Dear Dartmouth,

After a year and a half of primarily remote work, it feels like a dramatic shift to sit in an office on the 3^rd floor of Robo, listening to the muted conversations of students out on the Collis patio and the endlessly fascinating DOC playlists being broadcast from our front steps. (“It’s Raining Men?” Really? Did not see that coming…)

As we reconnect with students, I’ve noticed that everyone is in a bit of a different place. I’ve spoken with students who are thrilled to be back in person and others who have expressed reservations and concerns for safety and wellbeing. However you may be feeling, it seems fair to say that we are all adapting to the ever-changing circumstances of the world around us. And while that has always been true, the past couple years have amplified our awareness of this fact to the point where it has become a potential source of discomfort. Each day/week/month seems to offer so much to take in, sort out, and make sense of that even when we’re able to wrap our heads around some of these things, we still have to figure out how each of these things intersects with who we are, who we want to be, how we will respond, and where we hope to go from here. And that is a lot to manage.

In recognizing the complexities that make up your experiences this fall and all of the transitions in coming (back) to campus, we made the choice to embrace a new wellbeing theme for the start of the academic year – “Strength in Self.” Here’s how my colleague, LB, sketched out this concept:

“Strength in Self is all about confidently choosing to stride through the ups and downs of life with resilience and belief in ourselves. It’s recognizing that we each uniquely have the capabilities, strengths, and inherent wisdom to create a life we truly want by making intentional shifts of perspective and boldly owning our self-worth.”

Before we go any deeper into what this theme involves, let’s talk for a moment about what it’s NOT.

• Strength in Self does not mean that you are on your own. The Lone Pine is an important symbol of Dartmouth but you need to know that you are not a-lone. You are part of a community that cares – one that will celebrate your successes with you and be there for you when you struggle. At Dartmouth, we know that we are stronger together.
• Strength in Self does not mean that you need to have it together all the time. Dartmouth will challenge you in ways you could not have anticipated, and it is okay to not be okay. But you didn’t come here because it would be easy. You came here because you believed that Dartmouth could help bring forth the extraordinariness that you have within you. Taking time to check in with yourself, and being honest about what you’re feeling and how you’re doing can help you find resilience and character that you didn’t even know you possessed.
• Strength in Self does not mean that the life you want is something you should be able to bring into existence immediately and all at once. The life you want to create is the ongoing work of your lifetime, and you can only author that life one chapter at a time. Consider the story you want your life to tell and where you’re at in that story right now. Know that you don’t have to take on more than what is realistic in this moment. Instead, focus on your experiences in the here and now and trust that you are building a foundation for all that is to come.

So let’s come back to what Strength in Self IS! It’s about establishing a strengths-based perception of who you are as a person. It’s about believing that you have all the positive qualities within you that you need. And it’s about cultivating these capacities and bringing them forth in ways that allow you be more fully you and make the contributions that only you are capable of making to the world.

Here at Dartmouth, it means that you are a vital part of a community that helps you see the unique strengths within you and empowers you to illuminate the strengths you see in others. We’ll talk a lot more about your strengths as we explore this theme more fully during September and October. For now, let’s recap to get you primed for all that we hope the next couple months will offer you. Here’s what LB said in our weekly newsletter (sign up here if you’re not on our list!) to introduce this theme to our campus:

First things First
In order to “create a life we truly want”, it’s helpful to recognize a few things:

• It’s hard at times!  Sometimes what you want seems to go against what everybody else wants and that can leave you susceptible to doing things that aren’t “you”. The key is to notice when this happens and see how it leaves you feeling, knowing you can choose a different way next time.
• Your Way.  There is no “right” way to do this thing called life.  What matters is that you are choosing to spend your time at Dartmouth (and beyond) in a way that aligns with who you are and what you care about.
• Takes Vision. In order to “do” life (or Dartmouth) the way you want, you have to know what you want. Revisit this reflection regularly this term to help you envision what this is for you:
  
  Assuming anything were possible, what experiences do you want to create for yourself this term?

As we launch into this new academic year, please take care of yourself, look out for those around you, and know that our SWC team is here to support you. Please explore what we have to offer, and don’t ever hesitate to reach out!

Take care and be well,
Todd

Dear Dartmouth,

As I think back over conversations I’ve had during my three years on staff here, I can recall a number of phrases I’ve heard from students that give me glimpses of the distinctive experience here. One that stands out is short and to the point:

Work hard, play hard.

In my first year, I nodded when I heard it. It told me that Dartmouth students are driven, capable, goal-oriented people, committed to achieving significant accomplishments. Working hard made sense. And playing hard, as a release from the grind, seemed like a logical and normal balance to all of that effort.

In my second year, “work hard, play hard” seemed like it was less about what the students I was speaking with wanted for themselves, and more about perceived expectations from others. This also made sense to me. The people and the culture around us do much to shape our understanding of who and how we should be, and hard work is valued more often than not. But I started to wonder when, exactly, anyone was getting a break to rest and recharge. Playing hard seemed less like a release and more like a coping mechanism for the stresses of termly life.

