Table of Contents
Work and Life Quitting
More than 47 million people quit their jobs during the great resignation of 2021, and this 23% of the workforce grew by another 38 million in 2022.
Since we are talking about work and life, for the latter, let’s look at divorce rates. Although divorce rates have been declining, they are still high at 40-50% for first marriages, and 60-67% for second.
Times can be tough in this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world of ours. A lot of people are on edge in work and life.
And likely you have heard about the stress response: Fight, flight, or freeze—and by the numbers above, we have been seeing a whole lot of flight.
Now, trauma experts are adding some nuance to it all with newer notions of defensive maneuvers for coping, to include Attach and Cry, Commit and Submit, Please and Appease.
How We Cope
All of the above coping mechanisms appear other-related to me. That is, in work and life, we may fight with the other, run away from the other, lay low in the other’s presence, implore the other for support, submit to the other, please and appease the other.
Embedded in these strategies is a sense of ‘not me’. That is, ‘I am not the cause of the problem; it is someone or something else that I just need to get rid of in my life.’ Or, ‘I am not the cure for the problem; it is someone or something else and I just need to get someone else to do what I think I need them to do to fix this.’
Probably these ways of being worked well enough at some earlier point in time for them to become habits that became life strategies. But they are lacking conscious awareness that, especially if there is a pattern, ‘It just might be me, and something I need to fix myself inside of myself’.
This reminds me of a young couple I knew. Let’s call them Jill and Jim. Jill was constantly angry with Jim for something or everything it seemed, and was trying desperately to get Jim to fix or change whatever it was she imagined would make her feel better.
One day I suggested to Jill as an experiment that, every time her mind went over to criticizing Jim, she could bring it back to herself—and what might be getting triggered in her that preexisted her ever having met Jim.
Then, when she tapped into that earlier hurt and could see that there was not sufficient support around her then to help soothe that earlier pain, she could ask herself what she could do now to help soothe her own pain.
The idea was for her to learn to take better care of herself and then see how Jim seemed to her. Not that Jim is perfect; who is? But the self-soothing Jill learned how to do took a tremendous burden off of the relationship that in fact turned out to be great for them both.
How We Can Cope Better
Of course, I am not saying that we should never leave a toxic situation, nor that we should never ask another for their support when things get hard. We are social creatures after all, and research shows that happier, healthier, longer lives tend to have supportive relationships in them as a key factor.
But when we are asking others, in work and life, without even realizing it, to reverse something that existed before we ever met them, this bearing on other people can overburden and burn out the very relationships in work and life that we wish we could count on and enjoy. And the over-dependency of it all can fill humans with shame that only makes them feel worse.
1 Thing To Do
Yes, we are talking about self-care in work and life, and I am aware that the whole notion has gotten a little WooWoo. People can also resist going in that direction because it makes them feel selfish.
Here is an excerpt on that topic from a post I wrote during the pandemic that I believe still holds:
People are getting on each other’s nerves. Not everyone of course. But this pandemic has put a lot of people too close together and a lot of other people too far apart. And it’s making a lot people on either end…well, cranky. The crankiness can really get in the way of caring about others, which then only makes things worse. So how can people take care of themselves without being selfish?
This question reminds me of my trek along The Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain, when my companion on the pilgrimage said one of the nicest things I’ve ever heard, which was, “I like how you take care of yourself and the other person too.”
I thanked him and told him what I had learned about narcissism from the masters on this subject. That is, we are all on a continuum. At one extreme would be exclusive tending to the needs and interests of others. At the other extreme, would be exclusive tending only to the needs and interests of oneself.
Randy, in Scott Turow’s book and movie Presumed Innocent, comes to mind as an example of someone consumed with himself. If I remember correctly, there was a line in the book that went something like: It took everything in him to get through the day just being Randy. So not a whole lot left over for thinking about anyone else.
Most of us are further along than Randy, somewhere in between the two extremes. And depending upon what’s going on internally and externally for us, we can slide back and forth.
We probably slide around within a range, just as a lot people do with their weight, a few pounds this way and that from one day to the next.
The truth is that there were times on our Camino trek when each of us was entirely self-absorbed with our blisters, our fatigue, thirst, hunger, or whatever it was.
So how did we take care of ourselves without being selfish? The short answer is: By staying alert and aware enough to make sure that we had our hands on the dials. That way we could calibrate and recalibrate what and how we were doing—so we never got stuck at either end. I liked how he took care of himself and the other person too.
We can all take care of ourselves and other people too. It is possible to take care of our own business and stay connected with others without overburdening them and burning them out.
Again, there are times when it is right to leave. Bear in mind, however, that there are studies to indicate that 40% of employees regretted their decision to quit, and 50% of divorced couples regretted their decision to end their marriages.
So, before leaving a marriage or a job—whether quiet quitting or the more overt kind—how about taking a moment to consider whether there might be some inner work to do first that could make things on the outside seem better once the inner work is done.
If nothing else, getting a better grip on our own part is the best insurance there is against an inner pattern of misery repeating itself all over again.
Practice, practice, practice…and see what happens. And for help with this or something else, Contact Me at weissmadelaine@gmail.com
Warmly,
Madelaine
Photo by Freepik
Recent Comments