Krista Lyn Harrison

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Week 131

Krista Harrison

These “weekly” letters are such a funny thing in my life. They are part of my broader mission to create more compassionate systems that mitigate suffering – in this case for trainees, staff, or faculty in academia/research – by sharing strategies I use to manage insecurities, workloads, internal and external hurdles, and barriers, and work-life integration. Not least, to show that many of the struggles we have earlier in our careers don’t go away, we just get better at identifying, understanding, and managing them.

On the flip side, I can get in my head about posting. I drafted one last week but didn’t send it amid the death of the Queen and the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks (it will become another post). I’ve also been feeling in an adolescent phase of career (complete with insecurity and angst) that leads to second-guessing actions. This is the first academic year I’ve started knowing that I’m an Associate Professor (I was promoted in November 2021) and in the various leadership roles I accepted in the last year. I’m newly conscious of the age and experience gap between myself and new fellows – that even though I think of myself as not far from fellowship, trainees likely see me quite differently (especially in these leadership roles). In an analogy to my personal life, our lives are still in transition from the patterns of the last 5 years (driving Theo over the bridge to preschool, favorite hikes and bike rides) to the ones of our new situation (Theo’s school 5 minutes away, my favorite ride now being 15 minutes longer, my go-to hike quite different). Sometimes I think I should have “arrived” at the new stage without allowing for the months of transition.

Here are some things I’ve been doing to manage this awkward phase:

  • Self-compassion & exercise

  • Pushing back the target deadline for my submitting R01 to March

  • Time-tracking to see what I’m working on and in what proportions (so service doesn’t take over)

  • Keeping up with my small goals that prioritize wellness and my first-authored/PI work

  • Getting a new haircut to change things up a bit

I’m struck by the sentence in an article on combatting burnout by filling your time with things you look forward to: “the people who spent time in the rewarding, engaging activity of helping others felt that their time was less scarce”. Similarly, after a few extraordinarily hard years, the efforts I make at calling out gratitude are partly to re-train my brain that not everything is quite so hard anymore. As Dr. Rana Awdish so eloquently said in a recent Grief Dialogues podcast: "Whatever suffering we go through, we do not come back with empty hands... recognizing the gifts of that lead to creation".

Gratitude

  • Sam planned a successful backcountry camping trip for us in Yosemite over Labor Day weekend

  • Insulation in the new house saved us from the worst of the heat wave, despite not having AC

  • Enjoying teas made with new masalas (love this spice company)

  • I got two social nights with friends/colleagues in the last few weeks thanks to Sam being willing and able to manage Theo’s separation anxiety

  • Theo (finally) started swimming lessons, and in 30 minutes went from extremely nervous (trying to escape the building and clutching the chair by the wall) to seeming happy in the water and eagerly trying whatever the instructor said

  • Sam and I getting our first date “night” last Saturday since April, granted from 4pm to 7pm because Theo gave us strict instructions that he wanted to bike home from visiting YaYa on the Dock during sunset

  • A first-author qualitative paper was accepted for publication from a project that has required substantial persistence and self-compassion

  • I got my flu shot after teaching med students in-person for the first time in 2.5 years

  • Though I continue to feel like a Twitter novice (especially around self-promotion), I wrote a thread

  • Despite having his second cold in a month from the new school, Theo seems to be adjusting to our new life patterns. This Friday Theo told us “he’d be home after dinner” since YaYa was picking him up

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