By my third year, the initial respect I had given to “work hard, play hard” had worn thin. I had encountered too many individuals willing to push themselves to extreme lengths despite the consequences of this lifestyle. I realized there was even an expectation of burnout – that at some point it would all get to be too much, but in the absence of options, the best choice was to simply keep running forward, hoping to make it through.

As someone who works in wellbeing, I want to say this clearly:

“Work hard, play hard” is not about being well.

At the end of the day, if you’re working hard and playing hard, it sort of sounds like every part of your life is…well…hard.

This could be understandable if it were true that life needs to be hard in order to achieve anything worthwhile. But the idea that you must sacrifice your wellbeing in order to achieve meaningful accomplishments is simply not true and sets up a false dichotomy between doing well and being well.

A profound living example regarding the relationship between wellbeing and performance at the moment is Simone Biles. Widely regarded as the best gymnast of her time, and perhaps of all time, she stepped away from Olympic competition in order to preserve her wellbeing. As Robert O’Connell wrote for The Atlantic, at her press conference following her decision, she “revised the language of greatness, positioning it as something to be tended to and mindfully maintained, not drawn on ad nauseam. Her most telling words rejected the false dichotomy between personal well-being and professional excellence, instead pointing to the former as a precondition of the latter.”

To quote Biles directly, “I say put mental health first, because if you don’t, you’re not going to enjoy your sport and you’re not going to succeed as much as you want to.” In this statement, she offers some insight into what creates the opportunity to achieve at the highest level. It’s telling that she does not say words like “grind,” “hustle,” or “persevere.” Instead, she links success with joy. In describing the context of this particular competition at the end of the article, O’Connell writes, “it wasn’t joyful, so she couldn’t fly through the air in the way we’re used to seeing. That tells us something crucial, and beautiful, about the times when she could.”

And this is where our monthly theme may have something to offer in terms of challenging the work hard, play hard culture. Is it possible that making more space for joy, and even playfulness might actually be necessary in order to achieve all that you’re hoping? And if you were to do so, how would that shift your experience as a Dartmouth student?

At the SWC, we’re playing with a new phrase that we’d love for you to consider:

Work playfully, play joyfully.

There are, of course, two parts to this phrase, so let’s do some quick unpacking.

For the first part, ask yourself what it would look like to take a more playful approach to your studies. Playfulness has much to do with being present, in the moment, caught up in what you’re doing. It involves giving your attention fully to your activity, and approaching your tasks in a centered way, with calm and clarity. Maybe most important, it involves curiosity and a willingness to experiment – which of necessity requires a release of perfectionism. The freedom this creates opens up possibilities that can only be realized in the absence of limitations to what you already know or can do.

The beauty of this approach is that it suggests that there is more to success than hard work. It does not negate the challenge, but instead proposes finding some joy, or interest, or engagement with the work in order to make it more possible to sustain your efforts over time.

For the second component, consider how you spend your time away from work. Does the way that you “play hard” bring a genuine sense of joy to your life? If not, are there other things you could be doing that would be more fulfilling? And what would it take to step out of the expectations for what you do with your time so that you could instead do what you want?

Take some time to reflect about the experiences that genuinely bring you a sense of joy. Maybe even consider inviting a friend to do this with you and compare notes. What things do you have in common that could create shared joyful experiences, what things are distinctive to you in particular, and how might you make more space for all of these things in your life? Most importantly, consider how to do this in a way that would make these things restorative in a way that playing hard was not?

Work playfully, play joyfully.

Play with the idea. Give it some time. Maybe even give it a try and see how it feels. You never know – you might enjoy yourself more and experience more success as a result.

Take care and be well,
Todd

Dear Dartmouth,

It’s summer in the Upper Valley! The days all stretch a little longer, the hills are verdant and green, the gardens are bringing forth an abundance of fresh produce, and the nights are lit by fireflies and stars. It’s a special time here – one that sends people off to local watering holes or trails into the wilderness to cool and relax during the heat of the day.

Of course, everything I’ve just written feels like it should probably have a giant asterisk after it, connected to a footnote reading “schedules permitting.” It’s Summer Term after all, which means your life is likely full of demands and responsibilities, academic and otherwise. Wherever you are at on the spectrum of busy-ness this summer, our team at the SWC wants to encourage you to take some time for yourself that restores your energy, helps you connect with others, and make the most of this sweet short season that is upon us. With that in mind, we’re excited to share our summer wellbeing theme of Joy and Playfulness.

As a jumping off point, here’s how our Wellbeing & Mindfulness Specialist, LB, the visionary behind our wellbeing themes and all-around great person, describes this focus:

Joy & Playfulness is all about creating space in your life for delight and light-heartedness, even if it’s just for a moment or two. It’s about letting go of the need to constantly practice, perform, or perfect, and instead embracing things that feel replenishing and fulfilling.

Let’s unpack that statement a little bit to see if it can generate some ways that you can start to incorporate these components of wellbeing into your life more consistently.

