Boundaries with Emily Stride

In this episode of the One Health Podcast Wellbeing Series, Dorian Broomhall gets to know Emily Stride, Workforce Strategist for Talent Acquisition.

In this episode, we speak about the three types of boundaries – Fragile, Flexible and Rigid – that we may have in place in our lives.

Emily speaks about the boundaries she has set up, and how they help her to be the way she wants to be at work and at home. 

Transcript

Dorian Broomhall:

Welcome to the One Health Podcast. This episode was recorded on the land of the Palawa people. I acknowledge and pay respect to all Tasmanian Aboriginal people and to their deep history of storytelling.

My name's Dorian Broomhall and I'm the manager of culture and wellbeing for the Department of Health here in Lutruwita, Tasmania. For this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Emily Stride, a workforce strategist here in our talent acquisition team as a part of people and culture. In our conversation, Emily speaks about the boundaries she has in place and how they help her to be and present in the way that she wants to. She speaks about how she does and doesn't separate different parts of her life, both in and outside of work. And she also talks about how she transitions between these different parts of life, both at the start and the end of her day. To begin with, I'm going to take you through three different types of boundaries that we've identified through our work. So let's get into it.

To start the episode today, and our last in the series on wellbeing, I want to talk a little bit about boundaries today. And before we get into the conversation with our guest, I want to talk a little bit about how we've been thinking about boundaries through the work that we're doing. We've all got boundaries whether we know about them or not, and there's lots of different types of boundaries that we might have in our lives. We've been playing with the idea that you could possibly categorise the different boundaries in your life as fragile, flexible or rigid. You might come up with some other labels that work better for you. And it's been interesting as we've had the conversation within our team that we have flipped and flopped on different words for different sort of categories, even to the point of going, do we need categories? Nevertheless, we're going to use this to frame some of the conversation that we're going to have about boundaries going forward.

Each of these categories has upsides and downsides and they each have their place. The real point categories aside is starting to identify what boundaries might be important to you, what boundaries might be there that you aren't aware of, and what boundaries might be there to keep you safe as well as doing really, really well. Both of those in at once.

So again, the idea of fragile, flexible, and rigid is that none are necessarily better than any others. They just might be context dependent. So the idea of fragile boundaries, they're the boundaries we probably got the most of sometimes you might find yourself having a small negotiation in your head about whether you will or won't do something depending on what you thought you might do beforehand.

A really, really simple example of that for me was last night going, "I really fancy an adult beverage, but it's Tuesday and I wouldn't normally have an adult beverage on a Tuesday." Whether you cross the boundary or not, I'll leave that to your imagination, but I certainly had that negotiation of my head as to whether that was going to be a boundary I was going to cross.

These fragile boundaries aren't inherently bad, and many of them can be extremely useful like one like that. But the starting point is to be aware so we can make sort of informed about whether we will cross that boundary or perhaps we will keep it as something that we will not cross over.

A consideration of these fragile boundaries is that they can be reasonably easily dropped or discarded. The consequences may be minor if we don't enforce them, other people can probably cross them with little difficulty and impose what they might want on us. And they actually require very little effort to maintain. So they can be quite useful in many, many ways.

If we then consider flexible boundaries, these flexible boundaries can be very helpful in quite a range of situations because they acknowledge that life isn't always black or white. And sometimes our plans might need to change depending on the circumstances that we find ourselves in. Having flexible boundaries helps us to create space for these changes, whilst ensuring that we are making these choices on our own terms is really up to us. We also may choose not to change and then back ourselves in to hold this tension if need be. Saying no can be difficult and the right thing to do, and often that's a flexible boundary.

So when we consider flexible boundaries, they're based on our choices and preferences. They can be influenced but not changed by others. It's only up to us whether we are going to make an adjustment. They're both sustainable and sustaining. And it's important to remember if we have too many of them, to continue the metaphor, we may become stretched. We can't be pulled in lots of different directions. And at so times we probably need to make sure that we are going to that binary, "Yes or no. I will or I won't do this."

And then the final of these categories is what we've described as rigid. Rigid boundaries are very, very strong and they're quite difficult to break. Imagine a brick wall, it's quite large, often quite strong and very difficult to push down. If you do push that down or it does break, it can take quite a lot of energy to put it back together again to rebuild it.

