let's read it together, it's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways but it's that place in between that we fear it's like being between trapezes. It's Linus without his blanket when it's in the dryer there's nothing to hold on to and that quote is by the futurist Marilyn Ferguson. As humans we tend to like predictability and to feel in control of our lives and when we experience change most often we experience a sense or loss of control and instability the instability that we so often seek day in and day out. In his landmark work William Bridges who was with us from the years 1933 to the year 2013 he's well known for his work around the human side of change and William bridges talks about the trapezes and he explains the following. Imagine you're holding on to a trapeze which is your current state and you know you have to reach out and grab the other trapeze which is swinging in front of you and towards you and that represents the future state in order to get to the landing on the other side eventually you need to let go of the old and firmly grasp the new. Easier said than done but it's through this process there's a moment where one has to let go of the old or the old state and move into the new or the new state with all of the uncertainty that comes along with that. Will I make it, can I hold on to the net, will it support me? This is the place which most people experienced the most amount of fear and trepidation and it can also bring up lots of feelings of uncertainty so let's talk further about what happens during this psychological process of the trapeze effect, Kari. (Kari) Yes, thanks Matt, so William Bridges he has identified a psychological process that we moved through when we're experiencing change and he calls it managing transitions so let's take a look at his model. This transition model is a three-phase process that people go through internally you know as they internalize and come to terms with the change. The first phase is called endings and in this phase a person is in the process of letting go of how things were done before and with that there can be a letting go of one's identity that was associated with how things were done before so common feelings that people experience are feelings of denial, anxiety shock, and chaos. These are all so many of the feelings that we experience when we experience grief. The second phase is called the neutral zone this is the in-between time where the old ways or processes are not completely gone but the new ways and processes are not necessarily in place yet in this phase people can feel really confused uncertain and experience a lot of instability. The third phase moving forward or as Bridges calls it new beginnings this is when people reach the place where they feel that they have clarity they have feelings of optimism and hope in it and have a sense of purpose so let me just give you a simple example to kind of illustrate each of these phases. So say you found out today that you're getting a new supervisor well you might start out in the endings phase where you feel shocked or worried about what's going to happen or perhaps maybe just denying well they're not really not going to leave. The next zone would be the neutral zone and that would be the place in this example where you might just start to feel uncertain about what's going to happen next you know unsure about you know what a new supervisors expectations might be or even who the new supervisor will be at all. The moving forward phase in this example that would be when you really have a sense of understanding of the new supervisors expectations you feel pretty grounded, re-grounded in the purpose that you have or your team's purpose and you're feeling pretty positive about moving forward. So although this graphic appears very linear the process of psychological change is not linear. We as humans we shift back and forth through these three phases and we can also be in more than one phase at the same time for any given change. So in the example of the supervisor we could be missing our supervisor while at the same time feeling a sense of optimism and excitement about the new supervisor that's going to be coming in. Well to make matters even more complicated for each change you are experiencing you will most likely be in a different place in the transition model. For example if on your list of changes that you are having in your life right now one of them is the example that we talked about the new supervisor say that you're in the neutral zone around that you're not sure you know what it's going to be like with this new supervisor and then say on your list of change your teenager is getting ready to go off to college and for that particular change you are in the endings perhaps where you're feeling really sad and anxious and worried about your teenager going off to college so this can be really complex because there's so many ways that we can move through this change it is not linear a linear process at all. Typically people get stuck the most often in the ending and the neutral zone phases so these two phases are where people can really get stuck and it might need some help so identifying where you are with the current changes that you know the change that you've identified today and noticing that if you're maybe a little bit stuck in one of the phases that can be really helpful because then you can have some more self-awareness and then you can start to create a plan or realize maybe it's time for me to reach out for some support or help. The internal psychological process it really requires us to go through this process of disintegration of our old ideas and ways and states and then a reformation or reconfiguration