LB mentions that joy is significant, even if it can feel fleeting at times. In many ways, joy is something we experience in the moment, but cultivate over the long haul. Try thinking of joy as an indicator of thriving. The moments when you are experiencing joy can serve as a cue that things are good, and these moments can impact our wellbeing in positive ways. If we are able to be open to the joy that different experiences present us, then we have opportunities to realize that our lives can be good, which can encourage us to pursue the kinds of relationships and goals that bring this particular type of fulfilling happiness.

After nearly 3 years on staff at Dartmouth, it has become evident to me that many people in our community feel a need to be conduct themselves seriously and stay constantly “switched on.” I’ve heard many students use the phrase “work hard, play hard,” suggesting that this idea of how you should be cuts across all areas of your life. It’s as if there is a sense that you need to go at everything full force –  constantly performing, productive, and at your best in every way.

Focusing on joy can offer an opportunity to step back from striving for that kind of existence and instead think about how you actually want to feel and what kinds of things make that feeling possible. Something as simple as pausing to contemplate this can help you realize that those expectations of performance, productivity, and perfection were pretty unrealistic in the first place. And letting go of those expectations might allow you to embrace other ways of approaching life that are more sustaining and restorative.

This theme, then, is about cultivating the ability to create a diversity of experiences for yourself. There are certainly times when you need to be serious, focused, and on your “A game,” but there are also times when can you can let go, relax, and allow yourself to simply be.

Learning to prioritize joyful and playful moments as being of equal importance with the times we need to be at our best might be transformative. Opportunities for joy – through connection or play, through experiences of wonder or novelty, through reflecting on ways that you have had a positive impact on another person or contributed to your community – can help you become more aware of what, specifically, makes life worth living for you.

Should you decide to prioritize joy this summer, then the last piece to unpack from the statement above is the idea of creating space for these experiences. This is no simple task. Your life is undoubtedly stacked with responsibilities. However, making space for joy, for play, for rest and self-care, is a way of sending a direct message to yourself that you, in fact, matter, and deserve good things in your life. It might also prove restorative, helping you to re-engage with those responsibilities, and show up for others in a more focused and intentional way. So how might you intentionally create more space for joy in your life?

Merriam Webster defines joy as “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” In terms of intentionality, there is clearly a spectrum here, so let’s focus quickly on each of the things that might evoke joy.

• Good fortune is difficult to predict or force. However, you can influence your internal state by cultivating your capacity to appreciate good things. That way, when they occur you can actually experience them in a joyful manner. Practicing gratitude has many well-established links with wellbeing, and can open you up to be more aware of and responsive to the joyful moments that are already part of your life.
  
• Wellbeing involves both internal and external factors, making it more self-directed. Prioritizing wellbeing – i.e. making sure you have opportunities in your life on an ongoing basis to both be well AND do well can make all the difference here. This type of “creating space” involves reflecting on what you value, and then taking action to ensure that you have time set apart for these things even in the midst of your other competing demands.
  
• Finally, the concepts of success and working toward desired outcomes are things over which you can exert a strong influence. Start by setting an intention. Ask yourself what you most hope to accomplish this summer. What are the goals or outcomes that are most deserving of your energy? Then, focus your efforts on these things that matter to you to create more opportunities to experience joy – both when you accomplish your goals and also during the pursuit of those goals, as this striving is the very thing that can help you grow more fully into the person you want to become.
  [nerd alert: for more on this, look up “self-concordance theory”]

Okay – enough reading about this theme. What could you do right now that would bring a little more joy to your day? Is it time to go play? To connect with someone else? Whatever it might be, here’s hoping you can get away from this screen and go do something that helps you embrace life in a joyful way.

Wherever you are, as you journey through this summer, our SWC team is here to support you. Please explore what we have to offer, and don’t ever hesitate to reach out!

Take care and be well,
Todd

 

Dear Dartmouth,

It’s Spring Term! A new term is a fresh opportunity to reset yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. A chance to refocus, recenter, and re-envision who and how you are as a Dartmouth student and a person in the world. And finally, it’s an opportunity to take a deep breath, let your mind settle on what you want this term to be about, and then put things in motion.

With all of this in mind, we’re focusing on the topic of purpose to start this term, and encouraging you to join us in an intentional (and even purposeful) way! Here’s how my intention-centered colleague, LB, described this month’s theme:

“Purpose on Purpose… …is all about taking time to pause and reflect on what truly matters to us, where we are actually headed and more importantly the “why” behind all of that. It’s about aligning our actions with our values and asking ourselves, ‘HOW is it that I want to live my life right NOW?’.”

Personally, I’m thinking about all of this through the lens of running. About a month ago, I decided I wanted to increase my physical activity, and for whatever reason, running was what had the most appeal for me. As someone with little experience running, I launched myself into it – gasping for air, pausing to walk when needed, and generally matching my experience with expectations like “running is hard,” “it’s not supposed to be fun it’s a workout,” and “if you can’t push through then that’s on you.” I wasn’t thinking too much about why I was doing this. I just knew something in me wanted to move.

