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Wellbeing

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..

  1.  Change your internal downloaded landscape-behaviours, programming, attitudes
  2. Learn to trust yourself : decision making, discernment, credibility, competence, gut-feeling
  3.  Act with integrity – walk your talk/new attitude, demonstrate trustworthiness
  4.  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.

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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

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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

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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?

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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.

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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?

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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.

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How To Restore The 4 Enriching Ingredients Of HOPE

HOPE = Happiness Optimism Passion Equanimity

Life on planet earth is meant to be a rich playing field & bountiful source of human emotional growth & learning, that’s why we have enormous emotional capacity. But how do we find our way through the maze of emotional deadends & blocks without getting exhausted or emotionally wrung out?

As a counselling psychologist in practice for the last 20 years in the UK & NZ, I have heard the most amazing rationales & compelling stories to explain emotional unhappiness & disturbance.

 

When life becomes all too much, we struggle to make sense of the huge array of emotions within us & in others around us

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