Many of us haven't considered how much it might actually take to cross a rigid boundary or what those consequences could be. Sometimes these boundaries can be implicit and not known to us until they're crossed. If you've ever had that experience of perhaps a relationship with somebody who has done something that you didn't realise that was something that was going to have that much of an impact on you. There was probably a boundary there that was implicit to you until it was crossed by somebody else. And others might be really, really clear. And that could be to do with how we look after ourselves or our families for that matter.

It's important to remember what might be a rigid boundary for us might not actually be a rigid boundary for someone else. These are very, very much perspective-driven. And the conversation we had was around trust. And trust between individuals for some people might be absolutely essential. And if you break that trust, that trust is broken and it cannot be rebuilt. And others might be more forgiving, again depending on the context.

So the considerations of rigid boundaries are that they're incredibly strong when they break. It can be really catastrophic. And they can be that line in the sand that does keep us safe and a real choice for us to know that that's actually the point that we will not cross. As I say, the main thing on these ideas of these categories of boundaries is to start to think a little bit about what we might have in our own lives. Whether we use that terminology or not probably isn't necessarily that important, but there are different types of boundaries and different things that go on in our lives every single day. Sometimes we know about them and sometimes that we don't.

And at this point, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Emily Stride into having the conversation about boundaries with me. I've been lucky enough to know Em since I started work at the Department of Health back in October of 2022. So we've known each other for coming up to two years now, which is amazing. And Em was the person on the other end of the phone before I started the application process. She was some of my very first contact in coming into work here. So I've been lucky enough to get to know her over that period of time.

And I have observed Em as somebody who really, despite perhaps having some reasonably challenging circumstances outside of work that not everybody else might be aware of nor might have experienced for themselves, finds an incredibly good way to present as someone who's really taking care of themselves. Whether that's always true or not becomes a different conversation. But I thought that having Em to discuss boundaries with us would be an interesting place to go based on the complexities of her work and home life and how all of those can sometimes blend in or perhaps don't blend in depending what's going on.

And this has been prompted by some things that have happened recently where Em's started to talk a little bit more about some of what's gone on in her own life at home. And whether that comes up in this conversation or not, we'll see how we go.

So Em, thanks for coming and being up for the conversation. There's a curious starting point here in that when we were talking about these categories of boundaries last week ahead of today, we've changed the name of them since then. I don't know how well you remember the ones, how we introduced them last week, but we have iterated them slightly. So I suppose my first question for you is, you hear me talk about this idea of fragile, flexible and rigid, what comes to mind for you?

Emily Stride:

I suppose I started self-reflecting on what are individual boundaries for me and what things can I be flexible about and what are things that I'm not so flexible about. So I definitely sort of started to think about those personal elements myself, and not having thought before about putting them into actual individual categories. But I think the way you sort of explained, it's absolutely fitting and right in the sense that there are things that we are a bit more flexible and other things that are absolutely a bit more rigid about.

Dorian Broomhall:

When you think about things that you are a little bit flexible on, give me some examples. What's flexible in your work life that might shift depending on what's going on?

Emily Stride:

So I'm lucky enough to do... I have a good work life balance in the sense I do working some days from home and some within the office. For me, I'm really flexible about what that looks like based on obviously work requirements and what's needed there. I've got two young children so I do sort of pickups and drop-offs. So whilst I tend to have set days that I do that, I can actually be flexible in relation to what that looks like too based on things I've gone on at work and work commitments as well. So I can be flexible and move those types of things around depending on what I've got going on.

Dorian Broomhall:

So the work that you do is in the strategic talent acquisition space, which is very new for our department to have something like that that we're actually utilising a really proactive approach to bringing talent into the organisation from possibly anywhere in the world. Is this something that you realise that you talk about a bit as you are having conversations or considering making our department an attractive place to work?

Emily Stride:

Absolutely. I feel like flexibility is probably one of the number one things that we talk about with applicants because it's very much at the forefront of most people's minds in the sense that that's what they really are seeking in opportunities as well, is knowing that there is that limit of flexibility and what it might look like. And what it looks like to me is very different for somebody else as well. So we're having conversations around their ability to perform their job, what that looks like within the hours of their work and that scope and they can sort of shape and package that up, how they like that's fitting within their unit as well. So yeah, constantly having those conversations.