While doing some reading about mindfulness for work, I happened across an article that described the author’s experience running with the Nike Run Club app. She particularly focused on the ‘guided runs’ that Nike had developed in collaboration with Headspace that integrated mindfulness principles with the practices of effective running. Intrigued, I downloaded the app and on my next run, headed out for the 20 minute guided “First Run,” which was not connected to Headspace, but seemed like a sensible place to start.

Over the past 8 years, I’ve helped to develop coaching programs that focus on student wellbeing for several colleges and universities, and provided direct coaching to a number of students. But I’ve never really been coached before myself. So even though I knew all of the principles in play, it was still a shock to me that within the first minute of this run, the voice in my ear asking me to check in with myself seemed to understand my experience with such clarity. That voice belonged to Nike Running Global Head Coach Chris Bennett, and in less than two minutes, he guided me to completely reset my perspective on the run I was engaged in at that moment.

He suggested that I was probably working too hard. He was right. He said that this first run was not about pace, distance, or duration – it was about starting it, ending it, and wanting to do a next run. I was curious. He told me to slow down. I didn’t. And then he said it again. I knew he wasn’t speaking to me directly, but it FELT LIKE IT because what he was describing so closely matched my experience. I slowed down. I focused on effort instead of pace. I felt better. I finished the run without needing to stop. I felt good in both body and mind, and was excited to go again. And to my surprise, my pace for that first run was actually a little faster, overall, than the labored runs I had been putting myself through prior to that moment.

What does all of this have to do with purpose, with Spring term, with you? At the heart of this coaching lie three big phrases that get repeated again and again: “This is about running,” “This is not about running,” and “Every run has a purpose.” For me, that first phrase meant that when I was running, I could let go of everything else and focus on the run at hand. The second phrase suggested that even though this was true, the things we learn about ourselves through any activity can inform every other part of our life. And the final phrase…well…that’s where the rubber really met the road for me.

Something fundamentally changed for me when I started thinking about the purpose of the run. Not any run. The run that I was on that day. The run I was engaged in at that moment. Each time the prompt came up, my mind flooded with possibilities: finding joy, getting over fear, building confidence, believing in my abilities, valuing myself enough to practice self-care, thinking about the contributions I want to make in the lives of the people in my family, my workplace, and my community… Suddenly I was running with purpose, and that did more than make the running meaningful in and of itself – it made running a part of what it means for me to live meaningfully.

Purpose as a core element of wellbeing refers to “a sense of clarity concerning personally meaningful aims and values that one is able to apply in daily life” (Dahl, Wilson-Mendenhall, & Davidson, 2020, p. 5). Stated slightly differently, purpose is “a forward-looking directionality, an intention to do something in the world,” says Anthony Burrow. “It’s different than a goal, which can be accomplished. Wanting to be a father is a goal because it is achievable. But to be a great father is more of an intention than an achievement. On some days, one might come closer to the ideal than others, but it is never a completed task.”

We invite to to take the beginning of this term an opportunity to get some clarity, to think about what’s meaningful for you and set some intentions for who you want to become and what kind of life you want to create for yourself. Much like every run has a purpose, we might also say that every term has a purpose. That purpose is made up of two big things: life aims and values.

Life aims provide an overarching narrative that can help you make sense of life, so consider:

• When you look back on this term, what is the story you will most want to tell about this time in your life?

Values guide your behavior, helping you persevere through challenges by orienting toward what is personally meaningful and important. They inform “how” you go through life each day, so also consider:

• How do you want to show up in life this term, both for yourself and for others? What qualities do you most want others to see in you?

You might even take this process to a more granular level, considering that each week of the term brings different challenges. So perhaps every week has a purpose or purposes that are unique compared to the others. However you want to approach this, just know that this is not a peripheral, detached exercise. A strong sense of purpose has been directly linked with many benefits for wellbeing, including better physical health, mental health, and academic achievement.

This is something that you can do for yourself, something that can help you move, step by step, day by day, week by week, and term by term, ever closer to who you want to be, how you want to live your life, and what you want to contribute to the lives of others in the world around you.

And you might just feel better and DO better as a result.

We hope you’ll join us at this starting line. And as always, we’re ready to meet you on each of the starting lines that will appear along the way over the next 10 weeks. Please explore what we have to offer, and don’t ever hesitate to reach out.

Take care and be well,
Todd

 

Follow up note from Todd: 4/20/2021

I just read a fascinating article by Adam Grant in the NY Times on how the pandemic has impacted our mental health and wellbeing. While it does not speak directly to the topic of purpose, I thought one of the most interesting findings is that flow (i.e. absorption in a meaningful challenge where your sense of time, place and self melts away) is the most effective antidote for languishing. So following this wellbeing process, it seems like purpose keeps me running, running helps me access a flow state, and regularly experiencing flow helps me thrive. All of which begs the questions:

Where do you experience flow in your life, and how could you use purpose to access that flow state more regularly in your daily or weekly activities? 

Dear Dartmouth,

We’ve been focusing on the importance of taking time to replenish and recharge for your wellbeing this month. We are hopeful that you were able to use at least part of the break to step back from the hamster wheel of busy-ness and productivity and offer yourself a chance to rest. It has been a year of varying degrees of challenge and loss for everyone in our community, and it is not realistic to expect your energy to be a bottomless resource. When we’re offered opportunities to pause and restore ourselves, it’s really important to take full advantage.

