Have you ever considered how your parent's expectations, their own particular career choices and work attitudes, or your home environment affect your work-related decisions?

Some people think that once they become adults, they are no longer influenced by childhood experiences, especially when it comes to work and career. But, that's far from reality in many cases.

Take for example, a man I'll call Dean, who, in an attempt to win approval from his father, chose the same career field, only to find out he was a miserable in it. Rather than choosing what would suit him and his interests and skills, Dean chose what he thought would please his father and ended up unhappy and confused. Because of the complex emotional issues influencing Dean's career choice, he was not aware of what was at the heart of his confusion and dissatisfaction around his work.

Jane is sometimes fearful and anxious at work and finds that certain work situations or particular types of people trigger her anxiety. When triggered, Jane becomes “paralyzed” in her thinking and is unable to make significant contributions to her work.

Jane's childhood environment was chaotic and sometime violent. At work, when she found herself in situations that in some way remind her of her childhood environment, she reverted back to behaviors and feelings she adopted at an early age to keep herself safe and out of harm's way. While these behaviors may have been effective when she was young, they now resulted in less than satisfactory performance reviews from her supervisor.

Sally grew up with her siblings and parents, all of whom contributed to the family owned business. The enterprise was all consuming, and kept everyone busy seven days a week. Sally learned at an early age that you “live to work” and that working hard and being productive was the way to be. When Sally graduated from college, she chose not to stay in the family business, but none-the-less, found it impossible to create any type of work/life balance. Her boss had to insist that she take earned vacation and Sally was often at a loss about how to spend her non-work time. She was stressed from over work, but she did not recognize the connection between her family or origin conditioning and her current behavior.

These are a few examples of how family and childhood can influence current work behaviors and choices. If you have noticed a pattern in your work that keeps you from achieving your goals and desires, and you are not clear as to why, you could be influenced by your past.

If this is the case, you may benefit from some help in sorting this out. Your employer's Employee Assistance Program might be a good place to start.
- - - - - - -

Upcoming events featuring or sponsored by Heart At Work

May 2,3,4 - Boomer Expo, Portland Sports Complex, Barbara will give a talk on Reinventing Yourself in the Second Half of Life.

May 8: HR Conventionn at the Samoset Resort in Rockport: Barbara and Amy Jaffe, will co-present a workshop: "Averting Quarterlife and Midlife Crises in Your Workplace: 5 Key Retention Strategies".

Fear is not always a warning that you should stop what you are doing or that there is real danger ahead. If fear is coupled with a feeling of positive anticipation (like butterflies in your stomach), it could signal a new experience that will challenge your limits and your trust. The combination of fear and exhilaration can be a sign that you should move forward and take the risk, rather than retreat.

If the experience you are considering is unfamiliar to you, it's likely to elicit fear, since most of us are afraid of the unknown. In the course of making your decision, consider: the risks, the potential benefits, and the alternatives. Notice your internal reaction as well as what your intellect tells you.

As we age, life tends to present more opportunities to stretch into other ways of discernment that are not entirely based on logic and cannot easily be settled by a list of the pros and cons.

The 17th century French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, affirms this idea in this quote: "The heart has its reason, of which reason knows nothing."

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jumpstart or Advance Your Career
Heart At Work Career Workshops
offered by Amy Jaffe, MA:
Effective Resumes
Job Search Strategy
Advanced Interviewing
Informational Interviewing

Weeknights and Saturday mornings-$30 each
261 Main Street - Yarmouth
Call Amy for details: 207-846-0644
or email: amy@heartatwork.biz

It is finally here: winter in Maine. While the season actually changed on December 21, the winter solstice, nature has belied this fact until today when we experienced our first storm of the season.

Whether you enjoy winter or merely put up with it, this season remains a predictable aspect of life in Maine. Understanding the significance of the season that holds both the demise of the old year and the emergence of the new as daylight increases, might give new meaning to your experience of freezing temperatures, snow covered terrain and icy footpaths.

At this time of year we tend to remain inside much more and we can become closed off to the outside world. During this insular time, we are all invited into the paradox of experiencing the darkness around us in order to find our inner light.

With the backdrop of the winter solstice, it is useful to consider our own lives at this time of passage from darkness to light. Here are some questions upon which you might reflect and journal to tap your inner knowing and align with the season's energy:

* What does the darkness of winter evoke in me?
* What is the conversation that awaits me in this period of darkness and quiet?
* Is there a belief or attitude that I might release, strengthen or alter in order to embrace this time as purposeful?
* Like the seeds deep within the winter ground, what lies dormant within me?
* As I begin to prepare for increasing daylight, what am I hopeful about in my life?
* What activities, experiences or people keep my hopes alive?

"Without darkness nothing comes to birth,
without light nothing flowers." – May Sarton

-•-•-•-•-•-

Where Barbara is presenting next:
•Women Supporting Women, a free event of the The Maine Women\'s Fund
February 6, The Woodlands Club, 7-9pm. Come hear about work and life balance and unleashing your investment Goddess!

•Maine Association of Personality Type
Using the MBTI in career counseling featuring Barbara Babkirk and Amy Jaffe
Free, Tuesday, February 27, 6:30-8:30pm, Falmouth Library

•Yarmouth Wellness Fair, sponsored by the Yarmouth Chamber of CommerceSaturday, March 3, 10-3pm, Yarmouth, HS

•Hardy Girls, Healthy Women Conference
Saturday, March 24, KVCC

Feeling down often accompanies unemployment, being in a job that is less than satisfying, or difficulty finding new work. Periods of mild depression are understandable and normal responses to those difficult situations.