into the new idea or ways or states so that can be a challenging process. What might be helpful to also know about you know when we're experiencing an external change there's a timeline right if there's going to be a new supervisor or there's a timeline with dates and times steps of when things will happen if it's a project when the project will be completed well when we're talking about the internal psychological process there is no timeline there are no dates there are no times in which you'll move from one phase to the next and we can't force our way from one phase to the next because this is really a human process and emotional process. We can use strategies though to support ourselves through the process and we're going to talk about those in more detail later in the presentation. So for now just a reminder to consider your own change that you're experiencing and you're thinking about today and you might just put that on your change plan and identify which phase or phases you're currently experiencing. So now let's talk about how change can impact you and then we'll talk about strategies to support you while you navigate through change. Change can impact us in many ways mentally, emotionally there can be changes in our behaviors and we can experience physical challenges too. So for example when you were first asked to shelter in place you might have found yourself maybe having a hard time focusing, maybe difficulties with sleeping or some body tension so we can really be impacted by change in multiple ways. Let's look at each of these sections a little bit further so we can better understand common responses to change let's start off with the mind so common responses with our mind are when we're experiencing a change we can feel really confused we can struggle with concentration and focus you might find that our thoughts are cycling we keep thinking the same thought over and over again. We might feel disoriented or feel kind of a loss of confidence. So we can be impacted in our mind but also with our behaviors. One might find themselves tripping more or just being more accident-prone, maybe making mistakes or having relationship issues or maybe over under eating or struggling with alcohol or drug use, perhaps having a short temper, maybe some performance issues. There's a lot of different ways that we can be impacted by it from the behavioral perspective. Let's look at a few emotions that people may have in response to change. You might be feeling some sadness, some worries, some fear, you might be feeling disconnected or agitated or maybe feeling hopeless. There's a wide range of emotions that we as humans can experience in relation to change and from the physical perspective. Our bodies you know we might be feeling really tired maybe struggling with sleep or perhaps some body aches could be things like headaches or stomachaches or grinding our teeth at night or muscular twitches, having difficulties with our breath, breathing really shallow so we can also be impacted have our bodies be impacted. I think it can be really helpful to look for yourself for the change that you've identified which of these responses are you experiencing and these are of course we're all unique humans so these aren't all the possible responses but there's some really common ones. So you might have some additional ones that you want to add. What I'd like to note too on this slide is that the words that are underlined and bolded those are the five words denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance they're part of the stages of grief and those are identified as by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who is well known for her work on death and dying and so it's just a reminder that our response can be a loss response then. That's really common. Sometimes that can be really confusing for people around why they're having those feelings, it's really common, and so that might be helpful to know also it's something that could be helpful is to notice if you're having responses in one category more than another so say you're noticing that you're having a lot of physical symptoms. It's good to notice that or maybe for you it's your mind. You're feeling disoriented and having a difficult time concentrating those types of things. So notice if there's one particular category or maybe two categories that you are finding yourself responding to change or it might be spread throughout but just kind of notice that for this yourself for the change that you've identified. So let's begin to talk about navigating change. (Matt) Hey, that sounds great thanks Kari so when we think about navigating change as a book end to some of the ideas and strategies, I just want to remind you that we have talked a bit about the psychological process of what it means to move through change and the stress responses that we sometimes experience are often experienced as it relates to change and so now we're going to start shifting and moving towards talking about some practical things or steps you can take and do to help you navigate change so next we're going to offer multiple ideas to help you navigate change. Feel free to jot down or make notes about any that you feel might be supportive or helpful for you and you may even consider utilizing that downloadable change plan might change plan so as we talk about these multiple strategies to navigate change keep in mind the one change you identified earlier. So now we're going to start with navigating the mind and Kari's going to help us get started with that thanks. (Kari) Well what can be helpful with navigating your mind is thinking about what's staying the same and what's not changing so as you might be shifting say for