That said, it can feel very difficult to “shift gears” from being in full-on productivity mode to genuine relaxation, and then back again. This is even more true in an environment that reinforces your desire to achieve or produce in order to gain external validation. At Dartmouth, this has likely contributed to what some call the “work hard play hard” culture. In this culture EVERY activity including the things you do for fun over your weekends and breaks can either produce feelings of guilt, or FOMO, or simply become new opportunities to go all out – pushing your own limits in the hopes of some recognition that may or may not come your way.

With all of that in mind, as we head into S21 we want to encourage you to consider experimenting with a new mindset for how you approach both your on-time and your down-time as a way to sustain your energy and your wellbeing over the course of a term. One example of this mindset comes from the work of Greg McKeown on what he has termed “Essentialism,” or the “disciplined pursuit of less.”

McKeown suggests that the word “priority” entered the English language in the 15th century but was never used in the plural (i.e. “priorities”) until the 20th century. This insistence on the singular makes a lot of sense, given that while there can be many important things, only one can be the most important at any given moment. But we have strayed further and further from this recognition, creating a world where concepts like “multitasking” have become the norm. And all of this can make it harder than ever to sort out what matters most at any given point in time.

As such, many of our lives can look or feel more like the image on the left at the top of this post. Our energy – an exhaustible resource – becomes diluted across a number of different activities, each demanding a certain amount of attention and focus. Moreover, the cognitive demands of switching from task to task further depletes us, draining our ability to do our best work and obscuring our ability to perceive where we need to put our attention as urgency begins to outweigh importance.

As a result, you may find that the characteristics in the “non-essentialist” column below better describe your life than those that make up the “essentialist” list:

If you’re ready to try something new, McKeown’s process for embracing essentialism is simple and powerful:

1. Explore: Determine which activities will carry you furthest toward your goals
2. Eliminate: Let go of as many non-essential tasks or activities as possible
3. Execute: Put your energy into what matters most (see the image on the right at the top of this post)!

You can implement this process several ways. It can be a daily or weekly reflection where you consider all the things you want to accomplish in a certain time frame and rank them according to priority. Once you have them ranked, cross off everything except the ACTUAL priority at the top of the list, and schedule some concentrated, focused time into your planner to advance that priority before considering any of your other demands.

It could also be a larger process that you undertake prior to launching into each new term (or for those of you about to graduate, whatever will come next). Consider what is most important to you this Spring (i.e. where you want to put your energy) and what is siphoning off your energy needlessly (i.e. where you no longer want to put your energy) and then plan your involvement accordingly.

In either case, this might involve learning how to say “no” or establishing some boundaries which can feel risky or awkward at first, especially if some expectations have been established regarding your responsiveness to the needs of others. There will always be external demands on your energy and attention, some of which will be things that you “have” to do, regardless of how much you may actually “want” to do them.

The goal, however, is for this process to be empowering for you. To quote McKeown, “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.” Ultimately, this is about more than time management, and even more than energy management. It’s about taking ownership of the life you want to create for yourself rather than following someone else’s lead.

Next month, our wellbeing theme will shift to “Purpose on Purpose,” and we’ll continue to explore this idea of a more intentional approach to both your daily life AND the life you want to be living in the future. We hope you’ll join us on this journey. And as always, we are here to support you along the way. Please explore what we have to offer, and don’t ever hesitate to reach out!

Take care and be well,
Todd

Dear Dartmouth,

March is an alliterative season here in the North Country: mud to some and maple syrup to others, but as much as our team values mindfulness, meaning, movement, and moments of connection, this March we’re tapping into the letter “R” for our monthly wellbeing theme of “Replenish and Recharge.”

My insightful colleague, LB, wrote the following about this theme:

“Replenish and Recharge…is all about considering the things that bring you a sense of peace, rest, and even playfulness (solitude, friends, music, dancing, nature, a good book) and allowing time and space to commit to things that are just for you. Simply put, it’s taking the time to recognize when things are tough, and to offer up care for yourself.”

I don’t know about you, but I find it pretty straightforward to recognize that things are tough right now. This month marks a year (A YEAR!!!) since the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally altered our lives here at Dartmouth. I don’t know if the thought even crossed my mind last March that so many of us would still be working and studying remotely. And even as we put our hope in the vaccines that show promise for new possibilities in how we live, we are simultaneously dealing with the challenge of effectively managing an escalation in positive cases among our campus community.

In short – no matter who you are, it’s been a lot. Were we to able to fully take in and grasp the enormity of the impact of COVID on our day to day routines, our economy and the professional opportunities available in our workforce, our health and wellbeing, and on the many families who have lost loved ones over the past year – it could send us reeling.

This seems like a good time, then, to pause, notice how this has all affected you, and identify ways to replenish and recharge for all that lies ahead.