Dorian Broomhall:

It's interesting, we talk about flexibility in so many different ways and it's only in the last 24 hours that I've gone, "Oh, I suppose when we think about boundaries, they can be quite flexible as well." And this idea that there can be a bit of a push in the pull with them is something that I've also been thinking about going, "Okay, so what are those times where I really feel comfortable leaning in and saying yes or no to something, whether that's taking on an additional piece of work or going for lunch with somebody or doing something outside of hours, whatever it might be?" And the times that I feel a bit torn. [inaudible 00:10:18] times that you feel a bit torn about where you say, "Yep, I'm up for doing that, or perhaps that's not something for me."

Emily Stride:

For me, obviously whilst I'm at work I want to give 110% and obviously want to do my job really well and be as available as I can be, but then when it comes to, obviously you've got personal commitments outside of work and as I said before, a young family, I think it's when it starts to step over into that too much in the sense of where I feel like I'm torn and I'm unable to attend things that I might like to be able to be present for. So whether or not that's school things with the children, important assemblies, it might be medical appointments with my daughter, she has a lot of medical appointments that she needs to attend. So for me, when it starts to cross over that and there's not flexibility on the other side in order for me to be able to operate and work that in a different way, that's probably where I tend to be a bit more rigid in my approach to saying, "No, I can't do this but this is what I can do."

Dorian Broomhall:

So there's something interesting if we go to part of that. Sometimes I think we think about the boundary between work and not work as being about, well, we need to perhaps protect not work and protect our family life and our personal life, our private life however that sort of might be.

Something happened recently that I observed that a slight flexibility in that boundary from you meant that work was perhaps better able to show up for your out of work life. And the example of that of course is the City to Casino, the fun run that we have once a year, which is a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis, and your daughter was the ambassador for that event this year. And so that was something that okay, all a sudden we're going to talk about that much more overtly than perhaps we had before because your daughter was like, "Yeah, I'm going to put myself up for this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to make some noise."

I've never done a fun run in my life. I don't have a problem with running. I've never got the point of a fun run because, "Okay, I want to pay money, and then go and have a run."

You know what I mean? And all of a sudden it was like, "Oh, hang on, there's a reason to do this. This makes sense to me." On one hand the idea of cystic fibrosis or any other cause that you might want to raise money for, always sympathetic for happy to throw some money in when there's a personal collection there and going, "Oh, well that's Em and Em's daughter who is the people who are putting themselves out there for that." We got the team together and we turned up in our red and did the run on a reasonably cold morning and it was absolutely brilliant. This is an example of when your boundary perhaps has got a little bit more flexible. How was that for you?

Emily Stride:

Yeah, it was different. I suppose with my daughter's condition, I've always tended to keep personal and professional very separate in relation to. So when I went home, I've got my mum hat on. And then I package up whatever's going on at home into a different sort of shape, I suppose, or box. And then I come to work and I present in the professional manner that I need to be. Here, I'm presenting me.

So I hadn't really openly talked about Lottie and her cystic fibrosis and what that entails for us and the amount of, I suppose, load it puts on her and the family outside of work because I tried to keep them both separate. So I suppose bringing down that barrier a little bit and starting to be a bit more open and obviously talking about those types of things. There was something really therapeutic about it too. It felt a bit unnerving to begin with because I didn't want to be... I suppose I wanted to present in the way that I normally present, and that's, "This is Emily. This is how she presents for work. This is with my work hat on." And obviously that's being quite vulnerable and letting someone into your personal life a little bit and letting breaking those barriers down and letting people know that there's something else going on outside.

But what I saw was that so many people came behind it to support, and that was really lovely. And I felt like there was an element of actually letting that barrier down a little bit and actually sharing some of that isn't such a bad thing. Yeah, so I did, I found it quite therapeutic by doing that.

Dorian Broomhall:

It's really interesting. We talk a lot about the stigma around mental health. There could be the stigma around so many other things of going, "I'm not going to talk about that because it's to do with that other life that I lead outside of however many hours I spend at work." The reality is, to an extent, no matter how well put together we can become, there's going to be a little bit of bleed. So it's interesting, obviously we're not talking about mental health here, but nevertheless there's that idea of, "Oh, well I don't want to bring that up because of whatever reason. I might not feel safe or comfortable or simply not my choice." It's interesting to hear you say that it was somewhat therapeutic to lean in.