example from working from home back to the worksite. What's not changing. So that is changing what's not changing is the type of work that you do your co-workers or your customers or another example could be maybe you're experiencing a reorganization within your department or your agency so that's the change that's happening but what's not changing is you'll probably be using the same set of skills, you might be working in the same area you might be working with the same customers. So noting for yourself with the change that you've identified what's not changing can be really beneficial. Often we spend more time focusing on the big change that's happening and feel overwhelmed by that but it can be really helpful to remember that not everything is changing and this can be really grounding and really helpful during significant change so you might just add that to your my change plan or you might just make a list for yourself what's not changing for the particular change you have in mind today. What can also be beneficial is identifying what you are losing so earlier we talked about experience grief, experiencing grief as we move through this psychological process of change and one strategy that can be really helpful is getting clear and acknowledging what you are losing and naming the loss that you're experiencing so if you look on your my change plan you'll see multiple areas of loss to consider. So let's look at these areas of loss and then note for yourself any that you are currently experiencing, with the change that you're focusing on. So a person can feel a sense of loss of identity when experiencing a transition including work, personal, or cultural identity so say for example every work team you know has a culture and right now you might be feeling that the work culture is altered or changed with the increase in stress or perhaps it's because team members are working remotely, you might be feeling a loss of power right now as well let's say maybe you were the go-to person before COVID 19 for particular information or equipment or supplies and now people aren't currently needing that information or that those supplies, relationships might be altered as many of us don't see each other in person and you might be missing your co-workers so that would be an example for that one with your work assignment perhaps you've had to alter it and now you're not doing the work that you found the most meaningful in your job so maybe you're feeling a loss there or maybe you're having to learn new or different software or technology and you're on the learning curves so maybe you're feeling a little bit less confidence than you did before COVID 19, it could be that your role has shifted and so you're feeling a loss of status so consider that there's so much that feels out of control right now and maybe you're feeling a sense of loss of control you know in your work life or your personal life and I think for pretty much all of us our routines and structures have been significantly altered so this might be an area where you're feeling a loss and then there's also the uncertainty right now so maybe you're feeling unclear or uncertain about your work or your personal future. So these are multiple areas where you could be feeling loss and I would suggest to put a checkmark next to those on here my change plan the losses that you are experiencing and feel free to add any other losses that weren't noted on the change plan. You could of course add your own ideas around additional losses that you might be having and then I would suggest to you to notice if you have multiple checkboxes. Notice which losses feel the most impactful right now most significant and narrow it down to one or two of these losses. So once you've identified these key losses then you can go through a process to kind of reflect and see if there's a way to compensate for the loss that you're experiencing. So let me give some examples. So maybe you're returning to the worksite soon and you would prefer to work from home so while you can't change the need to go back to the worksite perhaps what you can do is you know maybe bring some of the comforts that you enjoyed from home to your worksite or maybe you're feeling lonely working from home you could maybe schedule a virtual lunchtime with co-workers or maybe you could talk to your team members about starting the next staff meeting a few minutes early so that there's time for people to just join in early and have some chit chat some just social time together. So consider adding any ideas that you have for ways that you could compensate for those key losses on to your change plan. The next strategy is thinking about what's in and out of your control and with change there are aspects that we have control over, there's areas that we have influence over, and then there's areas where we really don't have control over what's going to happen. It can be really helpful to identify these three areas what you have control over influence over and what's out of your control because then you can make choices. So knowing which is which it really allows you to be able to focus on what you do have control over and take actions in those areas and then you could consider what you have influence over such as you know maybe your job might be changing but maybe you can still meet with your supervisor to explain to them why you think a certain aspect of your job is really important, maybe you can influence in this situation. So consider where you can influence with the change that you've identified you know you can also maybe remind yourself about what you don't have control over and then work towards processing that loss or refocusing your energies elsewhere. So consider