Change, even when it is perceived as positive, can cause deep anxiety. Change is a constant especially in the work context and our response to it can be the difference between keeping or losing our job.

Managing change at work

Spend a bit of time in the working world and you will eventually be exposed to the challenges of how fluid the workspace can be. Mergers and buyouts, changes in leadership, retrenchments, promotions. All of these can cause deep anxiety, even when the change is perceived as positive. Here’s a story of how one person used Shape of Emotion to accept some significant changes in his place of work.

First, though, let’s see just why Shape of Emotion (our model, process and tool for emotion regulation) was needed. Meet Joe. His company was going through a restructure. This was causing him a great deal of stress and he was battling to accept how the restructure would affect him. As a result his managers were getting exasperated with his resistance and they seriously considering retrenching him.

According to Joe there were a lot of things that were wrong and unfair. People around him were being deceitful. He was in full victim mode, blaming and complaining, threatening to fight the situation. He accepted that he was not in a good place emotionally. He acknowledged that he had also not been feeling well, had been making mistakes with his work, plus his sleeping habits were not great.

The turn-around was ​staggering

Enter Shape of Emotion. Joe got a brief explanation of how it to use it and then, as part of a coaching session, it was applied to the difficult feelings he was having. A few days later when reconnecting with him, the turn-around was ​staggering​.

Joe was feeling completely different. He reported that he had started feeling better about work and he’d been able to cope much better with the changing situation. Joe also realised that the way the others were behaving towards him was directly related to how they were dealing with the changes in the workplace. He even felt some empathy for what his managers had to put up with! He was focused on what he could control, and had even reconnected with a long-time friend that he had lost touch with.

This is a great example of how Shape of Emotion works. Once the difficult feelings were diffused and out of the way, Joe ​naturally and easily engaged​ from a more resourceful and connected place.

How are your difficult or negative emotions potentially compromising your work success?