How You Can Heal At Work

By Chester Elton in an interview with Susan Schmitt Winchester + Martha Finney

While Adrian Gostick, Anthony Gostick and I were writing Anxiety at Work , we knew we were about to tap into an unmet craving for the conversation of mental health in the workplace. What we didn’t know was that two other workplace experts were developing their own book: Healing at Work: A Guide to Using Career Conflicts to Overcome Your Past and Build the Future You Deserve .

Susan Schmitt Winchester is the CHRO of a Fortune 200 company. Her co-author is Martha Finney , who has written 29 books on leadership. Together they teach readers how to use the workplace as a laboratory for emotional healing.

I sat down with Susan to explore the ways people from dysfunctional pasts (which they call Adult Survivors of a Damaged Past) can be grateful for their workplace experiences:

Chester: Let’s start by defining the acronym that readers see throughout your book: ASDP.

Susan: The CDC says ‘adverse childhood events’ can negatively impact an individual’s mental or physical health throughout life. These experiences may include violence at home, the death of a parent, physical, sexual or emotional abuse, etc. We had to create a term for those who grew up in such an environment ,and so we coined the term Adult Survivor of a Damaged Past (ASDP).?

The more adverse childhood experiences you have, the more likely you are to experience depression and suffer from lifestyle-related physical health problems. As many as 67% of Americans experienced at least one adverse childhood experience before age 18. Imagine your workplace. If there are 100 people there, 67 of them have brought with them harrowing memories from their childhood that are whispering in their ear while they are trying to focus on work.

Chester: Explain two expressions from your book that are intriguing: “Damaged is not doomed” and “the rest of your life is yours.”

Susan: Let’s take “Damaged is not doomed” first. ASDPs often bring into their careers limiting beliefs about themselves. Maybe their parents repeatedly told them they were bad or worthless. When we’re children, we need our parents for survival, so they can’t possibly be wrong.

The latest studies in positive psychology and neuroplasticity show that we can repair the damage of our past. It takes focus and intention, but we can rewire our brains and rebuild our internal experience of ourselves in the world to tell a different story of self-acceptance, joy, belonging, achievement, meaning, and especially gratitude. We can learn how to take on workplace challenges in ways that lead to growth, not suffering.

The concept “The rest of your life is yours” helps us understand that as adults, we can decide who we are, who we want to be, what healthy relationships look like, what our boundaries are. We don’t need permission or validation from anyone to tell us we’re good, bad, on the right path, valuable, welcome. We do that for ourselves now.

Martha and I are both ASDPs ourselves. Because of our work on Healing at Work, we are now operating in the world with much more relaxed, authentic confidence, and clarity as to what value we bring. This turns out to be a great energy-saving device, this relief of not carrying around so much heaviness, fear, self-doubt, anxiety, stress and worry.

Chester: Why did you chose the workplace as a venue for this healing conversation?

Susan: The workplace is where most of us live much of our waking hours. While the tendency of mental health experts is to look at the workplace as a place where emotional wounding continues, we look at it as a laboratory for emotional healing.

Assuming that the workplace is a relatively healthy culture (no workplace is perfect, of course), you can be feel assured that people actually want you there (of all the people who competed for the job, you got it). You’re working in teams where people want you to be successful. You’re accepted for what you can bring to the team. You’re working on projects that are meaningful and that you can celebrate at their completion. Whatever chaos there might be is likely to be temporary, rather than a sustained part of the company’s ecosystem (like it might have been in your family). You’re given learnable skills and training to equip you to perform better.

Best of all, you can use the positive experiences and successes from work to rewrite your neuropathways and build a life story based how you are flourishing in the company of colleagues who see you as someone to value and treat respectfully.

Chester: Talk about bumper cars. Why are they on your book cover?

Susan: Bumper Car Moments represents those times we have conflicts at work. What workplace environment isn’t without its interpersonal challenges from time to time? We ASDPs spend our lives avoiding conflicts. There’s an expression, “When elephants fight, it’s the ants that get squashed.” Growing up in a dysfunctional or abusive household, we were the ants. We bring into our adult lives the belief that we are powerless to cope with conflicts. That’s a very disempowering belief because we spend way too much time and energy looking out for the next shoe to drop, fighting when no fight is necessary, or fleeing – which can be a career-damaging impulse.

Instead, we can welcome Bumper Car Moments as opportunities to practice new skills. We can rise above our automatic negative emotional reactions; pick better, more empowered responses; and even celebrate the successful outcome of the Bumper Car Moment.

If we feel the tension rise toward conflict, we can say, “Whoa! Bumper Car Moment alert!” It releases tension with a little bit of humor, and suddenly we’re both on the same side again, looking at the issue from a new perspective of both wanting the same positive outcome.

Every Bumper Car Moment gives us the opportunity to tell ourselves and our central nervous system that we are capable of handling almost any workplace conflict with at least a foundation of stability and serenity.

What’s even better is that we get to bring all these skills, techniques and new ways of thinking home to our families. We can use what we learn to support future generations in building new lives of joyful self-acceptance.

And for that I’m the most grateful of all.

Love + Gratitude,

Can I ask for another minute of your time?

Adrian Gostick , my wonderful coauthor and I are thrilled to be nominated at Thinkers50 , the Oscars of Business, for the BREAKTHROUGH IDEA award with our work in anxiety and mental health in the workplace. Supporting our nomination will only take seconds..

Here's how you do it - with our gratitude

1. Click?here ?to fill in your name and email address
2. At?YOUR GLOBAL RANKING NOMINEE, type?Adrian?Gostick &?Chester?Elton
3. Scroll down to the Awards section
4. In the box labeled?BREAKTHROUGH IDEA AWARD, type?Adrian?Gostick &?Chester?Elton
5. Scroll down and click the button labeled?SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATIONS
6. THANK YOU!

If you are looking for a safe place to talk about anxiety at work and mental health, please join us at?We Thrive Together ?This is a free community that Adrian and I have started to help people who suffer from anxiety themselves or are managing people who are feeling anxious, burnout, and stress. We share ideas and show up for each other, and everyone is welcome.

I am excited to invite you to check out the latest episode of "Anxiety at Work " podcast. I always say you can't be in a state of anxiety and gratitude at the same time! Each week, my coauthor and dear friend,?Adrian Gostick ?and I talk to some of the world’s leading authorities on mental health and explore the causes of workplace stress and anxiety, along with practices that are proven to reduce tension and cultivate calm.

In this week's episode, we sat down with Brilliant Miller , Founder of the School for Good Living that offers transformational personal coaching and coach training programs to help achievers live with greater happiness, meaning and contribution. Also a writer, teacher, entrepreneur, philanthropist, coach, Brilliant opens his own podcast with the question, What's life about? This episode will not disappoint!

The Gratitude Journal?is your place to find tools to create an all-in culture, at work and at home. I am always?#grateful ?for handwritten thank you notes! They always arrive at the right time and I love how they always lift my spirits. When was the last time you wrote a thank you note to someone who has lifted you up? Why not right now? What are you grateful for today? #leadingwithgratitude ?#findyourgratitude

Chester Elton has spent two decades helping clients engage their employees to execute on strategy, vision, and values. His work is supported by research with more than 1 million working adults, revealing the proven secrets behind high-performance cultures and teams. He and his coauthor, Adrian Gostick are the founders of The Culture Works, a global coaching, speaking, and training company.

Leading with Gratitude & Anxiety at Work are available wherever you like to get your books. Visit?Leading with Gratitude Book ?for free resources including videos, podcast episodes, and more, to build a culture of gratitude.