Emily Stride:

Yeah, it was unnerving, as I said, to begin with, but then therapeutic because I think my perception was that I would be seeing there was a lot of complications going on outside of work, a lot of personal commitments with my daughter and medical commitments that I couldn't be here and show up as maybe the department needed me to be or that in myself I felt like I needed to be seen. So there's a portion of not wanting people to sympathise, I suppose, or feel sorry for us as a family and those types of things. I wanted them to see me in the professional individual that I wanted to be seen in, and that was quite separate. But I suppose sharing that also allowed people to gain a bit more of an understanding in relation to that maybe times when I'm not present or where I am that there's good reasons, or maybe when I am less flexible in my boundaries as to a bit more of an understanding as to why I'm less flexible with certain things.

Dorian Broomhall:

That's a nice way of putting it as well because sometimes we talk a lot in the management sense about the downside of someone just telling you what to do without telling you the reason behind it so well and good to just be told, "You have to go and do this now" or, "Okay." It's actually really wonderful to understand the what for.

And again, I'm not proposing that everybody needs to know everything about everybody else. In your example though, I've always found it remarkable knowing even a little bit about what I know about your out of work life, how well you present at work. So that idea that you go, "Hey, I want to turn up and give 110%." I really observe it. I see it, I hear it in your interactions with people, your ability to turn up and be, "I'm absolutely here and I'm good to go." There must be something that you are doing to take care of yourself in amongst all of that then to be able to do that well because, and I'll use this word really deliberately, it's very authentic. It never feel like Em's putting on a face here today, no matter what might be going on. It's absolutely authentic in that transition that you bring into work and presumably then take home as well. What are you doing to look after yourself do you think?

Emily Stride:

Look, I think sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don't. But I think it's something that probably has come to me through experiencing in learning how to juggle both of these types of things and to present in the way that I want to. So I think over time I've allowed myself the time to breathe and to be me and to maybe potentially fall apart and unpack things that I need to in order to be able to put myself back together and present in the way I need to. So I suppose an example of that is with my daughter, we regularly have to go to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. In the lead up to that, I know as an individual I'm really quite anxious. I'm anxious for her and anxious for what that's going to look like and what it's about. So there's lots of things in relation to that.

I often will work from home in the lead up to that as well so that I feel that I suppose I can manage a bit of my anxiety that I'm feeling as well. Not so publicly as well, but still present to meetings and those types of things in the manner I need to be. When we come back, what I did find out, it was only through trial and error that we'd come back and I've put on the mum brave face whilst we're away and being the support person to everybody else around us and made sure everything's happening, that there was nothing left for me at the end and I think I would initially just try and throw myself back into work and committing to everything else. And I've just soon realised that that was a point for me that I needed to actually reset.

So I allowed myself to then have a day off or two when I got back to be able to maybe potentially fall apart, unpack what I'd processed, let all the emotion out. But then I found that I actually could put myself back a lot stronger and then come back to work and present how I wanted to present.

Dorian Broomhall:

It is a remarkably powerful story because if I think about those of us that perhaps don't have challenges as significant, we probably don't do what you've just described at any level. And whilst you talk about getting to the point or you've tried a few different things and then all of a sudden you've realised, "Oh actually this really works," sometimes it takes us to get to that sort of breaking point or whatever to go, "Actually I need some time out here." Whereas now it's part of your expectation and your practise so to speak. And I reckon for many of us, we don't allow ourselves those breaks or that time to just go, "Hey, I just need to do whatever it is that I need to do to come back together again."

Emily Stride:

Yeah, I think the most, I suppose, powerful thing is probably from having experienced it all falling apart a little bit in essence and going, "Hang on, I'm not presenting here as a mum as how I want to be and I'm not presenting here as I suppose the employee that I want to be in the sense of for my own personal expectations when I say that" and realising that I need that time to be able to breathe and to focus on what's important to me. And that might be being at home and going for a walk and unpacking the thoughts that I've built up and the brave face that I've put on. And those types of elements enables me to have time to just breathe and process that. And it makes me then be able to actually just present so much better when I'm back at work and mum life and those types of things as well.