on your my change plan of identifying those areas where you have control, influence, and maybe some areas where you need to maybe let go. The last strategy I want to talk about around navigating the mind is checking in on our thought patterns. So noticing and shifting thought patterns can be really helpful. It's helpful to practice flexible thinking and find ways to adapt and sometimes looking at your situation from a different perspective such as you know thinking about the impact of change over your entire life can be really helpful, you know how important is this change when I look back and look at my whole life or maybe you can imagine yourself getting into a helicopter thinking of the problem, the change, that you have and then rising above it and looking at the change from a broader perspective and maybe it'll give you more insight into the change, maybe what you have influence over, maybe what you need to let go over maybe around you know the significance of this change or maybe it's not as significant and so just having a mindset of seeking solutions rather than focusing on the problems that can be really helpful to shift your thinking as well. So just remembering to check in on your thought patterns is sometimes we can get really rigid and our thinking when we get stressed and see if you can create a way to be a little bit more adaptable in your thinking patterns. Let's talk next about navigating your emotions, your heart and Matt's going to help us out with that. (Matt) Thanks Kari absolutely. So when we think about navigating our heart right navigating those particularly strong emotions at times we need to be able to expect and to be able to name and accept our responses so when it comes to navigating the heart this really is a time to be gentle with ourselves and when we can't embrace that it's expected that we would have a response to change and name and accept our related feelings this will actually help us in our ability to let go and move forward. So another aspect of navigating the heart is to be able to express your feelings it's really just beneficial to find avenues of verbal or communicative expression as an outlet for your emotions and there are a number of other ways of being able to express our feelings and as a listener to this webinar I would ask you a process question of what are ways that you might find helpful to express your feelings? Some examples could be things like writing, dance, art, music, or other physical activities like walking and running. It's also important in navigating the heart to stay connected. Staying connected to important people in your life by maintaining friendships, relationships and other social networks sometimes when we're feeling overwhelmed by our reactions to change we can start to isolate ourselves or change our routines that we would otherwise do. For example I stopped exercising or taking on those healthy activities that can sometimes really keep us in balance. Talking with others about what's happening or are related feelings or engaging with others to have a break from her stressors can be quite helpful. What are some examples of important people in your life? Maybe there are some people that you can turn to today whether it's a trusted colleague or co-worker, friend, a close family member maybe it's somebody in the community like a counselor or religious or spiritual leader. As part of this webinar there is also a PDF with another handout referred to as self-care, it's self-care at work handout, and with that handout you're going to really take a closer look at practicing self-care. Practicing self-care can really help you manage your mood and your energy and improve upon sleep. You know consider wrapping up in a blanket, maybe getting some of that aggression out by going for a quick pace walk if you can exercising to release tension or maybe in order to express, thoughts, or feelings. You might consider watching a sad movie to allow some of those feelings that are stored up, engaging in helpful distractions like playing with your fur baby, your kitten, your puppy, or maybe you've been watching a funny video or YouTube can help shift your mood. On our website you'll see a whole list of self-care ideas and strategies that you can employ both at work and in your personal life. Of course you need to identify which ones would be most appropriate for you in your workplace and if you're on site you might consider some of the ideas or strategies and how that may work for you on site and other strategies or ideas that may support you off-site. In addition you might even consider enrolling or registering for our self-care webinar which allows us both Kari and I to speak to you in greater detail about some other self-care strategies and you can find that self-care webinar simply by going to our website at eap.wa.gov and just click on the COVID 19 resources for all of our webinars and you would just simply click on the link and register. Next let's talk around some strategies to help us navigate our behaviors. So when we think about navigating our behaviors we want to identify some key priorities and what I mean by that is navigating your behaviors by identifying your key priorities. Things like being a parent right that's a key priority, gaining work experience for future advancement might be a key priority in your life today or may be another key priority is taking care of or caretaking for an elderly parent or a loved one. This will help remind you of what you're focusing on so that you can channel that energy on those important areas. Also we behaviorally we want to try to look at ways to minimize change are there ways that you can minimize the amount of changes in your life? Well you'd be