In fact, perhaps this very moment would be a good time to STOP and check in with yourself. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. If that feels good or helpful, take a few more. What’s going on for you right now, in this present moment? Without passing any judgment on yourself, notice what you’re thinking, feeling, worrying, grieving, or feeling grateful for today. And from this space of awareness, reflect on any or all of the following questions. It might be helpful to capture this in writing, pen to paper, as swiftly as possible. Resist the urge to edit or craft your words – just let them flow:

• What challenges are you facing right now?
• How do you know when it’s time to take a break from the demands and distractions of life and extend some genuine care toward yourself?
• Where have you found peace in the past year?
• What fortifies you and bolsters your resilience?
• And what do you need most right now?

March is a complex month. We know that you have a lot on your plate right now. It’s the end of the term, which means exams, papers and projects, and for some of you, moves to or from campus, all in addition to the demands of each day. And yet there is also Spring Break – a chance to step back from the busyness of the term and seek out opportunities to rest and reconnect. It might be helpful to check in with yourself throughout the month, as your needs might change dramatically over time.

If you’re looking for an opportunity to check in and also connect with others, we are excited to announce a Spring Break retreat that will be available to all Dartmouth students, wherever you are. And we’ll be here throughout the month as well, ready to support you however we can.

Please explore what we have to offer, and don’t ever hesitate to reach out!

Take care and be well,
Todd

Dear Dartmouth,

At the Student Wellness Center, our strengths-based perspective helps us to frame our work from a positive, inclusive, and empowering stance. Explicitly focusing on strengths themselves as resources for supporting the wellbeing of individuals, organizations, and communities can be an empowering way for us to thrive.

We introduced the concept of strengths and shared ways that you can learn more about your particular strengths constellation in our first Strengths Spotlight post. It’s fun to revisit the strengths-based lens now, as we explore kindness and connection together, as a strengths-based perspective can reinforce your stance of kindness toward yourself and others in and of itself. Believing that you have strengths within you, and using those strengths to resolve different challenges is a fundamentally kind approach to life.

If you’d like to identify your strengths prior to reading on, you can try the free, online VIA Survey of Character Strengths. The 24 strengths that make up this framework are considered universal, positive human capacities (e.g. honesty, bravery, creativity) that are valued in every culture and exist in every person.

The VIA is designed to illustrate only your strengths – NOT your weaknesses, so even though your results are presented as a subjective ranking of your strengths from 1-24 they are all strengths that you possess, and the ranking is more about the intentionality it requires for you to access and make use of them. Typically, the strengths at the top of your list tend to be qualities that you embody without even thinking about it. They frequently feel natural or effortless to engage and require little intention. By contrast, strengths that are lower on the list might feel like they take a bit more effort and willpower to enact, but they are still very much strengths that you possess.

If you’ve taken the VIA, consider the signature themes from your results (i.e. the top 6-8 strengths). If you haven’t taken the VIA, look at the 24 strengths in the image above and see which ones seem like the best fit for you. With those strengths in mind, consider the following:

• Which of these strengths are related to your ability to be kind to yourself or others?
• What does this look like for you? Try to come up with 2-3 examples of a time when a particular strength helped you to be kind.
• Which of these strengths are related to the way that you connect with others?
• What does this look like for you? Try to come up with 2-3 examples of a time when a particular strength helped you to connect authentically.
• Were there any instances where the same strength supported both kindness and connection? If so, how could you leverage those strengths more fully, or in new ways to broaden, deepen, or otherwise enhance the relationships in your life?

Perhaps some of the strengths where there are obvious connections like social intelligence or kindness will stand out, but allowing yourself to be open to any of the strengths could result in some interesting surprises. Maybe a strength like humility could boost your ability to be kind to yourself when you’ve experienced a setback by helping you accept that you’re as human as everyone else, and mistakes happen. There’s an expression that honesty is always ultimately a form of kindness, and perhaps you could find ways that your strength of honesty can help you connect with others by being more authentic too.

Before we wrap up, I want to mention an article that came out today (!) highlighting a new study that helped me understand the relationship between kindness, happiness, and wellbeing more fully. A meta-analysis of 126 research articles on the character strength of kindness, involving almost 200,000 participants from around the world concluded that kindness is positively associated with wellbeing in many ways – boosting happiness, self-esteem, physical health, and self-efficacy while buffering against depression and anxiety. The research suggests that being kind:

“may make us feel better about ourselves as a person or about the meaning of our lives, confirm our self-competence, distract us from our own troubles and stressors, give us a warm-glow feeling, or help us be more socially connected with others. All of these could potentially improve our well-being—reducing our stress, improving our mood, or providing community.”

Of course, every strength has the capacity to support your wellbeing by bringing good things to your life, but studies like this underscore the importance of kindness for connection, health, and happiness. Wishing you all a little more kindness, and a strong sense of connection.

Take care and be well,
Todd

Dear Dartmouth,

It’s February in New Hampshire. For the winter lovers among us, it’s a dream come true. With our snow-frosted trees and abundant opportunities for getting outdoors to enjoy the season, it’s fair to say that New Hampshire does winter well! We celebrate this season at Dartmouth in many ways, including the “Mardi Gras of the North,” our annual Winter Carnival.

