Getting back to work after a traumatic brain injury 

This article is written by Maddi Macdonald, corporate engagement strategist at Nova Scotia Public Service Commission.

So, as it turns out, in the span of one day you could find yourself facilitating an event on increasing mentorship opportunities within your organisation and forever changing your life as you slip on the ice, breaking bones and your brain all at the same time.

I am a corporate strategist and I do a lot of facilitation in my role. And this did happen to me.

Things would greatly change for me on that cold January day. I would need much treatment and perseverance over many months before I would be back on my feet.

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Fast-forward a year or so later to 2019 and I am back to the work I love as a public servant. Finding my groove again has been tricky and required much adapting.

Getting back on my feet as a facilitator took longest of all – but it was also the most rewarding! Facilitation is a thing I love to do in my career and something I typically do well.

As a facilitator, I work with clients to develop and lead sessions to produce clear results that are understood and supported by participants. This means lots of project planning and execution. It also means leading sessions for anywhere from 10 to 200 people that last anywhere from an hour to days.  Being a good facilitator requires many things: organisation, quick thinking, diplomacy and stamina.

Many of these are complicated by a traumatic brain injury (also referred to as a concussion). Having a brain injury can lead to issues with cognitive processing, fatigue and anxiety – none of which you want creeping up on you when trying to facilitate a day with clients working on complex issues.

“My approach to facilitating after my brain injury is actually helpful advice for anyone – especially anyone feeling overwhelmed by the challenges ahead at work”

Getting back into my groove as a facilitator required gradually increasing capacity, extra prep work and techniques to manage anxiety.

What I have realised is that my approach to facilitating after my brain injury is actually helpful advice for anyone – especially anyone feeling overwhelmed by the challenges ahead at work.

Take it slow

If you begin to feel stressed, increase your confidence by reminding yourself to take it slow. I gradually regained my capacity to facilitate again by first helping to facilitate only a small section of the day and by observing others facilitating.

This helped me get used to being in a facilitation space again and around groups before managing an entire facilitation on my own.

Where possible, having a trusted co-facilitator is also great when you may need a minute to regroup, and this is especially true post-brain injury.

The bottom line is a pretty simple approach that we sometimes forget when overwhelmed: break the challenge into bite-sized pieces.

Be prepared

Be well prepared to reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Having a structured agenda is essential to facilitating well, even if your agenda is almost always reworked during the session/event. This prep work allows you to know how you plan to get from point A to point B in your day.

It also gives you confidence by feeling prepared. This sense of confidence is so important when getting back on your feet and also helps manage anxiety about your work.

Manage anxiety

Don’t let anxiety get the best of you. The brain is a delicate organ and, after injury, it often becomes more sensitive to anxiety, which can seriously throw you off your facilitation game. For me, this has been the most challenging part of facilitating post-brain injury.

Some helpful ways to minimise anxiety prior to or during a day of facilitating are: having a good night’s sleep, arriving early and settling into the space, practising calming breathing (such as alternate nostril breathing), minimising caffeine intake and eating small snacks throughout the day to not get too hungry.

While much of this may sound like common sense, facilitators often push their own needs aside to keep the agenda going.

“Be a leader in your organisation and model positive ways of managing stress and anxiety”

This is not unique to facilitators. Too many of us do this during our busy work weeks. Be a leader in your organisation and model positive ways of managing stress and anxiety.

Keep going

When things are challenging, just keep going. Easing back into things, being extra prepared and making efforts to minimise anxiety have all been crucial for regaining my confidence.

When returning to work after my brain injury, I started with 30-minute presentations and built my way back up to facilitating full-day sessions over a few months. I recently co-facilitated in a seven-day design sprint, solving a large complex problem that my organisation is facing.

Whatever the challenge you are facing, be patient with yourself and celebrate the progress you make along the way.

My circumstances over the past couple of years may not be like yours. You may have never had a concussion. Maybe you have never facilitated before. But my experience of overcoming challenges in the workplace is probably something we can all relate to.

Whether returning to work from an injury, navigating the complexities of health issues or starting a new role like facilitating, find what works for you to navigate your own unique challenges. My biggest advice to you would be to just keep going!

— Maddi Macdonald

Picture credit: Alex Jones on Unsplash