Working Remotely Has Many Missing The Office Environment

Here in the UK it’s been just over a week since we’ve been mandated to be isolated. In other parts of the world, the isolation period may already be longer. And in other countries, it might not even be the time for you to be isolated but I just thought I’d share this so it helps you whether you are in this position right now or it is soon to come.

It’s really fascinating and interesting to see human nature at a time when they forced to change. We are all so resilient and it’s amazing to see how people have adapted to these strange in different times.

Observations Of Remote Work Culture

There has been a rising trend I have noted during this mandatory isolation period: people are missing their work experience. They’re missing their colleagues, their work family. But it goes deeper than merely missing the interaction of colleagues. People are missing who they are when they’re with other people. They’re missing a part of themselves that had developed and grown accustomed to that has now been taken away. And that loss has caused people to become anxious.

How To Decrease Feelings of Anxiety When Working Remotely

Here are some suggestions that can help:

1. Acceptance: Accept the current global reality and how that impacts the work experience.

2. Drop expectation: It’s hard enough working from home when you’re by yourself but if you have other family members and children he can feel almost impossible. Rather trying to maintain the same level of productivity as you do in the workplace, recognise the challenges you have within the home and only do what you can do. The person you were in the office cannot be the same person who is at home.

3. Be in the moment: We will never have a time like this in our lifetimes again. Embrace this time to do some of the things you have not given yourself permission to do before.

Going to barbers

So for me, it  was actually going to a barbers. Now, you know, I have short hair and only keep the sides short when I needed to get a trim. It was on a Monday, which is my non-working contract day. And I thought I need to go to the hairdresser to get the sides trimmed because I want to start doing some more videos. My regular hairdressers is a good hour away.

On this occasion though there’s a barber with some I think Eastern European guys run it at the bottom of my road where I leave. And I’m like,”I  should try them out. So first of all, I’m gonna go down there because it’s just down the road. It’s so much easier but supposing there are men in there?’ It’s barbers, more than likely, but it was Monday afternoon at 12 o’clock. So the odds were that there would have been fewer men around.

So unless you know you know how things can go you start to talk yourself out of something or I don’t want to go now let me wait to get to my hair dressers!!. What’s the worst that can happen? And that’s always my go to what’s the worst that can happen? You know, if they mess up the sides, it’ll grow back again in a couple of weeks time just got but you know what happens? You think about who’s going to be in there, what they’re going to think about you and we’re in a you know, a predominantly white area so they probably haven’t seen a black person going to their hairdressers to have their hair…., all of this kind of thinking.

And we’ve been there before we talk ourselves out some things I need to get my hair done. I’m going!!! I go into the hairdressers or the barbers. And there are two people in there already. Two men having their hair done. And the guys looked at me. Yes? ‘Can you just take my sides down?’, I ask And it was fine, absolutely fine. What was the most frightening part?

Is your self talk holding you back

My own self talk, trying to talk myself out of it? What if…. what might happen… then all of these things that never happened. In fact it was a positive experience, he had an opportunity to practice, you know, the texture of my hair, ask questions, it was great. So again, it’s just about trying something different. Even we do the smallest things that are different. We create new neural pathways, which means that we start to change and start to grow and have greater awareness and understanding of ourselves.

And also challenge ourselves about what is possible and what we can do. So yes, that’s my challenge for you. What have you done that’s been different this week?, coming out of your comfort zone, however small it is, whether it’s traveling in a different way to work, or because I do that with ways all the time, it takes different places, or just a different hairstyle. Anyway, I love you loads and I will speak with you soon.

I would love to hear what you do in order to love yourself and how that shows up for you. How it changes your life. Please leave a comment below.

Situation

I was working with a client a few weeks ago, and, and she was talking about how miserable she felt. She was focusing on her current situation; she was focusing on the fear of not only her current situation, but what could happen in the future. 

No nobody can truly know what will happen in the future however we all do this don’t we? we imagine a future with the worst case scenario and then believe it will come true. This is what my client was doing;

she was creating a scenario of what could happen in the future, 

based upon what had happened in the past. 

whilst  in the current moment. 

She was so fixated; she was so looking at the outside circumstances, things she had done or things she may do in the future which resulted in feelings of anxiety for a future she had not lived!! In that moment she hadn’t /couldn’t even recognise the ability, the capacity to be creative. In that moment she was creating new solutions for a problem that she created in the first instance. 

That is what makes us as humans truly amazing; the capacity to create situations in the future ,experience that situation and create solutions whilst sitting or standing still! Phenomenal! 

The metaphor

Let’s take a look at that metaphor of the clouds and the sun. It means that she was looking at her outside situation, she was looking at the story that she created. She was looking at outside circumstances, and believing that to be true. Just like the clouds, when we see a cloudy day, we can say: “Oh, it’s so miserable, I hate my situation, why couldn’t he/she be different. 

But behind the clouds, the sun is still shining, behind all of the negative self talk we have about a situation lies our capacity to create, our resilience, an unlimited capacity to create something new, something, never before seeing. 

When we stop time travelling and centre yourselves in the current moment, you are able to create solutions for a problem and in most instances the problem.

In the present moment

There is something new and fresh for you in the present moment, which enables you to continue to work through the situation to work through the perceived problem. And so is to recognise that even when the clouds are in the sky, even though it could be looking at our external circumstances, the sun is still shining, we still have our resiliency, we still have that innate quality to create new solutions.

When my client began to realise she was time travelling and began to centre herself in the moment, the feelings of anxiety dissipated.

Quote

‘The past is a ghost that cannot be held in the palm of your hand’.

‘The future cannot be grasped, No matter how desirable or enticing it may appear’.

Missing Link Sydney Banks p 97

Time travel will make you miserable. You create situations and scenarios which casts a cloud over the sun, your wonderful creative power in the current moment

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