Is it me? Am I the drama?
At Nice Work, we talk a lot about how to deal with and overcome workplace relationships and patterns that are low-key (or blatantly) toxic or don’t feel great in one way or another. In our separate careers, we’ve both placed our own heavy doses of blame on others’ behavior for messing up our workflow, disempowering us, or creating a working environment we simply don’t enjoy being in. Blaming someone else is easy, but relationships of all kinds are a dance. We ALL have a role to play if something isn’t working. And if we’re gonna dish the how-to on dealing with others, we better be ready to confront the flip side of the coin. How and why do we (me and you, and you and you) contribute to and even provoke problematic dynamics?
It takes a lot of courage to live a life of accountability. In such a life, we have to admit when we’re wrong, when we’ve made a mistake, and acknowledge that we have the potential to wound people both intentionally and by accident (ouch). What makes owning our actions so hard?
The more we know, the more change must follow. Once we see it… we can’t unsee it. And then we have to do something about it. And taking action to repattern ourselves is really, REALLY hard work. Period.
We fear meeting ourselves fully, especially the shadowy parts because somewhere along the way we learned that having these parts strips us of being valuable human beings. It doesn’t. Promise.
Seeing yourself and your motives clearly, especially when they’re not exactly pure, isn’t meant to bring up pangs of “omg I’m a bad person.”
In fact, as our inner vision of ourselves meets reality, it opens up the capacity for grander and more complete self-love. You can love who you are but still want to change something. You can try your absolute hardest to do good by everyone and still cause pain. Being a member of the sticky situation club is a birthright, so it’s less about avoidance and more about self-awareness so that you know how to get unstuck.