I want to make a distinction between clinical depression that lasts more than a few weeks and is accompanied by a sense of overall hopelessness and the experience of feeling down that can be linked to a difficult life event. The first example requires professional attention from a doctor or therapist in order to assess the severity and recognize options for improvement. Options for the latter are addressed in this blog.

Even though it's natural to be in a periodic slump during stressful or frustrating work-related experiences, it does not mean you have to stay there. But finding ways to lift your spirits that do not put at risk other aspects of your life like your emotional, physical or financial wellbeing can be challenging.

The research of Anne Wilson Schaef and many others shows that Americans are caught in addictive behaviors that keep them in patterns of self-destruction and depression. Whether the pattern is eating too much, compulsive shopping, overworking or substance abuse, these behaviors momentarily shift a mood, but typically make matters worse in the long run.

I'd like to suggest two very simple, yet proven strategies to lift your spirits. The best part is that neither of these ideas necessarily costs money or very much time.

The first strategy is to surround yourself with beauty. The options are limitless and depend on your interests and taste. From a flower garden or park to a walk on the beach, the natural world provides free and endless possibilities to be in beauty. Author and theologian Thomas Moore who wrote the best seller, Care of the Soul has recently written a book titled "Beauty" that speaks to the soul's need for beauty and all the ways it impacts us. Moore states that being intentional about creating and finding beauty in our lives is more than "something nice to do". Rather, Moore notes that beauty is healing and a necessary aspect of living a full life.

The second strategy is to be in a place of gratitude. There is compelling research that shows an actual positive physiological shift in the functions of the heart, blood pressure and brain when there is a shift in one's thinking from a negative focus to thoughts of gratitude. This strategy only takes minutes by simply making a mental note of those people and life circumstances for which you are grateful. Or you could decide to invest more time and attention on a daily basis by writing in a "gratitude journal".

You might experiment with either or both of these strategies for a week and see what the impact is. At the very least, you might discover a new place to visit or feel calmer for a time.

The beauty of Provence Flowers

Being satisfied and happy in your work is not always easy to achieve. That result is realized from a number of factors that come together in your favor. What you do for work and how you experience it are shaped by multiple influences, not the least of which is the influence of family.

You might not think that your parents’ early expectations of you, their own particular career choices and work patterns, or the family environment they created while you were growing up would affect your work-related decisions as an adult. But, in many cases, any of those factors could have a lasting and significant effect on what you perceive as your career options as well as on your work behaviors.

Take for example the case of a man who, in an attempt to win approval from his emotionally unavailable father, pursued the same career field as his dad, only to find out it was not a good choice for him. If he stayed with the career, he might find that even 30 years later it is difficult to contemplate a different career path, particularly if he had not resolved unfinished issues with his father.

The difficulty in that scenario is not just that the person feels stuck in a career for which he is not suited; he probably doesn’t even know why he’s stuck. His rational and logical mind may not understand that his lack of action stems from subtler, emotional issues that are at the root of his dismay.

Some people are fearful or anxious in certain situations or with particular types of people. In the workplace, they may become “paralyzed” in their thinking and not able to make significant contributions to their work. One of the reasons for this pattern may be a childhood environment that was violent, chaotic or shaming. When people or conditions remind adults of their difficult childhood environments, they may revert back to behaviors and feelings they learned as adaptations to stressful childhood situations.

While our culture seems to encourage busy-ness and productivity, work behaviors influenced by one’s childhood experiences can also contribute to a learned pattern of overworking. Children look to parents as models of how to be in the world. When one or both parents demonstrate an all or nothing attitude or behavior towards work, children take in a message that you “live to work” or that it’s impossible to satisfactorily integrate work into life. With either message, the legacy passed on can shape a life in adulthood that lacks wholeness with a satisfying career path.

If you resonate with any of these examples, or if you have noticed a pattern in your work history that keeps you from achieving your goals and desires, consider the influences. The purpose of this exercise is not to blame anyone for your experience, but rather to put today’s reality into a perspective that includes the past. Perhaps in so doing, you will bring into clearer focus the pattern and ways to begin to shift it.

Awareness is the first step to change.

In case you’re wondering, this blog is not about “take your child to work day”. Rather, it’s about the fact that many people assume the same role at work as they did in their families of origin and that can cause a lot of problems.

Take for example, the case of David (not the real name, but an actual client of mine). As the oldest in his family, he was a “take charge” individual, very responsible, and a high achiever. One could say his characteristics were typical of his family birth order.

At 48, David was a manager in a medium-sized firm and came to see me to sort out whether he should change jobs, his employer or both. After a couple of sessions, it became clear why David was so frustrated and had reached a limit around his work. Even though there were interesting projects and possibilities associated with his job, David was not able to pursue them because he was always stepping in for his subordinates when they did not follow through on tasks. Consistent with his childhood role of being overly responsible, David often assumed more than his share of the workload. After many years, this behavior was taking a toll on his attitude and energy. While his role as rescuer was familiar and even expected by his subordinates, it was no longer working for him.

There was another factor that made it difficult for David to simply change his management style and set appropriate limits to hold people accountable. Growing up, David’s family life was stressful because of his father’s erratic, violent outbursts. Being very responsible gave him a sense of being in control and sometimes kept the lid on his father’s anger. In his family, David’s behavior was a way of surviving in a difficult environment. In the workplace, it was misplaced and not necessary. Dr. Janet Woititz, author of "Home Away From Home, The Art of Self-Sabotage", writes about the phenomenon of adults from “families that have difficulty functioning and communicating in emotionally healthy ways” and the difficulties they face when they transfer their histories to the workplace.

It is said, “awareness is the first step to change”. As David began to understand the intricacies of his work dilemma, he was able to sort out which issues related to the job, and which ones were based in old family dynamics. From a clearer perspective, he could more accurately see his options and make appropriate work-related decisions.