Signs and symptoms of a toxic work environment
Sometimes we reach a point where we finally feel ready to let go of something that’s been a thorn in our side for too long. For me, it’s processing the deep stress arising from an extremely toxic work environment that I survived in for almost 4 years.
I’ve probably not wanted to address this huge thorn in my side due to the shame I felt. The shame that I could have let myself stay in that place for so long. The shame that I could have abandoned myself in such a state of deep fear and stress on an almost daily basis.
A powerful way to release that shame is kindness for your past self. I didn’t know any better, my self-confidence was on the floor, I didn’t have the awareness and understanding of myself and the world I live in. I was young and life happened that way to mould me into who I am today.
Taking responsibility for our environment
When we find ourselves in a toxic work environment, the key to getting out is to understand why we’re there in the first place. How did we create this situation for ourselves? We must not delude ourselves here; we mould our environments surrounding us and shape our reality through our thoughts, words and actions.
We have to take responsibility for where we are at this point in time. Wallowing in a state of victimhood, of ‘poor me’, feeling stuck, frustrated and resentful (a classic sign of over giving to others) gets you nowhere. You have to wrench yourself out of playing the victim and realise you landed yourself where you are.
When you wake up to this concept the view isn’t so pretty. It takes great strength to take responsibility.
Often, we want to avoid it, blaming others, blaming the world, blaming someone else. There is no blame, especially not of yourself, only a gentle awakening to how you came to be in this place. Once you realise this, you become free. If you created this toxic environment, you can create a better one for yourself.
They key is to knowing yourself, understanding what behaviours you’ve learnt as a child that can have drawn you to such a toxic situation. We are all products of our conditioning, by parents and society. Yet we cannot lay the blame at their door, we have to once again take responsibility for who we are and where we are in life. It is so powerful once you do that.
Not knowing our worth and wonder
There is a main offender at play when we find ourselves in a toxic work environment. And this is all linked to our self esteem. When we lack inner core strength, when we don’t know our value, our divinity, our true essence of love, potential and creativity, we suffer and attract situations where we suffer more.
The world has a chronic self esteem problem and until we address it we will keep attracting what we think we deserve, which is often nowhere near what we really do.
I’ve slowly realised that the longer I avoid dealing with this heavy burden that’s so deeply lodged with me, the more it intrusively worms its way into every facet of my life, especially when it comes to my working relationships.
We subconsciously repeat situations because it’s what we know and what we feel familiar with, even though it does us harm. It’s like driving on a road you hate, but you drive on it anyway as it’s how you know where you’re going. The small back roads aren’t familiar, or safe, so we don’t risk taking them.
Signs and symptoms a toxic work environment creates
You know when you have deep stress that is still carried by the nervous system. The clue is in the small events and details that cause you to spiral into anxiety and fear. For me, this trigger lies in an email or a text.
I remember in this intense and toxic work environment that a message or email could prompt bizarre emotional and physical reactions in me. Depending on the content I could feel dread unfurl in my stomach or absolute euphoria that I had done something good.
I was contactable at all times of the day; I couldn’t switch off and it shredded my nervous system into tatters.
It’s no surprise to me now that I limit communication with clients to the bare minimum, and until I go back to the root of this absolute fear and dread, I will never be able to move forwards.
Toxic work environments have very easy-to-read parameters. It’s obvious when you’re in one. You dread going into work. You have a deep fear of making mistakes. You have no boundaries and say yes when you want to say no. You never switch off. You almost thrive off the stress, feeling purposeful, whereas in reality you’re often being abused and you can’t yet admit it.
You give blood, sweat and tears to a company or person who would replace you tomorrow if they needed to. You feel trapped, stuck and frustrated, wanting to change or move forwards but not having the confidence and self belief to do so. You feel overwhelmed and stressed, most of the time, and very little alleviates it.
Everything else suffers, there’s no room for following your passions when all the life force is being slowly sucked out of you by the toxicity of your environment.
Toxic work environments breed illness and despair
A toxic work situation also breeds physical suffering.
When we’re run down and our self esteem is suffering and we are feeling beaten down by life, the immune system cannot thrive. The immune function in our bodies is utterly and completely dependent on the health of our psyche, in fact, there’s a whole field of study about it called psychoneuroimmunology.
At the height of this toxic situation my body just completely malfunctioned. My nervous function was shredded, all my nerves were raw and I felt completely depleted and miserable. My body on every level was desperately trying to alert me to the fact that something was deeply and fundamentally wrong.
There’s lots of advice out there about how to leave a toxic work environment but there’s only one you need to remember. Ready? They need you more than you need them. They need the wonder of you, the talent of you, more than you need anything they can possibly provide.
So how did I leave my toxic work situation?
I was training on my Kinesiology course and I began to wake up to my sense of greatness. That’s not an arrogant thing to say, we are all great, rather I began to understand my worth.
I also began to understand that not everyone is good or kind. There are many out there who purposely choose to manipulate and suck the energy out of others, they really do exist (energy vampires) and you need to be brutal and cut them off.
As soon as I decided to leave I felt a lightness unlike one I’ve ever known. Was life magic and easy afterwards? Not particularly. But did everything slowly and surely improve to the point where I have at long last learned to value myself? Absolutely.
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