surprised how often people don't think about this. For example if you're let's say going through a major job change do you really want to move into a different home or let's say you're taking care of an elderly parent do you really want to take the promotion or major take on another major project? By limiting and managing the types of changes or the amounts of changes that you're able to do, will help reduce the stress that you're experiencing. Also you want to consider ways to engage in healthy communication. Practicing healthy communication can be difficult especially when you're feeling stressed. Notice if you're engaging in gossip or you're speaking from a place of angst or frustration or maybe in some cases you're noticing that you might be jumping to conclusions or filling in the gap of the narrative or the stories that you're telling yourself and all of these things will in some ways keep you stuck in the complaining cycle. So seek out the facts listen to understand, listen with grace and compassion to others without planning a response while they're speaking and whenever possible or whenever you're given the opportunity provide ideas about how to make things better. Be solution focused, not problem focused and finally we want to avoid engaging and unhealthy behaviors so take stock or notice if you're engaging in unhealthy behaviors or maybe there are people in your life that are noticing the changes that you're currently going through and have voiced some concern this might be for example maybe they're noticing or maybe you are noticing an increase in alcohol consumption maybe you find that the temptation to turn to drugs is stronger today maybe you find yourself isolating or pulling away from the familiar and those things that bring you comfort and keep you in balance or maybe you find yourself overeating or over sleeping or conversely under eating or not finding adequate sleep. What steps do you want to take to support yourself? Maybe it's taking a break from alcohol, reminding yourself to eat or maybe it's just asking for assistance and reaching out for help from family and friends or maybe even a professional counselor in order to manage these unhealthy behaviors and next we're going to talk about supporting and taking care of our bodies. (Matt) Right Kari? Yes, yeah let's talk about our bodies. So you know in practicing self-care we talked about that earlier your body deserves self-care too and there's so many different ways that we can engage in and practice self-care. It could be going for a stroll or a walk or a run or practicing yoga or Tai Chi or boxing or maybe there's something that you can do to pamper yourself like do-it- yourself facial or a manicure pedicure. There's so many things that you can identify that will be beneficial to your body around self-care. As well, in thinking about self-care and the navigating and the body it's really important to think about continuing well checkups and visiting your doctor if you're having physical symptoms. It's a really important part of taking care of your body so if you're avoiding going to those well checkups or you're having physical issues we really strongly encourage you to reach out to your medical professionals for support and assistance in this area. So support your body also by eating and limiting alcohol and drug use and also allow time for just downtime for a play, for a rest and for sleep and you know when we're experiencing stress these are some of the first activities to go and we often forget about having time to just play or just have downtime and so remember that this is something to be prioritized to for your body's health continue with any routines or habits that you have that support you that's really important when you're feeling stressed. So you know ways that you can support your body, healthy routines can be so beneficial and it might be doing something like downloading a mindfulness app so that you can listen to a talk on reducing your stress and that might be helpful to do there's a lot of mindfulness apps that are out there that are available that you might consider using for free. Many of them are for free and so consider utilizing that as a resource or a support. You know I want to let you know that small changes can make a difference so you may think that you have to make some huge change and as we're moving through this presentation this webinar I want you to know that even if you make a decision to make one small change that can be really beneficial to you, for your body, for your mind and different aspects of who you are. So let's talk next about when to ask for help. Sometimes people let me know that they're not quite sure when they should reach out for help and so on the screen in front of you you'll see two columns and on the left side you'll see the typical and expected when thinking about change and having a response to change. We've talked about all of these areas on the left hand side there and so these are you know expected that you would have a response to change. The areas in there on the right are areas that are worthy of additional attention and support. If you're feeling significantly distressed, it's impacting your life, you're having thoughts of harming yourself or others, if you're having an increase in alcohol and/or drug use, if you're having an increase in using your sick time or a decrease or increase in eating or sleeping or other physical symptoms that are concerning. For some people they don't notice that they're being impacted by the change but its other people that notice. So be aware if somebody is saying I'm worried about you, I'm really concerned about how you're doing. Notice that and that can be a cue that oh it's time