Of course, whether or not you’re a winter fan, the weather conditions and the realities of living, working, and studying during the COVID outbreak also mean that this can be a challenging month for many people. So while it may seem obvious that you need to keep your body warm when the temps drop, here at the SWC we also want to emphasize other sources of warmth in your life. Our wellbeing theme for February is Kindness and Connection, about which my colleague, LB wrote:

“Kindness and Connection is all about making time in your life for others. Whether it’s through the simple enjoyment of another’s company or the giving and receiving of support from one another, connecting with kindness and authenticity can help bolster all the other elements in your life that need your attention.”

We know that relationships can feel difficult even at the best of times, and we also know that there are few things that have a greater impact on our wellbeing. Kindness and connection can awaken a deep sense of happiness and joy in us that can sustain us through the toughest of challenges. So this month, we want to reconnect with our wellbeing pathway of connecting authentically, and do so in a way that emphasizes the role of kindness in that process.

The first relationship that might be worth considering is the one you have with yourself. Do you relate to yourself from a place of kindness? Many of the people I’ve known over the years have found this to be a struggle at times. It can be easy to believe that there is something wrong with us that needs to be fixed, to hold ourselves to unrealistic standards, to override our intuition and our feelings with “shoulds.” Here’s a quick self-test. Read the following sentence and notice what comes up:

“I’m not ______ enough”

If you found thoughts immediately springing to mind to fill in that blank, it may be a good time to consider what it would look like to extend kindness toward yourself. We sometimes recommend thinking about how you would talk to a best friend, and using that kind of language to replace any self-talk that you use to criticize yourself.

As you grow in kindness toward yourself, you might find yourself becoming more and more open to others. Howard Cutler describes people who can access happiness as “more sociable, flexible, and creative, and are able to tolerate life’s daily frustrations more easily than unhappy people. And most important, they are found to be more loving and forgiving that unhappy people.”

Sociability, flexibility, love and forgiveness are all qualities that can contribute to meaningful relationships, and also represent different ways that we can extend kindness to others. Of course, it’s not necessarily a lack of kindness that gets in the way of our relationships. One of the most common factors is simply busy-ness. It can be difficult to find the time to connect in ways that bring much-needed feelings of safety, belonging, understanding, and acceptance.

So, a second challenge that you might offer yourself this February is setting aside time to connect with others in the midst of the many other demands on your life. You might even be able to integrate some opportunities to connect into your existing schedule, through study groups, shared walks or meals, or inviting others to different campus events.

In addition to the activities listed above, February is also when Dartmouth hosts events for Black Legacy Month and Visibility, Dartmouth’s annual student-led campaign to promote gender equity and end gender- and power-based violence. Engaging with friends in the events that make up these programs could be an ideal way to bring more connection and kindness to your life.

I’m currently reading “The Book of Joy,” and keep thinking about the following passage:

“Some might wonder what our own joy has to do with countering injustice and inequality. What does our happiness have to do with addressing the suffering of the world? In short, the more we heal our own pain, the more we can turn to the pain of others. But in a surprising way, the way we heal our own pain is actually by turning to the pain of others. It is a virtuous cycle. The more we turn toward others, the more joy we experience, and the more joy we experience, the more we can bring joy to others….So being more joyful is not just about having more fun. We’re talking about a more empathic, more empowered, even more spiritual state of mind that is totally engaged with the world.”

For me, this captures the relationship between kindness, connection, justice, and equity, and how our practice of these qualities can bring both individual and community wellbeing.

All of us at the SWC are wishing you all a wonderful February, and we’re here if there are ways we can help. Please explore what we have to offer, and don’t ever hesitate to reach out!

Take care and be well,
Todd

Dear Dartmouth,

Dartmouth is hosting a celebration of the national Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday with events and opportunities for involvement both today and through the rest of the month. We encourage you to explore and participate in at least some of these offerings, especially those that may open you up to new ways of seeing, thinking about, and/or understanding yourself, others, and the world we share.

The celebration theme this year is “Hope + Action,” based on a statement from Dr. King that “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” The context for this statement was, of course, the progression toward greater justice for all in the face of systemic racial inequity and it has become glaringly clear over the past year that systemic inequities persist – often perpetuated and supported by powerful organizations, interests, and governmental institutions. As such, this is an immediate and salient theme that offers itself up to each and all of us with a number of diverse opportunities for reflection.

I’ve been thinking about hope a lot lately, and the vital role it can play in our lives. At a moment when even our most basic practices of democracy seem to be at risk, it would be easy to buy into a meta-narrative of divisiveness and despair, of us and them (and on some level, of presumed good and evil), and assume that the capacity for a better future is simply beyond us. So, in scanning a portion of Dr. King’s legacy of written and spoken transcripts, a quote that had particular resonance for me this year was as follows: “Every [person] must decide whether [they] will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”

For me, this is the necessary bridge from hope to action. The horizon of my hope must encompass more than my own benefit and yield actions that contribute to the wellbeing of others. This is, of course, not purely altruistic, but is ultimately in my own best interest as well. We thrive together, or not, so engaging in the work of changing inequitable systems and ensuring equal access to both fundamental rights and opportunities benefits everyone. Ultimately, each of our wellbeing is more than an individual reckoning. We are caught up with one another, and can only realize a better future together.

