Can Self-Compassion Help You Stay Sane at Work?

Work sucks, I know.

Believe me, I know. I left a successful-on-paper career partly because of the near-total lack of well-being I experienced over the years. And I know that you know, too. According to the American Psychological Association’s 2021 Work and Wellbeing survey, those surveyed who strongly agreed they “typically [felt] tense or stressed out during the work day” were more than three times as likely to report wanting to find another job. Add in factors of race, disability, and or queer identity, and respondents were much more likely to report wanting to leave the workplace.

Tl;dr, the kids aren’t alright.

The Long-Term Effects of Chronic Work Stress

This is no joke. We’ve all had a shit boss, right? But did you know that long-term exposure to said shit boss can damage your brain? Recent research published in the Journal of Psychiatric Neuroscience and Therapeutics shows how stress can damage areas of the brain. I’m going to drop this full quote from Forbes, because it’s just so juicy. “Chronic job stress such as an abusive boss, sexual harassment, a bully coworker or a work culture that thrives on crisis, chaos and pressure are examples of work stress that can cause atrophy of the brain mass and decrease in brain weight. Prolonged cortisol levels that accompany chronic stress damage the brain’s hippocampus, creating loss of long-term memory and harm the brain’s prefrontal cortex necessary for focused attention and executive functioning. Other changes include increases in anxiety, mood disorders and decreases in cognitive flexibility.” Another recent study shows early links between chronic stress and neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s and detention. Yikes.

UMass Lowell’s excellent resource on job stress points to still more long-term effects of chronic work stress, including cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, weakened immune response, high cortisol, depression, anxiety, and more.

The point of this paragraph isn’t to scare you. The point is that a shit boss is more than just a shit boss. A work culture that thrives on chaos and pressure is more than just a shit work culture. It is your literal health and longevity.

“A work culture that thrives on chaos and pressure is more than just a shit work culture. It is your literal health and longevity.”

A Dollar is What I Need

Even with all this work stress, we all still have very real responsibilities that require very real material resources. Housing costs, student loans, child care. And have you been outside recently? Outside is expensive.

And then there are the golden handcuffs— the salary or benefits that a job provides being high enough to put up with toxic work cultures and bullies.

All this to say— I get it. There are myriad reasons why not everyone can just up and quit their toxic job. Perhaps that’s a long-term goal of yours. Maybe you even dream of starting your own business or figuring out which career path will actually feed your soul. (If so, that’s what feeds my soul and I’d love to be your coach!)

So if you’re not able to change jobs right now, or you’re putting steps in place to do so— what can you do to keep yourself sane, safe, and healthy in an insane, unhealthy environment?

Self-Compassion and the Workplace

I once gave a short talk about self-compassion in the workplace in the workplace, and it got very mixed reactions. A lot of folks found comfort and benefit to the approach. Some folks were critical of the spade being called. #yolo

The mindful self-compassion (MSC) program created by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer is a powerful approach that can work wonders to counterbalance the effects of chronic work stress. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to reduce blood cortisol, and as we explored above: constant high cortisol does a number on your brain. A randomized, controlled study on MSC showed that the practice “significantly increased self-compassion, compassion for others, mindfulness, and life satisfaction, as well as decreased depression, anxiety and stress.” (PDF download here)

MSC isn’t specifically geared toward work. But I’m making a case for using this practice as a tool to help support you through difficult work situations. It r e a l l y helped me ;)

What is Mindful Self-Compassion?

It’s a practice that combines mindfulness and self-compassion. Mindfulness aspects call us to practice focusing our attention on what is in the present moment without judgment. Self-compassion calls us to harness shared humanity to direct understanding and kindness toward ourselves. Many of my clients hear “self-compassion” and think it means talking to yourself in a baby voice. And, I suppose that could be true for some. (My compassionate inner voice is maternal yet hella sassy.)

When I say shared humanity, I’m talking about the essence of why it’s easier for us to be kind to others than it is to be kind to ourselves. We learn how to be kind to others. In most of our upbringings, someone hammers home the ideas of “treat others how you want to be treated,” sharing, inviting everyone, inclusion, kindness, etc. When our kindness is authentic, it arises from the awareness that another human being is suffering. But, spoiler alert: you are also a human being :) When someone is late to meet you because their dog just died, you usually feel understanding and empathy. When you’re late—for any reason— your reaction may not yet be understanding and empathy. With practice, it can be.

Self-Compassion in an Insane World:

I started my own MSC journey after someone I cared about let me in on their inner dialogue. It was the meanest I’d ever heard someone talk to themselves. (May they be well). That got me curious about how kind I was to me, and I dove head-first into an 8-week MSC group program.

We can be unkind to ourselves in a million ways for a million reasons. We’re all on our own journeys. But the world is so insane and so inhumane right now. After COVID, the ways in which we work, our priorities, and our awareness of suffering are all changing.

When I was still plugged into the corporate matrix, I worked in many environments where chaos, urgency, always-on, and bad bosses were the norm. I’d get so swept away by the fear that these environments created. My hair fell out, I was medicated for insomnia, I had near-constant heartburn, and felt anxiety at work all the time. My body was telling me, nay, begging me to get myself out of that. But my first-100th reaction was not to offer myself kindness, understanding, or compassion. And, unfortunately, my reaction wasn’t to pay attention to the very real physical manifestations of living in constant stress and fear.

I didn’t embark on MSC because of a toxic work environment. But my ability to bring mindfulness to the impact my environment was having on my body and mind grew exponentially after that program. And my ability to offer myself understanding for not feeling healthy in my environment— despite how successful my LinkedIn profile looked— changed the game for me.

I noticed an ability to assess non-judgmentally where I ended and where the workplace began. I became more aware of the patterns I witnessed and began to recognize my anxiety and fear responses to those patterns for what they were: sane reactions to an insane environment. I was better able to provide for and prioritize my needs (hello not skipping lunch!). I learned the skill of asking myself what I need and without judging the answer in any way.

Tl;Dr

Mindful self-compassion helped me stay sane at work until my life could follow a different path. Chronic work stress doesn’t just suck— it can cause long-term effects on your physical and emotional well-being. If that sounds like one of those risks you don’t take seriously and keep doing the thing anyway…scroll up. Your brain could literally be decreasing in mass.

If you want to learn more about MSC, here are some recommendations:

• Read Kristin Neff’s book Self-Compassion

• Check out this Instagram post on Four Self-Compassion Essentials

• If you’re curious about the 8-week MSC course I took, Sondra Gudmundson is the living embodiment of compassion and her courses are divine. You can contact her here. She’s generously offered a compassionate discount to anyone mentioning my name (ZERO benefit to me.)

• If you’re curious about 1:1 coaching that supports you to unplug from the corporate matrix and increase your well-being, book a free call with me here.

May you be well,

S