Dorian Broomhall:

It's interesting to me thinking about boundaries and having this conversation and realising that so much of what goes on, it's sort of implicitly there. And it's not always explicitly there and that's possibly okay too. AI don't know. I'm reflecting on what my own boundaries are and something that I've been trying to do for example is when I get home trying to put my phone away for a couple of hours and just I've got this attachment of, "Oh, someone will need something from me." Nobody needs something from you between 5:00 and 7:00 because doing pretty much the same thing as you are, dealing with their kids or their family or doing something for themselves or whatever it might be, ideally. But I've just got this odd sort of thing, right?

So it's been this probably fragile boundary in that I break it probably pretty regularly. And I think, "Well, do I need to make it a flexible boundary?" And it actually doesn't need to be flexible because if I really think about it, no one's ever called me at that time. No one's ever needed something from me that was urgent then pretty much ever. So it's actually unreasonable to even to want to think about it as a flexible boundary, but it remains fragile. Probably doesn't need to be rigid though. I probably don't need to lock it in a box and go, "Well, you absolutely can't touch that" because nothing catastrophic's going to happen if I do. So it remains this sort of fragile sometimes I do it and sometimes I don't do it.

I'm going to ask you a different question. What advice do you have for me around how I might be able to maintain that fragile boundary and not break it or cross it as much as I am right now?

Emily Stride:

For me personally, when I think about boundaries like that, when I'm looking at your boundary that you are talking about there, is it is that very much one hat on, one hat off. And that's how I try and look at it. So once I step in the door, particularly if I'm there present with family time and all of that, everything else goes away is what I try and do. So that would be phones and not being available. But also setting the expectations. So letting people know that too, because I am a really transparent person. So I feel like if I set the scene that this is when I'm available and this is what I can do, but I'm not going to be available at this point in time, I feel like if I've set the scene, I've set the expectations, I've laid the boundaries, people know, no one's going to be let down. And then I'll be available then the next day from eight o'clock or whatever that may be.

So I think transparency is a really good way of doing that. And that might help you in the sense of setting those boundaries that you worry that you're going to be needed between these times if you set the expectations that you're not going to be available.

Dorian Broomhall:

Really great and simple things. So there you go. I'll set that expectation on this very public platform, that I'm going to strive between the hours of 5:00 and 7:00, perhaps 7:30 to really not be available. And if I do respond to you, please help to hold me accountable.

Emily Stride:

Set the boundary back in place.

Dorian Broomhall:

Yeah, that's exactly right. Or is there a good reason that boundary's been broken today or is it just actually... No, there's not at all. Just being a little bit poor at it. It's interesting and it's one that I sort of keep coming back to.

There was something you said in there too that I want to touch on. You talked before about having days that you work from home. I know you don't live as close to town as I do perhaps. Not that you live miles away, but for Hobart standards it's a little bit further away. Do you find the transitions different from work role to home role on days you work from home compared to days you come into the office?

Emily Stride:

Absolutely. So the days I'm working from home, obviously I think there's probably a lot more wellbeing component involved for me. Because for me it's a 45 minute to an hour drive into work of the morning and same home. So obviously, days that I'm working from home, there's extra time that I can either jump on and start early if I'd like to do that, which therefore means that I can sort of finish a bit earlier that day, or it'll be a run on the beach or I walk with the dog, those types of things. So I feel like it sets my day up really well.

It also feels like the mornings are sort of less hectic in the sense that helping to get the kids ready and those types of things, my husband will normally drop them off at school and those types of things on those days. It's just a more peaceful sort of start to the morning because we're not all hectically trying to get out the door as well. I also feel like it allows me as mum to be able to put a load of washing on, those types of things as well. So when I look at it as a whole, that whole work-life balance actually feels, I feel a lot calmer in those types of things too, that I'm ticking lots of multiple boxes in order to achieve.

On the days that I'm in the office, the opposite to that is that I have that when I don't have the kids in the car, I have that 45 minute drive in and home, which is a really good thinking time for me. It gives me the opportunity, particularly coming home, to unwind. I use that time to think about all the things that I might need to do, process what's happened with the day, and just really, so that when I actually come home and I walk through the door, that I am present straight away.

