Work From Home Wellness with Litsa Williams, Eleanor Haley and TQ Evans | Mediavine On Air Episode 30

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused not only economic, environmental and health impacts on the world; but emotional impacts as well.In this episode of Teal Talk originally recorded in April 2020, Litsa Williams and Eleanor Haley from What's Your Grief discussed the different ways people grieved the worldwide shutdown, and provided evergreen practices for how to cope.



We were also joined by then Head of People Operations TQ Evans. Since this recording, TQ passed away after a long battle with colon cancer in April 2021.



Her light shines bright in this episode as she relayed how her family and her coped with the problems of the world -- and her spirit shines through Mediavine as we cope with her loss, and continue to honor her memory.



We love you TQ.







Helpful Resources



What's Your Grief?Eleanor and Litsa's Blogs on Grieving...Remembering Chief Diversity Officer Tonquise "TQ" EvansAnnouncing the Tonquise “TQ” Evans ’03 Endowed Scholarship...MBU Empowers Campaign"Leading with Heart" Blog Post








https://youtu.be/KdD-n6bsEOk




Transcript



[MUSIC PLAYING] JENNY GUY: Hey, y'all. It is Thursday, April 23. It is approximately day 473 of quarantine, for those keeping track. This is Teal Talk, and I'm your host Jenny Guy. I'm the director of marketing at Mediavine, and, more importantly, I have finally fulfilled my childhood dream in this quarantine and become a carbohydrate. And that's when I'm not getting really emotional over all the new COVID-19 quarantine commercials, so that's fun.



So welcome. Say hi to us in the comments if you're hanging out.



[MOWER STARTS]



Oh, and good, the lawn service is starting, so that's perfect. And we said not to come today, so good good good. Tell us how you're holding up at this point because it is not an easy time right now. I also wanted to-- I told all these awesome ladies before, I am wearing a dress on the top, and then I am wearing lizard pajama bottoms on the bottom. So I am the definition of a mullet, I am business on the top, party on the bottom.



So now that we've gotten all of that out of the way, we have people working from home and teaching their kids for the first time. We're cooking all of our own meals and producing more dirty dishes-- than, I mean, I never even thought-- it's unbelievable how many dishes there are. It's insane. And we're reconfiguring milestone celebrations, and missing family, and worrying about the state of our wallets and the world, and in light of all these bizarre firsts and struggles, we brought on some experts to help with work-from-home wellness and mental wellness in general. And I'm so glad they're here, I'm going to introduce them.



First, I'm with Mediavine's Director of People Operations, TQ Evans. TQ joins us live from her home in Richmond, Virginia. She has been the director of People Operations with Mediavine for nearly two years. She's got a master's degree, along with several other professional certifications in HR management and leadership, and that means a lot of initials behind her name. Her background specialty entails partnering with small to mid-sized startups and successfully building and teaching their people-ops team from the ground up. She also is a birth doula, a wife, a mom of four human kids, and a new mom to three backyard hens, fondly named Aretha, Gladys, and Patti. She is an avid urban gardener, has a passion for health and wellness, and, most recently, is the recipient of the unofficial Neighborhood Quarantine double-Dutch Award. What is that? Hi TQ, welcome.



TQ EVANS: Hi Jenny. I look forward to getting into that-- oh, do you want me to tell you now?



JENNY GUY: Yeah please, what is that?



TQ EVANS: Oh yeah. So I started just doing different activities with my neighbors, like virtual activities. And we're taking it back to-- we're all 80s babies, and we did jump rope, double-Dutch. So my neighbors and I started-- we bought hula hoops and all these things,