I’m Not Crazy My Office Is | Learning To Decompress

Positive mental health, and higher productivity go hand in hand. We spend the bulk of our workday exposed to our office’s physical and emotional environment, whether that be a stay at home office or your company’s bricks and mortar, place of business. Our senses are bombarded with the energy of the space along with the emotional energy of our teammates. This can be a lot to digest without some clear coping mechanisms. Managing an increasingly stressful environment, especially in today’s COVID culture takes its toll on our emotional stores. We all have a limited reserve.

Learning when to step away and decompress is vital to the longevity of your personal and business life. You can’t necessarily control the personalities you encounter in the course of a day or the challenges that will present but you can control your reaction to those events. By the same token you can offer your staff the opportunity to outlets that will allow for decompression and problem resolution. Productivity will increase, positive energy will abound and the right answers will flow.

Mindfully managing one’s environment isn’t a skill learned overnight. Creating the space necessary to stop, breathe and focus on goals is a skill set that is practiced. Sadly, we just aren’t taught this health saving technique from a young age. They say our greatest strength is our greatest weakness. For a type A this couldn’t be more true.

In 2014 with no warning I hit a health crisis. It stopped me in my tracks. Nevertheless, I valiantly ran my office from a hospital bed and failed to mention to anybody that something was critically wrong. The nurses would pat my bed down before various surgeries and discover my hidden cell phone and ipad. My surgeon would roll his eyes as I begged for 5 more minutes to finish a call. A woman who previously could barely catch a cold was now laid out and forced to stare at the ceiling and reflect for nearly a year.

My surgeon was sensitive but slightly exacerbated with me. He was being forced to repeat a surgery solely due to the fact that I mobilized too early and had undone his good work. He sat me down for a private meeting. It’s the best advice I have ever received and it shaped the years to follow. He told me I had only to look in the mirror to see what had caused my immune system to deplete to the point that an abscess burst and took its toxic course. He pointed at me and firmly stated ‘you and only you can be kind to your body. You can thank it for taking you this far despite your apparent constant abuse to its vital systems. If you don’t change I will see you here again but next time we will be forced to put you on a colostomy bag’.

He got my attention! I made a list of changes I knew I had to implement and after exiting the hospital I preceded to one by one eliminate the stressors and shed my outer skin. I knew I had to make a life transformation. Whether it’s guiding you or your staff through mindful self-care practices or just helping rewire the neuropathways that are blocking the path to successful decision making, I am here to describe exactly how it’s possible.