I take comfort in the fact that this is not an original idea, but instead seems to be our foundational approach to life. In his book “Humankind: A Hopeful History,” Rutger Bregman makes the case that the preponderance of the evidence across history suggests that human beings are, in fact, fundamentally good-natured and other-oriented. He advances his thinking into a powerful argument for the need for hope, as opposed to cynicism, as a way of empowering radical, positive change, summarized neatly in this 2020 interview with NPR:

”I’m just saying that we have to remember here that cynicism is, in the first place, it’s a synonym for laziness. It sort of gives you an excuse to do nothing. And in the second place, it’s often used as a legitimization of hierarchy, because if we cannot trust each other, then we need them – we need the CEOs and the monarchs and the generals and the kings and you name it. But if we can actually trust each other, if we do have the courage to move to a more realistic, hopeful view of human nature, then we can move to a very different kind of society as well — and build very different kinds of schools and democracies and workplaces.”

Bringing this back to our local perspective, President Hanlon recently wrote the challenging and empowering statement that, even given the seemingly intractable challenges of the world, “at Dartmouth we will forever remain hopeful,” and then detailed the institutional actions that this hope is producing. With these initiatives underway, perhaps it is important for each of us to consider what it might look like if we were to consider ourselves and others in our Dartmouth community through this hopeful lens. What would happen if we believed that we are people capable of bringing about even more of the change that is needed for our community to thrive? What actions might that yield?

With those larger questions in mind, as you observe and engage with this important holiday, ask yourself the following:

What are your hopes…
…for yourself,
…for those close to you,
…for those distant from you,
…for our community,
…for our nation(s),
…and for the world we all share?

And, what is one action you would like to take to move toward these hoped-for outcomes?

Try to keep your focus on what you hope FOR, as statements based on what you hope to avoid (e.g. “I hope I/we don’t…”) are actually an expression of the cynicism that keeps us stuck in place. And be sure to expand your reflection outwards. Often our personal hopes can get tangled up with our goals and desired accomplishments but engaging in a compassionate contemplation of the needs of others can take us into a more meaningful reflection about the things that matter most.

Wishing you hope that brings about meaningful action this MLK day and always,
Todd

Dear Dartmouth,

2020 – this year that has inspired more memes than any of us want to remember, is finally winding to a close. These last two weeks find us all in the midst of multiple transitions. We are changing terms, changing years, changing seasons, and doing so in the midst of even more changes brought about by an unfathomable number of different events that have all clustered in this one calendar year.

I know that, as I have started to slow down a bit recently, easing into the winter break, it has made me aware that all of this has taken a toll. It’s been a lot, and I’m tired. Maybe you are too. Wherever you are, and however you may be feeling, I hope that this winter break can be a time of reconnection and recreation, of restoration and rest. Eat, sleep, play, laugh, and pause now and then to take it all in.

One of the MANY things I love about this time of year are the many “best of” articles that appear, summing up the events and accomplishments of the prior 12 months. Whatever you’re into, whether it’s podcasts or books, cooking or sports, fashion or film, design or music, there are likely multiple lists out there that can connect you with new ideas, individuals, or releases that can enrich your life. And what makes this even better for me is that there’s actually the time and space to actually read them – especially when the world has offered you piles of snow that seem to make everyone and everything slow down a bit.

At the SWC, our work is largely focused on wellbeing, and we constantly scan the research literature for evidence and ideas that can further our mission of empowering our community to thrive. I suppose it makes sense, then, that one of the articles that stood out to me was a summary of the top 10 insights from different scientific studies of wellbeing from the past year, identified by the team at the Greater Good Science Center. I wanted to share it on our blog and encourage you to give it a look as a tool for reflection. What findings surprise you? Which connect with your lived experiences? And which spark a sense of genuine curiosity, creating a desire in you to learn more?

I find myself thinking a lot about the construct of psychological richness, and how that dimension might be just as important for my wellbeing as happiness, meaning or life satisfaction. The findings about phone calls have a stronger association with connection and happiness than texting might give me the motivation to set aside time for conversations with the people I’m missing right now. The many studies that explore connections between social justice, inequality, diversity, and wellbeing renew my commitment to making our SWC work ever more accessible and inclusive of everyone in our Dartmouth community. And the findings related to empathy and motivation are something I will do my best to apply in both the personal and professional dimensions of my life.

What might you take from this list and apply to your life in a way that could enhance your wellbeing in the new year? Or, if you’re not inspired by these findings, what have you learned and/or unlearned this past year that can help you more fully realize who you want to become and take steps toward creating the life you want to be living?

Finally, and most importantly, please know how much you matter. You are an irreplaceable part of our community, and we stand ready to support you in your challenges and to celebrate your accomplishments. Thanks for all that you bring to Dartmouth and to the world. We look forward to connecting with you in 2021, and wish you abundant peace, love, and wonder, now and into the new year.

Take care and be well,
Todd