Dorian Broomhall:

That on one time makes a lot of sense.

Emily Stride:

Absolutely, yeah.

Dorian Broomhall:

I love that. And as someone who, when I do work from home, love getting some washing done, it just feels so good to go. I feel a bit more on top of all of life when that happens. I'm good at the transition in the morning to work. Often I run or wrap my bike or whatever it is. And that thinking time, that uninterrupted thinking time that you're talking about. It's where I do probably my best work other than perhaps 2:00 AM when I've got a toddler who won't go back into his bed asleep on me on our rocking chair. That's often when I do some of my best thinking as well. And what else do you do at that time, right?

Emily Stride:

Yeah.

Dorian Broomhall:

But I don't necessarily have that going home switch off, and that in itself becomes almost this boundary. And if you think about a boundary like on a sporting field, you've got to a boundary between in the game, the field and out. And crossing that boundary there, there is some sort of transition that might sort of happen. That drive home in itself might be a boundary. I love you talking about that as the switch off. How do you do that on a work from home day?

Emily Stride:

I think there's not something that, I suppose, mark in place that's time to switch off, but I normally will touch base with my husband. I know that the kids are generally on their way home, that type of thing. So I suppose I genuinely start to ease out of work mode and set myself for the fact that about to enter mum mode. And so when they come in, I want to make sure that I've got everything work-wise wrapped up. The laptops shut, the laptops away that I'm there and present for them with their day, how was their day, what's going on, and we sort of enter the next phase.

I know I keep referring to, but it is for me, I sort of, bubble's not the right word, but it's wearing those different hats. And I really like to think that I sort of try and play that part, like I put one hat on and then in my mind I've switched off to that and then I put the next hat on in essence to be able to switch off and balance between. And I found that's how I've just... When I look at everything in my life as I juggle everything. So dealing with a lot Lottie's condition and a lot of those types of things as well, I've always described it as putting myself in a bubble. But that's one world that I bubble it up and that's how I suppose package things up and push through it and we get through what we get through and then put myself in a different bubble to presenting it an X way. And it's probably a strange way for some to look at it, but it's how I process and how I keep things separate and make sure that both areas are functioning well.

Dorian Broomhall:

I think I almost like bubble more than a hat.

Emily Stride:

Yeah.

Dorian Broomhall:

And part of that is because when you're in that bubble, you've got other people in the bubble too. And you've got other parts of life in the bubble. It's not simply you with the hat on. The hat metaphor gets used a lot in you if you are a manager and you're also a friend with someone who's in your team. Okay, well different hats at different times, and that's entirely appropriate. I really like that bubble metaphor because it's a little bit more inclusive and holistic and perhaps reflective of what's going on.

I love that you have those clear boundaries between your bubbles, so to speak. That's something that I think I could get much better at. And everybody's a little bit different with this. Some people are really good at reasonably firm boundaries between things and others. Perhaps like me, it's a bit more fluid. I don't necessarily do things like track hours of work. I've got a really solid routine. Sometimes I work a bit more, sometimes I work a little bit less. Often, that's based on feel as opposed to going, "Well, this is the structure that works for me." And I acknowledge that everybody's going to be a little bit different like that. Any thoughts that you have for anybody else that likes this idea of a bubble and to have those as a way of breaking up life? Any thoughts based on your learnings that you've talked about? Any thoughts that you might have for people to be able to bring a bit more of that into theirs?

Emily Stride:

The bubble initially came around as creating a safe space. So it was probably largely for me started from on a personal aspect in creating a bubble. So with Lottie's diagnosis and learning how to deal with those elements, it was creating this safe space for all of us, but also that I could create and control what was in our world and manage what needed to happen, but also blocked out the other things out there that I'm not ready to think of or deal with or wanting to process the.

So the bubble there keeps the boundaries and the safety net, I suppose, for us being exposed to those elements. And it helps me to function on a day-to-day basis. I then thought, "Okay, I could use the same bubble analogy in a work life aspect as well" and very much thought about how do I want to present at work, what do I want to do. And just, I suppose, set up the parameters around how I'd like to present at work, what's my individual expectations, what's the department's expectations of me, and built that up and put that into sort of a bit of a bubble as well.

