Imagine You're Teflon: Protect Yourself From Bad Times At Work
Last week, we talked through steps you can take to connect physical symptoms at work with the people or situations driving anxiety. Playing detective pays off: you’ll see patterns and hopefully begin to zero in on what’s driving how you feel.
Today we will focus on the last 2 steps of what I call “C.P.R.:” Protect and Resource.
Sometimes things are bad at work, but we can't fix things and make it all better. And as much as I wish we could all stop instantly answering emails sent by chaotic bosses, fire those awful clients, or spending so much time at work, I know that’s not realistic right now for many of us. Sometimes we have to stick it out. And sometimes when we do stick it out, we learn how to be more resilient and strong.
Adult children of alcoholics or from other difficult family dynamics often learn that healing means you have to stop trying to control or fix other people. You need, at some level, to detach. I think this is relevant to the situations at work that trap us and begin to control our minds and our health.
On a lighter note, think of it as living into the saying, ‘not my monkey, not my circus.’ I also like to think of it like taking a vaccine— inoculating myself— building in protection so I can’t get sick from the air around me. Here’s how I do it. These practices are evidence-based but as always I recommend you get the help of a mental health professional.
Protect
Accept What You Cannot Change Or Control
If this were easy to do, a lot of therapists and coaches would be out of a job! I get it because I am usually trying to change and control things, and my speciality is blaming myself for other people’s actions. I had a client who was really anxious. And for a while, I was her willing partner. We’d have a call, she’d unload her anxiety on me in the form of criticism, and I would absorb ALL of her anxiety. I’d leave the call thinking, ‘Wow, I really suck. I’m so lucky she’s paying me at a discount because I’m not very good at what I do.’ The rest of my day would be ruined but my client felt a lot better because she got to blame me for everything; her anxiety lived rent free in my head for months!
One day I realized I had a choice: I didn’t have to ruin my day just because my client dumped on me. I couldn’t change her, but I could change how I reacted to her.
I learned how to protect myself from her. I worked with my therapist. Before our meetings I prepared myself, like coating myself with non-stick spray! Teflon. I gathered evidence from years of successful client work and reminded myself of this saying from my friend Christine Koh: “I know my work is good, and this person is doing their own swirl thing, and I can't control that.”
Create Evidence For Moments When You Feel Wobbly
It’s one thing to set limits and give yourself a pep talk, but having evidence also helps. If you’re dealing with a work situation that makes you super anxious or feel sick, protect yourself by having facts on your side. Like, literally. If your sales meetings are giving you migraines but you know your numbers are good, carry a print out of your results. Everyone should have a brag book, keep emails from people affirming your good work, or metrics that affirm. This is a helpful technique if you find your anxiety spiking.
Resource
No matter how well you’ve protected yourself from a difficult situation, we all get activated and sometimes our prep work gets flooded by anxiety. When you’re in a difficult moment, your body might overwhelm your brain and physical symptoms might start. “Resourcing is the practice of inviting our mind/body to attune to sensations of safety or goodness, however small they may be. The process of attending to a felt sense of 'okayness,' begins the process of teaching our nervous system that it can experience stress, and then come back to a state of calm,” writes Sarah Ross, PhD. If this topic interests you, learn about resourcing! There are many ways you can resource yourself to regain regulation. Here’s an easy technique you can do to resource in the moment- and no one in the meeting will notice.
It’s called slowing down time.
Boston University’s Moshe Cohen is a master negotiation teacher. He offers this advice for when you’re actually in a meeting and your anxiety spikes. “Slow down time to be able to get back to a better place before you continue with a challenging conversation.” Cohen says, “Emotions hit you very, very hard and very fast. And then they start subsiding. Meanwhile, your cognitive brain is slowly catching up.”
“Often people act from stress in work conversations. And when we're stressed we tend to rush. So by slowing myself down, I slow the whole process down and I get both the other party and myself into a better emotional state where we can actually have a reasonable conversation and figure out how to move forward,” says Cohen.
Here are some invisible techniques you can use to slow down time.
When you start feeling anxious or ill, check in to your body. Casually put a hand on your sternum or shoulder, check in with your pulse by putting a finger on your wrist, or use belly breathing or longer exhales to calm yourself down.
Ask for a break and step outside.
My favorite: Use a prop. You can use a water bottle, a pen, or even your phone as a tool to cue a good thought and reset. I have a favorite pen I hold during stressful in person meetings. During stressful remote meetings, it’s a beautiful palm sized crystal from my friend Lisen Stromberg. After hours of habit, I look at the crystal and I am cued to feel safe! Sometimes I look at the rock and give myself a mini pep talk like, “Not your problem. Not your problem.”
Ask your colleague or counterparty questions rather than responding. Reflect back what’s said to you, including if it's a question. This calms everyone down!
Moshe says asking questions can be particularly effective, ”There's two things going on here. I'm exploring your interests and trying to get a sense of what makes you tick. But as an anxious person, the more I get you to talk, the less I have to talk. And while you're talking, I'm also catching my breath and getting to a better place so I can respond strategically rather than react emotionally.”
I use these techniques almost everyday. Connect, protect, resource.
If work is making you physically ill, you’ve got some big questions to ask yourself. But no matter what choice you make, whether you quit your job or not, understand that you have options. We can’t control other people. We can’t control the economy or global trends or viruses. We can’t even control what triggers us. But we do have agency over how we react to challenging people and situations. Practicing how we use this agency is amazing, and the lesson of a lifetime.
Morra
PS: This week on the podcast my guest is Dr. Wendy Suzuki- and we're discussing "good" anxiety. Yes: We need anxiety sometimes, and it motivates us. Listen: