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Trust your workmates & managers? Open to new worlds

Trust is a very special commodity.

Yet we live in a world full of low-trust & suspicion. The emerging streams of newsfeed fill our waking lives with examples of discrepancies, dishonesty, ulterior motives, not- so-hidden agendas, personal gains, neglectful practice & backhanders which feeds us with low-trust. So who can we trust? And how? I was always told that there’s no such thing as automatic trust, you have to earn it!

Getting savvy to our own psychological trusting makeup helps us to see through the mist & smokescreens of good relating with others. Personal relationships, romantic relationships, work relationships all demand a level of receptivity & scrutiny from our trust monitor. Our radar of previous hurts, childhood wounds, experiences of having our trust broken is on the look- out for indicators & first whiff of something fishy, our self-preservation armour clunks into place. We are full of so many downloaded mis-trust messages in our psychological inner world – “don’t talk to strangers”, “be careful, the world is not a safe place”, “ people are only nice to you because they want something”

Dr Stephen Covey (famous for his 7 habits of highly effective people) says in his book Smart Trust, that there is a high cost to maintaining our worldview of blind trust (gullibility) or distrust (suspicion) – we get hurt, burned and more importantly, we close off the spontaneity, magic, joy & energy in our lives & relationships.

to trust is to take a risk, and risks are to be taken wisely. But to trust is also to open new worlds

Fernando Flores former finance minister of Chile

To learn to trust is a delightful journey, getting wise to the range of components within us to help us make decisions. Here’s how..

Change your internal downloaded landscape-behaviours, programming, attitudes
Learn to trust yourself : decision making, discernment, credibility, competence, gut-feeling
Act with integrity – walk your talk/new attitude, demonstrate trustworthiness
Expect trust, extend trust to others -allow yourself to be vulnerable, authentic in your communications

Building relationships, you build trust, when trust is present, magic & new energy emerges, then anything can happen

Pamela Harland

Who is the most trusted person in your team – why? Which leader in your company do you have most trust in – why? Find out how to increase the trust in your team. Find out how to create a high-trust environment at work.

See wellbeing at work seminars page.

TRUST IS CONTAGIOUS, TAKE A LEAP OF TRUST TODAY

Pamela Harland, Wellbeing Consultant holds wellbeing seminars at work for team trust building & provides wellbeing mentoring sessions for professionals.

GETTING CONNECTED – social media & the workplace

30th March 2012

I attended a very interesting HRINZ networking meeting last night for Northland NZ & the guest speakers Steve Shephard (IT) & David Grindle (lawyer) covered the latest trends in social media (SM), the Cloud & employment issues for companies & employees mis-using SM, especially when an employee brings a company into disrepute, illegal downloading & dismissal of staff. This lead on to developing a suitable company social media policy. Plus I was surprised by the recent news of a successful defamation case in the UK for a twitter comment!

Employees nowadays, as part of their working life, seem to expect to be able to whizz across to their personal postings & connections, multi-tasking, multi-attention, multi-focused as part of their engagement & perhaps to enhance their creativity. It certainly seems to be essential in the employee wellbeing stakes as an add on benefit and probably helps in retention. Employees certainly want to feel valued & trusted. There seems to be a psychological need to have technologically based relationships. I wonder where this might fit on the Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs theory!

My own dip into SM over the last 6months has been intriguing. The question I keep asking my SM mentor is “ how will this task convert into a new customer, a new lead or service enquiry? How is this helping my business?” Sometimes I just think it is just a time-consuming activity with little heart-based real authentic connection. Other times, I am totally inspired, uplifted & of course, addicted. It is good for a mood break/changer.

So here is a recent article on using social media productively.

6 ways to acquire new customers via social media

I like the way this article explains how the various platforms can be used for different aspects of your business, e.g. FB for events & twitter for conversations, questions, highlights. Sharing meaningful content which has personality is all important, just as using images to engage the reader, a visual statement can make more impact than 1000’s of words . Being personal, but not too personal! Once it has gone viral, there’s no retraction. Plus it might come back & haunt you later in life!

For the full article see Mashable Business

Compassion Fatigue – An occupational hazzard?

16 March 2012

Have you lost your joie de vive? Do you find yourself getting drained listening to others’ crisis &
personal issues? Yes I know sometimes life is tough & we have our own issues to deal with too!

As a line manager do you find your internal empathy is running a bit dry? Are you sufficiently
emotionally robust to handle co-workers’ grief, traumas, life-dramas, over-sensitivities, anger outbursts etc?

Maybe you are suffering from compassion fatigue otherwise known as ‘vicarious traumatisation‘.

Here’s a handy fact sheet on compassion fatigue

———————————————————————————————

Some of the symptoms:

Becoming serious, morose, cynical, deepened sadness, increased sensitivity, thinking too much about
other’s problems, soul sadness, irritability & low tolerance, intrusive dreams, sleepless nights, lethargy,
taking work problems home, kicking the dog, shouting at the children……

Understanding why….

In the therapeutic world we attend supervision sessions to make sure we are working ethically.
However, what can often get unnoticed in the exploration of client issues, is sufficient self-care. I
have found from working with many middle-managers in EAP counselling & critical incident debriefing
sessions, that the boundaries can often get blurred in a professional line-management type
relationships leading to an emotional overload. Having a heart-to-heart discussion is certainly more
commendable rather than just monitoring KPI’s & work targets. However, many managers just don’t
know how to support their staff emotionally, without getting submerged, drowning in others’issues! Or
having to shut down emotionally & be non-connected, focused on work issues.

WHAT TO DO… read on

If you are feeling blue.. my Top Pickup Tips

Image taken from http://finkorswim.com/2012/01/06/smile-a-guest-post/

Thursday 8th March 2012

Some times I feel down & I don’t know why, my heart just kind of feels heavy & I know I have lost my smile. Even facebook seems to be all boring & samey.

I usually go through the process of elimination – is it food eaten, hormones, lack of beauty sleep, the weather?

Am I just having a blue day & how can I shift it into a bright sunshiny yellow-gold day?

If you are feeling blue, what to do…..

watch something funny - laughing baby Micah

Baby Micah laughing at the sound of ripping paper – an amazing 38.7 million views! Such an infectious, pure laugh & we all used to belly laugh like that once upon a time!

2) read something truly inspiring, meaningful & uplifting .

Try an OSHO wisdom card

–pick a card for today

what to do……..read on

Is work making us mentally ill ?

Friday 24 Feb 2012

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure, It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us most. As you let your light shine, you unconsciously give others permission to do the same, Liberated from your fear, your presence liberates others. Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech 1994

Looking at our emotional health at work, I was intrigued by a recent UK study by Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD)

on supporting mental health in the workplace. In 2011, they commissioned YouGov to survey over 2000 employees to identify their experiences & attitudes about the degree of mental health at work. 26% reported mental health difficulties, with women higher than men. Rates were also higher in the 35 to 44 year age group.

CIPD also cite the CAUSES of mental health problems

15% of those surveyed say the cause was problems at work, 20% report cause was their personal lives & 65% report a combination of the both. Gender differences were shown here too with women more likely to say cause was due to personal reasons whereas men more likely to say work was the cause of their poor mental health. This study shows that work can be causing undue mental health problems which creates implications for organisations in their legislative duty of care to staff.

Also a recent article on Stuff

showed the mounting costs of mental illness on organisations, estimating the cost to organisations in the region of NZ$2000 per employee a year in terms off sickness absence, reduced productivity at work and replacing staff who leave their jobs because of mental ill health.

So why is work becoming such a source of difficult mental health?

4 simple steps to remind yourself to self-nurture – you deserve it!

Isn't it time you gave some back to you? Picture taken from http://www.marqui.com

I was enjoying walking by the ocean, golden sands, gentle lapping waves, emerald-azure waters, I could be feeling absolutely amazing or I could be lost within my dark thoughts. Then I was contemplating what does the internal landscape really look like & how do we take care of ourselves. Maintaining a feel-good factor is quite an art, even an ongoing okayness can be tricky. Our runaway thoughts are compelling & addictive as they fuel the epic 3D stories & tales – current & past.

Before we can say Jack Robinson (and who the hell was he anyway?) we have entered the dragon’s lair, fears, anxieties, self-recriminations, resentments emerge from the dragon’s fire & we spiral down. So many of our feelings especially anxieties, reside in the gut /sacral centre, yet somewhere within us we have the capacity to ease this fire & nurture ourselves, when we start to feel bad.

