Staying healthy // toxic situation // job

Dear coaches,

I come from a place where I was fawning a lot within my jobs. To me, it’s a very toxic environment. So I decided to quit and handed in the notice a couple of weeks ago. My last day at work will be in the middle of February.
Because of being activated and surrounded by these people for so many years, my body evolved a disease, which came up in 2017 for the first time. I’m so grateful for this because my body showed me the way out of this. Right now, I am recovering from the last ‘attack’ of this disease, which means I am very quickly in sympathetic or withdrawal. For example, I usually love traveling, and because of my job, I travel a lot. Right now, even thinking of being on a train is frightening me. I’m getting really anxious the day before the trip, and being on the train is a nightmare. Not to speak of being in this toxic environment: We’ve been on a study trip, and after that, I collapsed entirely and lost the ability to speak for one day. I’m still recovering from that, and that was when I realized that I need to take care of myself a lot.
So my question is: I already have developed a healthy relationship with myself, which means that I’m not fawning anymore and that I’m speaking up. But it takes lots of effort and energy to do that, which I don’t have right now. Today I called in sick to protect myself because I know that being in that toxic environment would harm and weaken me. How can I ‘survive’ the following months until I can leave this place?
I’m afraid I could step backward and lose all the fantastic skills and techniques to keep up this new and wonderful relationship with myself. I am neurodivergent, which in my case means that I feel other people’s energies very strongly and a prone to adapt them very quickly (and fall back to prioritizing them over me).

 

 

Answer:

Do you really want your goal to be simply surviving? You can put anything in the result line. Your circumstances do not create that for you, you do. What is the best case scenario you can think of as you look forward to working in this job the next few months?

C: I have a job

T: what do you want to think about you?

F: what do you want to feel about yourself at work? Choose a one word emotion

A: how do you want to show up? what will you do or not do?

R: What do you want your result to be? Imagine yourself in March looking back, what would you say about how you handled this time?

You have the choice to walk away today, but you’ve chosen not to do that. Focus more on yourself and less on the environment.  I would also offer to you that continuing to believe “being in that toxic environment would harm and weaken me” is optional. Take things one day at a time and trust that you know exactly how to care for yourself and show up how you want to at work.  Bring your models and questions for more coaching any time.