Erica Steffer: Recalibrating after a Life Changing Injury
We are back with our first guest in a series of conversations about recalibrating and more. In a minute you’ll learn more about Erica and what led to her being a guest contributor this week. Not only does Erica have an incredible amount of experience with this topic through lived experience herself— she also offers perspective from the experience of working in mental health, OT, health promotion and health equity for many years.
As you navigate today’s post— you can look for these key areas:
Introduction transcript
Audio file of the interview (includes intro, interview, and OT Recap)
OT Recap transcript
Deeper dive into Rest for Individuals and Collectives (Bonus material— not included in audio)
Below you’ll find the introduction followed by the audio file of the interview:
(0.00) Introduction
Hello, everyone. Welcome to our latest conversation exploring Lives Well Occupied: Lessons from Near and Far. This conversation comes to us from Minnesota.
For the blog, To a life well occupied, this week we are talking about the theme recalibrate with Erica Steffer. When we considered guests on this topic, Erica came to mind as someone with significant practice and experience with recalibrating. Erica offers real talk, humor, and wisdom as she provides a glimpse into what this experience has been like through the lens of a giver and receiver of health care. She shares the unexpected gifts, life lessons and insight that comes from managing the unexpected and a life changing injury. She offers us plenty of opportunities to listen and ponder what her experiences have to teach all of us. This is one of those conversations you may want to come back to several times as a new noticing emerges.
Erica prompts us to consider how we go about building and reconfiguring our support systems-- noting some of those supports are self-selected and some not as she reflects on the role of conformity in navigating her life's journey.
We dive deeper into rest and what happens when it is simply not possible to push through-- what other ways of being emerge? Erica generously shares her time and energy with us to kick off the exploration of recalibrating our way to lives well occupied.
(0:1:42) And now-- we'll hear more from Erica herself.
(Reminder: Full audio is in link below— includes introduction and OT recap— we will update the blog post this week with time stamps for key moments for easier navigation)
Image Description: Photo collage created by OTA student, Emily Otremba of notes Erica Steffer has written and utilized in her healing process, using her OT and mental health knowledge to be a key member of her own care team.
(Top Left) Pivot, Honey: What is your goal/purpose? >STOP< (1) What am I doing? (2) What am I supposed to be doing? (3) Do I have what I need? (4) Deep breath. No need to rush. (5) Proceed with focus, one thing at a time, on purpose.
(Top middle): Quote by Erica when talking about how many women struggle to give themselves permission to rest— “You don’t actually need a court case to take a break.”
(Top right): Image of an example of using Park Points method to determine amount of energy an activity, such as using the computer takes- 10 minutes = 1 point; 25 minutes= 2 points
(Bottom middle): Erica’s note to herself: “I know it sounds awful but sometimes you’re going to have to suck it up and be loved.”
(0:55:22) OT Recap
First, as listeners, I would like to share with you that one of the reasons for these conversations being part of the blog is to provide an opportunity for people with a variety of life experiences to slow down and listen to each other in a way that can transform the way we experience our connection to each other. You’ll notice these conversations are not shared in real time, yet are shared as is. This offers the chance to hear real conversation at a time that as listeners we can choose when we are in our best place to receive these life stories. We get the chance to listen to a conversation in its entirety, come back at another time for smaller chunks, or listen multiple times and notice different things each time.
A note on the back end of recording these conversations
This particular interview was recorded with a different group of occupational therapy students observing the actual interview and is being prepared for you with occupational therapy students who are in their first week of their time learning with me. One of the gifts of this expanded team, is we get to consider even more people’s experiences and reflections on Erica’s observations. It is also a reminder that our insights may expand and increase as we listen with a variety of people. As you listened to Erica’s story, perhaps you also have more questions, like the questions and reflections raised by OTD student, Peter Simon.
”There is comfort in conformity, but what happens when we either choose or have no control in going against those expectations for us? How do we then figure out how to navigate life after stepping out and into something that we need instead?”
If you’re looking for a condensed recap of this interview— Peter offers thought provoking questions for further reflection as we consider how this interview offers lessons to all. You could stop the recording right here and have a conversation or internal dialogue that is likely to serve us well.
If you’re listening for more thoughts on an occupational lens of this interview, we’ve got that option for you as well.
Today we’re going to talk a little bit more about how occupational therapists look at context or environmental factors, the occupation of rest, and methods of navigating and managing life, particularly as it relates to energy.
(0:58:06) When we consider Erica’s experiences from an occupational perspective— one way that we hear Erica organize time is that of before and after her injury. When we experience life changing events, our consideration of time can change. We hear her tell us of what she would have done before the injury and what would have happened after the injury. She gives us the temporal or time context to understand choices and circumstances that influence decisions across both of these time periods. And, perhaps by doing so, she gives all of us the chance to reflect more on the before and after moments of our individual and collective lives as well. We might even jot down our own timeline on a piece of paper to think of what those before and after moments may be.
This distinction provides us the opportunity to recognize that not all the things we were doing before a life changing event may have been serving us so well. In Erica’s case, we hear her reflect on the lessons that have come with this season and the skills they have prompted her to develop and apply that she would have ideally loved to have had all along. Her realizations and sharing of these insights into what occupational therapy and science refer to as occupational adaptation are a gift to the story teller and the listener.