to reach out for some help. It also might be that you're having what's typical and expected response to change but you're finding that you're feeling really stuck. It's helpful to you know these responses are really impacting the quality of your life whether it's lasting a really long time kind of out of proportion to the change event to your response those types of things those are also some cues that it might be helpful to reach out to someone for some support. So let's talk about what support is available for you. On your my change plan there's an area where you can break down possible supports whether that's your family member, a friend, maybe a mentor, could be a support group or a spiritual or religious leader or it might be the EAP. So there's also an area for you to list specific actions you would like to take in navigating the change that you've identified. So I just encourage you and after you're done with this webinar to maybe jot down a few ideas but let me give you a little bit more information about the EAP so you have a better understanding at around how we're here to support you and you know we can be here for you as a thought partner as you plan or you navigate the changes in your life. So in order to access our services you can simply call us at eight seven seven three one three four four five five and when you call us what will happen is you'll talk to one of our wonderful intake professionals and they'll help you get started and usually you can get started in talking to a counselor actually within a week and if you're needing to talk to someone sooner it's more of a crisis then you can talk to the intake professional around that and we can look at that to see if we need to get you in sooner EAP. Services are also available for the adult family members in your home so those that are 18 or older that are in your household can also call us at that same number. Another way you can reach out to us is by going to our website eap.wa.gov and then you can click on online referral requests. Complete the information that's asked, a little bit of information as needed from you, and then you hit the submit button and then one of our intake professionals will call you back. So those are two ways by calling us or going online to connect with EAP and to get started and working with a counselor. We have counselors throughout Washington State right now. What we're currently doing is we're meeting with you over the phone or sometimes over the web just to make sure that everybody's safe and with the coronavirus and so just know that we still are able to provide services and we have this wonderful way to communicate with you at this time. We can offer very practical help for you and we can help you with personal concerns that you're having or work-related concerns that you're having. We have caring and respectful counselors that you know a really approaches from a culturally relevant perspective and really look at you as a whole person not just your work self not just your personal self but you as a human as a whole person. So we just really encourage you to reach out. I want to let you know that there's things beyond the counseling services that we provide and you can find those on our website. If you go to eap.wa.gov, you'll find a wealth of information there. You can sign up for our monthly newsletter and once you do that it will come right into your inbox every month and you'll receive some helpful information. You can also review other information that we have there and then if you click on COVID 19 resources that will take you to the page where we have on-demand webinars available and live webinars as well as a wealth of other information. If you scroll down to the bottom of that COVID-19 resources page you'll see a lot of links on a variety of topics everything from being in a relationship to parent to domestic violence and a wide range of other topics so please feel free to give us a call or visit our website as we're really happy to work with you and support you on your journey. I want to let you know that in this presentation when you download it from our website you'll be able to see the links for additional information. If you want to learn more about change you can take some classes and we've identified some classes here that you might consider through the department of enterprise services, you can see what classes they have available, also if you have access to LinkedIn learning there's a few classes identified here but I'm sure there's even more but I wanted to get you started on a few classes that you might consider taking. This presentation was strongly based on William Bridges work and his book is called Managing Transitions which you can see on the left here and then there's some other books that you might consider if you're wanting to learn more about navigating change the human side of it. There's also a few websites that you might consider browsing and maybe some TED talk videos that you could consider. So I wanted to let you know that those are also available as well. So feel free to download our PowerPoint presentation and you can click on the links and go directly to all the information that was shared just a moment ago. So thank you so much for joining us today I really appreciate it and I hope to hope you join us at a future webinar and Matthew thank you so much for joining me today and co-presenting. (Matt) Yeah, thank you Kari for having me and thank you all so much for joining us and we hope to see you and either in our future live webinars or we hope that you continue to benefit from all the anytime viewing webinars that are now currently on our website. Thank you so much great thanks everyone. (Kari) Have a good day.