With over 15 years working therapeutically with clients with a mixed bag of tricks from counselling, psychology, NLP, EFT & education, there are surely some useful tips for stopping us going down the plug-hole with the baby. In my experience anxiety & depression are the 2 most common presenting issues that clients bring causing bucket loads of low self-esteem.

How to Live in the Moment?

How much do we long for the ability to sustain a wonderful sense of feeling good? The short-lived highs of a new technological gadget or a fashion scoop hardly touches the pleasure centre spot. We search for greater meaning. So really appreciating the simple things in life, feeling a good aspect in every person we encounter, is an art which needs practice.

Living in the moment..

Psychologists & counselors are moving strongly into mindfulness based therapies as a way to help people become much more present emotionally & mentally. http://www.actmindfully.com.au

If we can live each day as if it has great meaning, like its our last, would we hold a different point of view on the road rage or the argument with the spouse? What really matters to us?

Bridging the gap between Wellbeing and Distress

For my beachside holiday reading over Christmas & New Year I enjoyed perusing Dr Russ Harris’ new book The Reality Slap – How to find fulfillment when life hurts (see www.actmindfully.com.au) which looks at how events in life such as crisis & disasters shock us, causing a huge slap in our reality awareness, especially events like death, divorce, bankruptcy, redundancy, disability, serious illness or injury.

The recent earthquake & aftershocks in Christchurch is a prime example, following on from the previous shakes. These life events can affect us to such a degree that the gap between what is happening/happened & what we desire or need in order to feel OK looks like a huge gulf. Even Christmas & New Year experiences of family dramas or existential aloneness can trigger so much distress in us, that we find it hard to engage with everyday life. In these troubled times, Russ’s book helps us to develop self-compassion. He uses ACT (acceptance & commitment therapy) – ACT mindfulness to deal with these major losses.

Developing Inner Super-Vision at Work

Have you ever wondered why it is that some work interactions and events can trigger big emotional responses such as over-reactions, misunderstandings, injustices, defensiveness or emotional shut down, retaliations?

From my client work through EAP schemes over the years I am amazed at the amount of bullying that exists in organisations – hierarchical, horizontal, group peer pressure & so on. I wonder why it is becoming so common place when we all have the right to a nurturing and supportive organisational culture instead of one which is harmful & anxious.

I found December’s HRINZ meeting with Laura Crawshaw, Boss Whispering Institute – Intervening With Abrasive Leaders, very interesting in its perspective of providing group feedback to the ‘bully’ focused on interpersonal behaviour that causes emotional distress in coworkers sufficient to disrupt the organisational functioning, without the need for formal investigations & defences. see http://www.bosswhispering.com/

For coworkers who find themselves in a difficult relationship environment or victim mode, there is a better way to be – develop the inner super-visor.

Older posts

Blog

Trust your workmates & managers? Open to new worlds

Trust is a very special commodity.

See wellbeing at work seminars page.

TRUST IS CONTAGIOUS, TAKE A LEAP OF TRUST TODAY

Pamela Harland, Wellbeing Consultant holds wellbeing seminars at work for team trust building & provides wellbeing mentoring sessions for professionals.

Compassion Fatigue – An occupational hazzard?

Here’s a handy fact sheet on compassion fatigue

Some of the symptoms:

Understanding why….

WHAT TO DO… read on

If you are feeling blue.. my Top Pickup Tips

If you are feeling blue, what to do…..

watch something funny - laughing baby Micah

2) read something truly inspiring, meaningful & uplifting .

Try an OSHO wisdom card

what to do……..read on

Is work making us mentally ill ?

Looking at our emotional health at work, I was intrigued by a recent UK study by Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD)

CIPD also cite the CAUSES of mental health problems

Also a recent article on Stuff

So why is work becoming such a source of difficult mental health?

4 simple steps to remind yourself to self-nurture – you deserve it!

How to Live in the Moment?

Living in the moment..

Bridging the gap between Wellbeing and Distress

Developing Inner Super-Vision at Work

Have you ever wondered why it is that some work interactions and events can trigger big emotional responses such as over-reactions, misunderstandings, injustices, defensiveness or emotional shut down, retaliations?

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