Love Your Working Life
  • Work With Carleen
    • About Carleen
    • Career Strategy Session >
      • Get The Most Out Of Your Career Strategy Session
    • Listen Up
    • Coaching Programs >
      • Lead with Impact
      • Career Impact
      • Purpose to Impact
      • Recognize Your Leadership Potential >
        • Welcome to Recognizing Your Leadership Potential
      • Realize Your High Potential
      • The Art of Influence at Work
      • Your Time By Design
      • Assessment
    • Book Me To Speak >
      • Persuasive at Work
      • Workshops That Work >
        • Getting Hybrid Right
        • Leading a Hybrid Team Workshop
        • Communicating Comfortably in a Hybrid Setting Workshop
        • Finding Your Leadership Compass Hybrid Teams Workshop
        • Communicating Comfortably in a Virtual Setting Workshop
        • Career Health Check Workshop
        • Leading in Ambiguity Workshop
        • Accomplishing Work Through Others Workshop
        • My Values Driven Workplace Workshop
        • Leading Teams Virtually Workshop
        • Working Successfully From Home Workshop
        • New Habits for Life Workshop
        • Valued Living Workshop
        • Working Resilience
        • Addressing Conflict Workshop
        • The Many Faces of Unconscious Bias Workshop
        • Building A Culture of Trust Workshop
        • Time Management Workshop
        • Business Intelligence of Empathy Workshop
        • Finding Your Leadership Compass Workshop
        • Foundational Conversations Workshop
        • Conscious Conversations Workshop
        • Leading with Emotional Intelligence Workshop
        • Success in A Mulitgenerational Workforce Workshop
        • Networking in A Digital Age Workshop
        • The Psychology of Decisions Workshop
        • Purpose Driven Feedback Workshop
        • Dynamic Team Communication Workshop
    • Awards
  • Client Stories
  • Blog
  • Testimonials
  • Free Resources
    • Summer Serenity Inspiration Guide
    • Working Life Wellbeing Assessment
    • Hidden Habits Holding You Back
    • Secrets to Boost Your Job Security
    • Working Life Serenity
    • Virtual Influence
    • Hello Monday Videos
    • Career Resources
    • Life Practices >
      • I Feel Angry
      • I Feel Stuck
      • I Am Overwhelmed
      • I Need Self-Compassion
      • Emotions At Work
      • Mindfulness
      • Triggers At Work
      • Naming Emotions
      • I Feel Frustrated
    • Balancing Time Workbook
    • Working Life Persona Quiz
    • Career Health Quiz
    • Healthy Boundaries Quiz
  • Referral Partners
  • Connect
BLOG

EMPOWER YOUR
​WORKING LIFE

Observance As An Act of Self-Compassion

10/23/2018

 
Picture
Photo courtesy of Alexandru Zbrobau

Lately I’ve been thinking about my mental “junk drawer”.  The place I put the things I don’t want others to see…things I don’t really want to look at either (but I can’t quite let go of…).  I’ve decided it’s a junk drawer because the stuff in there is so closely aligned with the contents of the actual junk drawer in my house.  Batteries that need to be recharged…but I can’t find what we’ve done with the charger (that thing I do where I make myself small around some people), keys with no locks (persistent behaviours I want to stop but don’t know how), bits and bobs that will be useful someday…but not today.  And not without a lot of inconvenient effort.
 
The thing to remember about these items is each and every one of them has a story attached to it, just like the physical junk in that one drawer we all have in our homes.  It’s easy in the moment to justify why I made myself “small” around someone; I tell myself they wouldn’t have taken lightly any challenge to their thinking, or that it wasn’t worth disrupting them, or…but that is not the story that particular item is telling.  If I look at it objectively, setting that example apart from me in an act of observance, it is the story of a lack of confidence in myself.  A lack of confidence in my ability to skillfully pose an alternate way forward, or influence another person’s thinking.  Author Rebecca Solnit calls these “ambient stories”.  An apt description as they are ever-present and influence our way of being in certain situations; sometimes we know we are doing “that thing again” and sometimes we can only see it when looking back.
 
