Do you know what it means to feel psychologically safe?
Having spent the last year extricating myself from an intimate relationship that bore all the hallmarks of pathological narcissistic abuse, I have been forced to track back, painfully over my past to recognize the patterns of the environments in which I found myself.
From childhood to the present day, this voyage of self-discovery was taken with care and compassion. This time I have been thorough. No stones are unturned, no relationship or environment ignored or minimised and the process produced a Novel, demonstrating application of this experience, strength and hope. Once the rumination abates, there is room for healthy, safe self-reflection. Which brings me to the environment in which I spent most of my time. The co-dependent relationship that eroded my self-worth and values and robbed me of my psychological safety for two and a half decades. My workplace.
I was a Workplace Consultant working for Global Corporates creating state of the art environments concerned, primarily with productivity and performance. There was something deeply disturbing to me about my work that I could never fully articulate. I believe it was the subconscious understanding that people are effectively the batteries that power industries. Deployed to operate at their maximum effectiveness, only to be depleted to near uselessness and discarded as their performance diminishes.
The shiny new workplace would be designed to re-energize the human batteries, serving to recharge the workforce with the food budgets, sleep pods, living walls, break out spaces and gyms. The generous salaries, bonuses and perks only make it harder for individuals to exercise their perceived psychological safety for fear that their comforts will be snatched away. Because batteries that don't recharge are not reused. They are recycled. They have a second-life. The possibility to come back as something more useful and effective, in their own right.
Some people refer to me as a Unicorn. I left my industry and I stayed gone. Like my abusive relationship, when lines are crossed, boundaries smashed through and my sanity and sobriety were threatened, I had no choice. It was death or the door. I made a choice to live. I had no parachute either time. No one and nothing to catch me and so I took a leap of faith. I am still free-falling six years later and a year from the relationship but I haven't hit a rock bottom yet. I fully anticipate a soft landing at some point soon.
I had to learn the hard way how to create my own psychological safety. Using recovery tools, values in action strengths and applying with vigour, to my survival, everything I had learnt during my Masters in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology. With my most recent and shocking experience, I have begun to question how it is possible, in environments that employ constant performance measures and are results driven, that someone may flourish without external validation?
With fresh eyes, I see clearly the correlation between my relationship and my workplace. All the hallmarks are present! I am left with only one current solution. If leaving an environment that does not foster our psychological safety is not an option, we must create our own and experience shows me that it takes work. Clearing away self-deception, rigorous honesty and a true understanding of who we really are. The work is worth doing because allows us to go anywhere and try anything.
I can understand how the application of the character strengths I discuss in Blog #1 protected me in my relationship and that because I was unaware of the power they hold, they could not serve me effectively in my relationship with work. This is the foundation on which I am building my Workshops and self study programs for women to grow after abuse - Workplace, Family, Relationships.
The real power lies within you and I now know that to be truth. Keep following along if you are ready to rescue yourself!
Note: This is a 600 word article to be published this month in Becoming an Unstoppable Woman Magazine. I chose the topic of Self-Discovery.
(See @seeking_quietwaters for the full story behind the Novel – The page used to be called ‘Elizabeth is Missing – Lost in France!' - Because I WAS! You will, no doubt notice the point when I started to get really honest!)
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