Dorian Broomhall:

Such a great way to think about it. And then of course, once you've established, "Well, how would I like it to be?" and then you sort of work backwards, "Well, what are all the things that I need to do to be able to be like that?" and then if you look at my words would be the ecosystem of bubbles, they can't necessarily all be 10 out of 10 all the time. How do we balance that? And do you think about that as a thing overarching?

Emily Stride:

Absolutely, because they need to work in cohesion with each other as well at times as well. So there's certain elements. An example would be sometimes we're at work and there's a lot of sickness and those types of things going around. I look at my two bubbles going on and obviously I want to be at work, I want to be present and those types of things. But the impact personally for me in getting really sick and taking sickness home for child with a chronic illness could be really detrimental.

So form me, the bubbles are sort of colliding a little bit and the safety nets are there. And so then for me, I'd be like, "Okay, well I'm going to work from home now because obviously heaps of people within the office that have got influenza or Covid and those types of things." So I suppose there's elements of that where the bubbles collide a little bit. I know the boundaries, so I go, "Right, I'm going to step back and out." I'm still presenting, I'm still at work, all of those types of things, but I'm just removing myself from an environment to protect my other bubble.

Dorian Broomhall:

It's an awesome, awesome example. And that idea of, well, there's some flexibility with the permeation between the bubbles. And you make that choice before it gets to the point of going, "Well, now I'm out. I can't do any of the things that I want in either of the bubble because I've got sick." And then you're completely out entirely. And that's not where you want to get to, right?

Emily Stride:

Yeah. Yep.

Dorian Broomhall:

Hey, Em, this has been great. Thanks so much. I really appreciate the conversation. I'm going to go away and think about the bubbles in my life a lot now and think about how do they interact, what choices am I making to enable them to interact as well as they can, and where are those points of going, "Hey, I actually need to do something different in order to sustain." I really appreciate you sharing that with us. It's a wonderful idea. So thanks so much.

Emily Stride:

Thanks for having me.

Dorian Broomhall:

It's funny listening back to that episode and realising that we spent a whole bunch of time coming up with these different possible categories of boundaries between fragile, flexible, and rigid. And really all along, we simply could have talked about bubbles. What a brilliant metaphor. And considering how our bubbles sometimes are quite firm and sometimes perhaps they're very permeable and that we can consider how all the different bubbles in her life might need to interact with one another, I absolutely love that metaphor. I'm so glad that Emily was able to share that with us.

A couple of the other key takeaways for me from listening back to that episode, I really like this idea that there's positives of both working from home and coming into the office because that's what Emily does for work coming into an office. I love that in those two opposite types of doing things or different ways of doing things, I should say, that she's able to find positives in both of those things. And sometimes we live in this binary world where one thing is better than the other, and that's always the way it has to be. And she's got different boundaries around each one of those ways of working and ways of being and transitions between work and home and home to work. A really wonderful way to think about it.

And I think finally the main thing that I'd like to touch on here is that we never really know what's going on for other people unless they are open with us and choose to share what the level of detail they might like to share with us. But we never can really know what's going on. And sometimes we often fill in those blanks or make up stories as to why people might have boundaries in the way that they do or make decisions in the way that they do or choose to live their life in the way that they do. And it's so important and such a reminder that we can never fully know what might be going on for somebody else, and we can just so easily fill in the blanks, so to speak.

And I think that something to remember is if we find ourselves filling in those blanks rather than actually knowing what's going on, perhaps we need to stop and think a little bit differently. And that's not to say that we should even have a right to know what's going on for other people. I think it's entirely appropriate that we don't always. And it's important to remember to be compassionate and curious of your own thoughts as well as asking questions of others rather than perhaps just making up the answers for ourselves. So much to learn from that conversation with Emily.

Thanks again for coming in and having the conversation with us, Em. It was great. I hope everybody found something in the conversation that you can take away into your own work and life, because I certainly did.

That wraps up this series of well-being on the One Health Podcast. Join us again in the next series where I'll continue to get to know members of our health executive as we've got some newer people who have joined the organisation. Get to know them as people, as well as the way that they lead.