I imagine you’ve experienced something like this. Perhaps you’re at home, on the sofa, your partner next to you. Your body is there, but your mind is in the office, ruminating over that deadline or that stupid mistake you made. Perhaps your phone dings and you reach for it, anxiously checking. Perhaps there’s no reaching because it’s already in your hand. Perhaps there’s no ding because your inbox is already loaded up, constantly being refreshed.
If that sounds even vaguely familiar, you don’t need me to tell you that you have lost yourself to your work. I cannot tell you why, yet. But I do know that together, we can work it out.
Working is the easy part
One thing I often hear from clients is that, at work, in the eye of the storm, they can relax. Well, almost. They can see what’s happening, what’s going wrong, what they need to do next. If anyone needs anything, they are there, on hand.
You might relate to this. Work might offer a degree of relaxation (or perhaps more accurately, an absence of tension) because you are there in real time. The threats are visible. You can mop up whatever spills.
But away from work, you don’t have that control. Back at home, or out with your friends, the gnawing worry starts. What if they don’t like my proposal? What if my boss doesn’t sign that off? What if she interpreted what I said as demeaning or an insult? Outside of the office, these anxieties have nowhere to go; there is no way you can stress test them, check in with the affected parties. There is nothing for you to do.
And that might be stressful because I suspect you might be someone who enjoys doing. Perhaps you’ve built a career out of being productive and useful. Perhaps you value people at work liking you. Perhaps, at the other end, you are scared not so much of losing yourself, but of losing your job. Perhaps they are one and the same.
What you get from work
In the therapy room, we won’t be able to reduce your workload (although we can think about how you can ask to). We cannot change your boss or give you that promotion. But what we can do is understand what your experience of work is like, and how it serves you. We can explore the stress and the worry, of course. But we can also explore what you get from work. Perhaps you get a sense of self-esteem. Nothing wrong with that, I do too. But perhaps it’s not just work that gives you self-esteem, but praise or being the best? Or money? What is the itch that work needs to scratch? There is no judgement here. Work is a central pillar of our society and, certainly, your life. What value do you place in it?
How work feels
Therapy for burnout begins here. We think about the two states: what happens when you are clocked in and what happens when you are clocked off. How are they the same, and how are they different? Which do you prefer? There will be some element of this that requires us to get into the detail of the day-to-day. We’ll think, perhaps too much, about your boss. Maybe you like them, maybe you don’t. Perhaps that goes for your colleagues too, if you have any. Or perhaps you are self-employed and you have no one at work to impress but you cannot stop. Is that the fear of the quiet month, the un-ringing phone? Or is there something else? This is not for me to diagnose, but for us to unpack together. Because it might give us an insight into what is happening for you, and crucially, how it feels. Is this feeling panic, or perhaps fear?
We might also think about what these feelings remind you of. When did you last feel them? (Perhaps this morning.) When did you feel them the time before that? How far back does it go? I am wondering — again, you tell me — whether there was some trace of this feeling at school? Or home? What happened when you made a mistake when you were a kid?
We spend 40 hours a week at work. (I suspect you spend longer.) It is an enormous part of our lives and (often) our identities. Together you and I will explore how you relate to work, because in doing that, we will also explore how you relate to your life. That information is gold dust that you can take with you.
You spend more waking time at work than you do anywhere else. No wonder you can lose yourself in it. Really, it would be newsworthy if you didn’t. But it can also be the start of your rediscovery, reconnecting with who you really are.
If any of this sounds like you, the first step is a free 15-minute call — no obligation, just a chance to get a sense of me.