Transcribed from my video at www.youtube.com/askvictoria.

So often the atmosphere within the workplace can shift into a very difficult situation when people are projecting their unresolved family issues onto their coworkers or bosses. Are you parentifying your boss? Are you engaged in sibling rivalry at work? Are you contributing to the disharmony with your lack of verbal and emotional discipline? These are issues discussed in this video.

Today’s topic is creating workplace relationship harmony. Something I see commonly in my practice is people with relationship issues in their offices, and because we are human, we bring our humanity to the workplace. What you really have to watch about bringing to the workplace is your unresolved emotional issues. For example, are you making your boss your father or your mother—parentifying a boss is usually going to land you feeling like a child, and there’s an approval-seeking situation in which you’re not drawing proper boundaries, feeling abused, feeling victimized because you haven’t taught them how to treat you. What happens is you start living and breathing for the approval, and not having an equal, adult-to-adult relationship. You’re having a parent-to-child relationship, and that’s the fastest way to end up feeling resentful, boundary-less, and giving more than you have to give. Another thing is that there are sibling relationships, sibling competitions between coworkers. Are you making a coworker like your sibling? Are you feeling jealous, competitive in a way that is not healthy? Healthy competition, that’s important in sales forces, etc., but coworker to coworker. Feeling jealous that he’s getting more attention from the boss or some person at the office… feeling there’s nothing you can do… feeling unworthy. This is all stuff you’ve got to look at and become aware of. The inter-relational experience between you and a coworker, or you and your boss, is something you have to analyze and become aware of. What is you dynamic in that relationship? Is it unresolved family-of-origin stuff? Really look at that.

(2:00) Another thing to look at, if you’re a boss, are you treating your employees like children? Are you micromanaging them, atrophying their ability to make a decision for themselves? Do you project-manage in a way that is adult-like, independent? Are you robbing them of their empowerment feeling because you treat them like children? Check yourself—look at what you’re doing, because having harmony in the workplace is going to create a better bottom-line for everybody. What’s so important is to have impulse control. Are you simply throwing your emotions out there, and not disciplining yourself? The workplace is not the place to let your emotions run rampantly—it couldn’t be farther from the place to let your emotions to run rampantly! You’ve got to be disciplined. Verbal discipline is important in the workplace. You can’t just let it all hang out. If you’re looking for full-on authenticity, don’t go to the corporate world, because you’re probably not going to be able to be fully authentic. You’re going to have to have a lot of verbal and emotional discipline when you are in the workplace. That is what employers want, for you to be fully professional, in charge of your emotions, not projecting your family-of-origin issues onto your coworkers, not having a temper or outbursts. That is the fastest way to break the bridges of communication between coworkers and boss/employee as well.

(3:43) Usually in an altercation there is a trauma vortex, and a healing vortex. It looks kind of like a figure eight. At any given moment in an altercation you have an opportunity to decide. Right in the middle of that figure eight is a meeting place—it’s called a warble. That is the moment of the energy asking, “Am I going to go into the trauma side of that, or am I going to go into the healing side of that?” And what that depends on is your decision. If you have decided you want to stay in the healing vortex of an altercation, you will not be operating from aggressiveness, or projection stuff I was talking about earlier, and you’ll catch yourself parentifying or making them siblings. What contributes to the trauma vortex is jealousy and vindictiveness. What contributes to the healing vortex of any altercation is a very simple thing called acknowledgment. Everyone wants to be acknowledged. Everyone wants some form of empathy or compassion. “I can understand where you’re coming from. I can relate to where you are. I understand your experience.” These are sentences that make a person who’s listening feel a sense of acknowledgment. If you are looking to get out of the trauma, switch into acknowledging the person in front of you, and watch the situation transform right before your very eyes.

(5:30) I invite you to be very aware of what you are contributing to a situation. Are you feeling totally victimized, or are you victimizing someone else? Are you contributing to the healing vortex, or to the trauma vortex? Are you empowered? Are you making a choice not to project your stuff onto the situation? Are you acknowledging people? Are you micromanaging? Become aware of what you are doing, and become more emotionally and verbally disciplined when you are in a relationship in the workplace. Once again, work to create harmony in the workplace with your relationships. Have a wonderful day.

Victoria Lorient-Faibish MEd, CCC, RPP, RPE
Holistic Psychotherapist
Masters in Educational Psychology
Canadian Certified Counsellor
Registered Polarity Practitioner
Registered Polarity Educator
Reiki Master
New Decision Therapy