The workplace has been forever changed through the tumult of the last few years. Showing up to work, whether physically or digitally, is a different experience than it was five years ago, and with that come new challenges when it comes to managing stress and our emotional health.
We asked emotional health guru, Danielle LaPorte to share some thoughts on those challenges, and she shared back the below exercises from her Heart Centered Leadership curriculum. As the best-selling author of books like her new How To Be Loving…As Your Heart Is Breaking Open And The World Is Waking Up, Danielle has a knack for demystifying the navigation of hyper-personal issues and how they interplay with our socioeconomic selves.
An Exercise: Navigating Emotions In the Workplace
I’m going to give you an exercise that we do around reframing our judgements and attachments to our feelings — both the positive and the negative. Here goes:
It doesn’t matter if you’re a nervous newbie leader, or if you’re a seasoned exec, none of us want our own overwhelm spilling onto the people we’re serving.
Our culture imposes value judgments on our emotions: endurance and bravery are favored, while “negative” states like fear and doubtfulness can be stigmatized. But, if we’re going to be well and steady at work and in life, we actually don’t want to push away or cling to any emotion or state. Respect all of your emotions—and this will help you respect and hold space for what others are going through.
We want to witness and integrate our emotions. Push them away for the sake of “professionalism”? No. Embrace them like the human that you are and rock on with your creativity? Yes!
In our Heart Centered Leadership curriculum, our coaches ask leaders and their teams to write a love letter to contrasting emotions. The intention is to help neutralize your judgment around emotions — both the positive and negative ones. It goes like so:
01 | Write a love letter to 4 key emotional states that surface at work:
+ Leadership
+ Overwhelm
+ Helplessness
+ Courage
You might say: Thank you for… I appreciate you because… You’ve shown me… You’ve expanded me by… You bring the gift of…
02 | Ask yourself three questions:
+ How would your Higher Self speak supportively to all parts of you? (That’s the loving approach you want to take with addressing all of these feeling states.)
+ How have these feelings/states moved your life forward and expanded you in your creativity and career?
+ How do those gifts make you a better leader or guide for others?
When we criticize our inner experience, we get stuck in it. When we accept it, we expand. When you’re open and expanded, you’re a better leader.
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