Dealing with Heartbreak at Work: 5 Ways

You may have recoiled reading that headline.?

Long ago, someone decided that work ought not to include feelings. They made it the de facto truth.?

That was never the truth, but someone decided that should be true.?

That person, really a group of people with power over, made that decision because they wanted to avoid and absolve themselves of the emotions they were having about people at work – likely guilt, shame, or regret for treating people inhumanely.?

I entered the workforce at a time when that was still the prevailing thought. And it only got stronger as I rose in the ranks and moved into what they called, “management,” and what I call “leadership.” Moving up meant becoming more removed from your feelings about things.?

I tried to play that game.

I tried to believe that I could remove my feelings from my work, from what I did.

Sometimes I was good at it, but not really.

It took about 10 years in the workforce to realize that was a fool’s errand.?

We get our hearts broken at work.?

We do.

Let me be clear: if you care about what you do, like me, and if you put your whole self into what you do, like me, you will get your heart broken.?

Heartbreak doesn’t mean someone did something wrong, or that someone was at fault. It can mean that, but it doesn’t have to.?

Heartbreak at work can look like:

• Someone else got the role you wanted and felt you deserved
• You were demoted or had to take a cut in pay
• Someone you love working with left
• There was dishonesty in a work relationship that wounded you or betrayed you
• You were fired or laid off when you weren’t expecting it – or you were
• You had to fire or lay someone off
• You didn’t perform the way you wanted to and it hurt the company or someone else at work

These are all examples of heartbreak at work that I’ve experienced myself, and just a few of the ways we experience heartbreak at work.

For a highly emotional person like me, these are heartbreaking experiences -- some more significant and longer lasting, some less.?

They bruise me. They turn me inward. They make me cry. They cause me to question and evaluate myself, and my work.

There was this old correlation that having these feelings meant you were bad at what you do.

That’s bullshit.

It means you are human. And, it may mean you are excellent at what you do.

Heartbreak, as Merriam-Webster defines it, is “crushing grief, anguish or distress.”

Work, business, entrepreneurship will cause you distress, and sometimes anguish. And it will certainly spur a solid amount of grief.?

We don’t talk about grief as much as we should in our culture. Grief, and loss, are a huge part of life.?

Years ago, I was speaking to a book agent, pitching an idea for a book about grief. I had just lost my mother and had been writing about the experience of sorting through my grief.?

“The problem is, nobody really wants to read a book about grief,” she told me as my balloon of hope deflated.?

To date, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom has sold 20 million copies and has been translated into 45 languages. The books of Elisabeth Kubler Ross, the researcher who created the first stages of grief framework, have sold more than 10 million copies – and are still selling, years after her death.?So maybe we do want to read about grief, but it's scary. (Also, maybe booksellers are challenged by selling books about grief.)

There’s a lot in popular culture about how to get through a personal break-up and how to deal with restarting your life in the face of a divorce or separation, but surprisingly little conversation around how to work through heartbreak in and with our work.?

So I offer this first: You are not crazy for feeling heartbroken about what happened at work.?

Give yourself the gift of accepting that sometimes work can break your heart.?

Breathe.?

Let it be.?

And five other permissions from me:?

1. I give you permission to feel this heartbreak fully and still be as professional and amazing as you are.?
2. I give you permission to acknowledge the heartbreak and recognize that this is part of the work journey because you are a human with feelings.?
3. I give you permission to love on yourself in the face of this heartbreak. That can mean time away from work. That can mean not pushing yourself so hard at work. That can mean processing tears or bitterness or anger or disappointment or rage or sadness. That can mean seeking out a therapist or counselor to help you process the grief you feel.?
4. I give you permission to consider how this heartbreak has changed you, what you have learned and to carefully ponder how you want to move forward.?
5. I give you permission to deal with this heartbreak at your own pace.?

I wish the potential of heartbreak at work was acknowledged on everyone’s first day of work. I wish we were given these permissions and other tools for how to confront heartbreaking situations like this.?

I want to believe that as a society, and as business leaders, we are turning away from the falseness of old that mandated we deny feelings – instead of dealing with them in healthy ways, in intentional moments, and in good faith. And leaving room for that to happen.?

Maybe our culture is making progress.?

Regardless, you can make progress.

Begin by simply owning and sharing that heartbreak is part of life AND work.?

Emily Soccorsy is owner and lead brand strategist of?Root + River, a brand strategy team that believes brand is how others experience your soul. Root + River provides brand messaging, language, positioning and catapult content for brands, leaders and teams who want to change the world, their industry or their community with their brand. She's also a speaker, and an award-winning writer, who feels most alive when creating word alchemy or visual art. Emily is the co-author of?Rooting Up: Essays in Modern Branding?and is the author of the newsletter,?Thought Cookie.?Emily has been a lifelong empath, and a daughter, mother, partner, sister, mentor, creator and sometime baker and runner.

She is a board member of?Ellivate Alliance,?The W Source?, Rosie's House and a contributor and guest of the?EntreArchitect??community. She is a cohost of?Reclaiming Ourselves?podcast and a participant in?Love and Healing Work.