The day we start treating workplaces as a place made out of human beings with all that it entails, we will start having healthier businesses.
As human beings, there are 2 needs that often move us. The need to belong and the need to be authentic. They’re not always easy to bring together, and they often bring us to inner conflicts.
Workplaces, being a place where we interact with other human beings, are usually a field of challenges to both these needs.
Some common coping mechanisms we use are to repress, deny or project any signs of them
We end up with a team of dissociated unemotional beings who lost their humanness in name of efficiency, success and professionalism.
As much as we would love to believe that we are all adults with enough inner resources, many of these mechanisms were learned early in life and shaped our beliefs and our behaviour in unconscious ways.
Many people work with the image of the inner child as this part of them which was hurt and needs to heal.
Can you bring your inner child to work?
“Extraordinary things begin to happen when we dare to bring all of who we are to work.”
FREDERIC LALOUX, REINVENTING ORGANIZATIONS
You may have tantrums and outbursts when your “child parts” are activated. And so may your colleagues!
And just like children, this will happen when your needs are not being met. When you’re overwhelmed and feeling under pressure for a long period you start losing the ability to regulate your nervous system.
It may result in burnout or sickness, and also in difficulties in communicating and relating in general, in being creative or in keeping a clear focus and attention.
Recognising which part of you is actually present and showing up through your somatic experience allows you to be more aware of your unconscious beliefs and make an effort to be present.
When you are present your ability to listen is heightened. You learn to listen to the subtle messages of your emotions and discern what is actually triggering your reactions,
This means also accepting that we are not always fully capable of holding it all and that we need care.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness”
VIKTOR FRANKL
An embodied team is emotional
An emotionless workspace doesn’t mean that there are no emotions, only that they are not felt or acknowledged, potentially leading to conflicts and misunderstandings.
Every emotion has a physiological experience. Often, all the body changes take place without ever reaching your conscious awareness. The body operates on its own intelligence and wisdom, guiding your behaviour as well as possible in order to fulfil your needs and goals.
With embodiment practices, you learn about yourself in a safe setting and not when you’re already fused with a triggered part just before a deadline or in the middle of a meeting.
Through somatic awareness, the connection between body and mind becomes clearer and you can invite some of your inner landscape into consciousness before your body has to “scream”.
If you still see the body simply as the vessel that carries your mind, you may be surprised how working with the body and through the body can affect your life.
When working through the body, you access your inner wisdom and learn how to relate to the world from a more authentic place. You are able to change responses by rewiring your automatic patterns
Being more aware of your needs and expectations, and being able to communicate them while owning responsibility, improves the quality of your relations, promotes trust and safety, and opens space for creativity and focus.
When every individual is more aligned in their bodies and minds, a social field is created where authenticity is valued and the sense of belonging doesn’t get questioned every step of the way.
moving with ana 