Erica’s observations have the potential to lead us into numerous deeper discussions and reflections. Each listener is likely to hear a number of things that speak to you and lead you to more questions. There are so many opportunities for deeper learning here —because of that, you may hear and see us come back to such topics in future posts on the blog. For this recap, there are are few highlights we’d like to lift up. You may have more or other highlights then listed here, and that is excellent— what you hear next is not intended to be a complete list— only a solid starting point for further noticing and reflection.
First is noticing what matters to a person and what factors influence the way they live their lives and occupy their time. For Erica, one theme that emerges throughout the conversation is the role of conformity in her life, pre and post injury. She gives us the chance to witness this on an individual and collective level while also connecting the dots that individual and collective responses around conformity have consequences.
Sometimes the consequences of conforming come in the form of exhaustion and draining of energy as a result of not fully expressing who you are, from not being heard or understood, or from trying to follow what seems like a societal expectation and standard that was next to impossible to meet prior to a life changing event and then becomes entirely impossible— it absolutely cannot happen. Full stop.
Those consequences can also come in the form of us having magnificent wisdom and ways of expressing our humanity all around us and never realizing they exist because we are working so hard to all be the same.
Erica’s relationship with conformity shares deep ties to the occupation of rest as well. Erica’s reflections offer listeners the chance to understand her experience and reflect on ourselves and all around us. At some level, we likely all know that rest is influenced by a multitude of factors and it may be that this conversation creates an opening to wonder even more. As Erica points out, for some people, giving themselves permission to rest is incredibly difficult. We humans may push and push and push through until a life changing event renders that absolutely impossible. There are individual beliefs, physical realities, and systemic factors that determine our ability to rest and to create that possibility for others as well. At one point, Erica references how many women she knows who feel too guilty to rest unless they are very ill or have something so drastic happening that they can give themselves permission to pause— she tells us after the injury she will say- “You don’t actually need a court case to rest.”
Erica’s accident set the stage for her to take actions around the factors impacting how she chooses to spend her time, to decide what really matters and recognize it is not just time and money available that determine what she does or does not do, but the amount of energy it takes is a key factor. In fact it always was a key factor— it was simply one that is often not considered until a plot twist in life requires us to do so.
As listeners, we are still contemplating how much an energy budget could help us all understand ourselves and each other better. She helps us understand how she navigates her daily occupations by recognizing how many points of energy she has each day and assigning point values not only to tasks themselves but to environments (which could also include the who are you with) as well.
In addition, her reflections on an energy budget pre and post injury give us the chance to pause to notice what gives and drains energy for each of us. Considering the impact on our energy enables us to make decisions with greater intention and likely more fulfilling outcomes. When setting limits on our boundaries is difficult or nearly impossible, recognizing there is not enough energy left in the budget helps us navigate conversations and decisions.
(1:04:17) As Erica talked about energy prior to her injury she mentioned that it was not uncommon to spend all one’s energy at work only to come home to a partner cranky and with no energy left. Her observations invite us to wonder— how might our recognition of the role energy plays in our daily roles and activities change our expectations and actions— of ourselves and everyone else? If our paid work wipes us out— what does that mean to all the other roles we have in life as caregivers, friends, neighbors, creators and more? Are we okay if the way we spend the bulk of our day results in us having no energy left in the budget for any of our other valued roles in life? What happens when we do that for prolonged periods of time?
These questions may be reflected in Erica’s statement to us— “If we are waiting for a reason to refill, it’s just gonna be never.”
So what might building an energy buffer look like as individuals but also in our systems and collectives of which we are apart?
As we wrap up today, we invite you to share what stands out to you in this conversation and offer an opportunity for a slightly guided action. The next time you are in a team meeting at work, figuring out how to navigate the responsibilities of caring for loved ones or the place you live, or even just notice yourself or others being a little snappy or angry— we invite you to pause to ask if you may have surpassed your energy threshold/budget (are you or others on empty?) and what can you,(individually and collectively), do and not do to create an energy buffer to allow for the unexpected in life to not eat up an entire energy budget?
We hope this prompts more meaningful discussion for you and invite you to look at additional resources posted at the bottom of the blog post. You’ll learn more of the methods Erica uses to navigate daily life and have the opportunity for a deeper dive as you learn about The Nap Ministry’s mission to remind us getting to self-care, rest, and avoiding of burnout is bigger than just our individual choices.
Thanks for listening and pausing to notice how we navigate life.
As always, we’re with you on the journey—
To a life well occupied
Deeper Dive to Learn More About Rest for us as Collectives and Individuals
Erica’s experiences navigating changes in life remind us that there are often things that are so second nature to how we live that we don’t always stop to question how they might be influencing how we and everyone around us lives. Erica’s observations invite us to look deeper, to determine the factors that influence us as individuals and a collective. One of the resources Erica shared with us is The Nap Ministry. To wonder more about what truly impacts our ability to rest as individuals and as a society, check out The Nap Ministry cited in the quote below. After reading the quote by Tricia Hersey, we invite you to wonder on your own or with others—
What happens when our focus on rest only includes sleep hygiene and other individual cares and not the more systemic factors? Have you considered these factors as you think about burn out and self care for you or others?
Image description: Quote by Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry @thenapministry.com— “The how to avoid burn out and self care tips gotta include a focus on capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy. These are the systems causing stress, not your lack of a facial and an expensive new pillow.”
