{"id":31074,"date":"2016-04-07T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=31074"},"modified":"2017-08-31T09:56:31","modified_gmt":"2017-08-31T16:56:31","slug":"how-to-keep-your-emotions-in-check-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/how-to-keep-your-emotions-in-check-at-work-0407164","title":{"rendered":"How to Keep Your Emotions in Check at Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"Young<\/a>As adults, we don\u2019t typically have\u00a0tantrums. We don\u2019t throw ourselves on the floor crying and screaming. We can, however, act out when we don\u2019t have a space to honestly express our feelings.<\/p>\n

Many people enter therapy<\/a> with the intention of learning to control their stress<\/a>. This is often preceded by verbal warnings at work telling them their stress is too visible.<\/p>\n

Crying is a big one. Getting angry is another.<\/p>\n

Once, a person shared with me that his latest performance evaluation advised him to \u201cfind a better way to hide your stress.\u201d Not \u201cdecrease your stress.\u201d Not \u201cmaybe this job is too difficult and we\u2019re pushing you too hard.\u201d Not \u201cmaybe you\u2019re being treated poorly here.\u201d<\/p>\n

No, they wanted him to hide his stress better so as not to see it. They didn\u2019t want to deal with his emotions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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I can understand this, to some extent, from an employer\u2019s perspective. It\u2019s hard to work in an atmosphere where someone is crying all the time. Certainly, it\u2019s a challenge to focus on work if someone is screaming and pounding on their desk.<\/p>\n

But office or workplace culture often sends mixed, even hypocritical, messages. In many workplaces<\/a>, when a boss is stressed it\u2019s perfectly acceptable to berate a subordinate, even in front of other employees. Expressions of the boss\u2019 stress are allowed. Anyone else who gets upset or looks frazzled, though\u2014that\u2019s not okay. Giving back anger<\/a> to a boss who is giving it to you? That\u2019s a big no-no.<\/p>\n

Some people can take their stress out on others, but most can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

So what to do?<\/p>\n

Allow Yourself to Have Your Feelings<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s important to understand that where there\u2019s a crying jag or aggressive streak, there\u2019s usually a buildup of attempts to push those feelings away by squelching or stuffing them. When those feelings come rushing out, it often follows days, maybe weeks, of holding them in.<\/p>\n

When you fully express your feelings in the safe confines of your therapist\u2019s office, you don\u2019t have to do it in your boss\u2019 office. You learn to modulate, but not squelch.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can learn techniques to hide your feelings, but they\u2019re going to come out somewhere, sometime. They\u2019re going to pop out when you go home and are short with your kids,\u00a0snap at your partner, or yell at the barista for not giving you the correct change. Maybe you\u2019ll notice your body responds with muscle tension, headaches, or by getting sick.<\/p>\n

That can happen with unexpressed feelings.<\/p>\n

In session, a person will tell me the story of what\u2019s been happening at work. I\u2019ll hear about various incidents, but the feelings they inspire still might not be fully expressed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting phenomenon, people in therapy continuing to not express their feelings.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing, though: When you fully express your feelings in the safe confines of your therapist\u2019s office, you don\u2019t have to do it in your boss\u2019 office. You learn to modulate, but not squelch.<\/p>\n

Express Feelings Where It\u2019s Safe to Do So<\/h2>\n

Ever see the kid who\u2019s an angel at school but has big tantrums at home? Ever witnessed how exhausted, yet fully soothed, that child becomes because they were able to show their \u201cworst self\u201d to someone safe and trusted, who acknowledged and empathized<\/a> with their pain, who didn\u2019t punish them, who comforted them when they were done?<\/p>\n

It might seem paradoxical, but having tantrums at home can allow the child to have a higher frustration tolerance at school. The child knows they can express those feelings in a safe environment and, perhaps, explore the meanings behind the feelings with the parents.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re Not Too Emotional<\/h2>\n

The same concept applies with adults and therapy. Regardless of age, we all need to express our feelings somewhere, sometime, to keep them from coming out in destructive ways. Expressing strong feelings in therapy means you don\u2019t have to release them to such a large extent at work.<\/p>\n

Many people worry<\/a> that if they deeply feel their feelings, there\u2019ll be no turning back. If they turn on the tap, will they be able to turn it off? But like the child who feels safe having a tantrum at home and has no behavioral problems at school, we can learn to tolerate difficult feelings as they arise and express them fully in safe spaces.<\/p>\n

We learn that feelings come and go. We learn to hold our partners when they cry. We learn to sit with our buddies when they\u2019re depressed<\/a>. We\u2019re not too <\/em>emotional. We just spend too much time trying to hold in emotions instead of listening to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visible reactions to stress aren\u2019t welcome in many workplaces, but stuffing emotions isn\u2019t the answer. Expressing them in a safe space, such as therapy, is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2883,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[31,25,424],"class_list":["post-31074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-articles","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-workplace-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}