In Solnit’s words; “Stories surround us like air; we breathe them in, we breathe them out.  The art of being fully conscious in personal life means seeing the stories and become their teller, rather than letting them be the unseen forces that tell you what to do.”  Her words highlight that we need to pay attention to this mental junk drawer and the stories we tell ourselves when we tuck something away in there, a lot of rationalizing goes into that mental drawer.  Lessons from the actual household junk drawer – drawers can only hold so much before they start spilling out their contents, and they always do that at the most inconvenient time.  So it is with our mental junk as well.  Reaction (rather than response), unwanted tears, passive aggressive behavior, shutting down or a desperate need to “numb out” (with food, TV, alcohol, etc.) are all signs your mental drawer can handle no more junk.  What to do?  Recognize what is needed; time to look in that drawer with compassion and curiosity, and do some “cleaning”.
 
Looking at the items we don’t want to see about ourselves, or admitting a context in which we are living (at home or at work) is no longer working for us is emotionally exhausting work, but it is valuable work.  Only within the act of bearing witness can we see what is needed to break free of these stories, of the mental junk that otherwise holds us trapped in a repetitive cycle that does nothing for us but cause suffering.  Start gently, start by recognizing when you have put something in there, and witness the story it is telling.  As Solnit says “It’s powerful, honorable, profoundly necessary work when it is done with passion and independence and guts.”  If you’ve ever cleaned out the junk drawer at home you know how deeply satisfying it can be to have room in that drawer, to see all the contents. And much like cleaning out the physical drawer where things will remain (the goal is not an empty “drawer”), you don’t have to act on everything in the mental one either, only enough to give yourself room to breathe.


Comments are closed.

    Subscribe 

    Looking for a Blog? Search here:

    ABOUT MY BLOG

    I believe in empowering others in many tangible ways.  When I learn new career strategies  or see something that might help others, I share it using my blog and website. 

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    December 2013

All photography on my website is courtesy of the generous artists at Pexels and Unsplash.
Book Your Career Strategy Session
Privacy Policy
Integral Coach™ is a registered trade-mark in Canada owned by Integral Coaching Canada Inc. and licensed to Carleen Hicks.

  • Work With Carleen
    • About Carleen
    • Career Strategy Session >
      • Get The Most Out Of Your Career Strategy Session
    • Listen Up
    • Coaching Programs >
      • Lead with Impact
      • Career Impact
      • Purpose to Impact
      • Recognize Your Leadership Potential >
        • Welcome to Recognizing Your Leadership Potential
      • Realize Your High Potential
      • The Art of Influence at Work
      • Your Time By Design
      • Assessment
    • Book Me To Speak >
      • Persuasive at Work
      • Workshops That Work >
        • Getting Hybrid Right
        • Leading a Hybrid Team Workshop
        • Communicating Comfortably in a Hybrid Setting Workshop
        • Finding Your Leadership Compass Hybrid Teams Workshop
        • Communicating Comfortably in a Virtual Setting Workshop
        • Career Health Check Workshop
        • Leading in Ambiguity Workshop
        • Accomplishing Work Through Others Workshop
        • My Values Driven Workplace Workshop
        • Leading Teams Virtually Workshop
        • Working Successfully From Home Workshop
        • New Habits for Life Workshop
        • Valued Living Workshop
        • Working Resilience
        • Addressing Conflict Workshop
        • The Many Faces of Unconscious Bias Workshop
        • Building A Culture of Trust Workshop
        • Time Management Workshop
        • Business Intelligence of Empathy Workshop
        • Finding Your Leadership Compass Workshop
        • Foundational Conversations Workshop
        • Conscious Conversations Workshop
        • Leading with Emotional Intelligence Workshop
        • Success in A Mulitgenerational Workforce Workshop
        • Networking in A Digital Age Workshop
        • The Psychology of Decisions Workshop
        • Purpose Driven Feedback Workshop
        • Dynamic Team Communication Workshop
    • Awards
  • Client Stories
  • Blog
  • Testimonials
  • Free Resources
    • Summer Serenity Inspiration Guide
    • Working Life Wellbeing Assessment
    • Hidden Habits Holding You Back
    • Secrets to Boost Your Job Security
    • Working Life Serenity
    • Virtual Influence
    • Hello Monday Videos
    • Career Resources
    • Life Practices >
      • I Feel Angry
      • I Feel Stuck
      • I Am Overwhelmed
      • I Need Self-Compassion
      • Emotions At Work
      • Mindfulness
      • Triggers At Work
      • Naming Emotions
      • I Feel Frustrated
    • Balancing Time Workbook
    • Working Life Persona Quiz
    • Career Health Quiz
    • Healthy Boundaries Quiz
  • Referral Partners
  • Connect