let silence be your superpower

confessions from therapy (pt. 3)

If there is one topic I hate to waste my breath and attention on, it’s work. I am not fueled by work or enamored by ladder climbing. I work for a paycheck that funds my life, that’s it.

I tried to find a home in work for many years, hiding in it when life around me felt too overwhelming and uncharted to throw my energy at. All I reaped in return was burnout and a forgotten identity.

I’m not naïve enough to overlook the influence that our work lives have, though. The toll it can take on the body. It’s ability to kick up old wounds in new ways. The ever-present politics of people.

So I came into therapy chewing on a truly ridiculous situation that had been playing out in my workplace over the last few weeks. One I loathed to spend my precious hour on, but one that I felt in my mounting anxiety would sit, unprocessed, until I let it go.

On a need-to-know level, I am a Director of Marketing for a small to mid-sized e-commerce company. This allows me to make decisions for new programs and features on our website. I set one such program in motion months ago, and as launch approached, those responsible for executing the vision missed the mark. It happens. I forgive. We move on.

A new launch date is set, and in the week leading up to it, somehow, chaos ensues. I am remote, and most of the company is not, so it sounded to me like office chatter snowballed to the point where people were going into other offices to belittle and degrade those who had been working on this project (a very inconsequential project, mind). My boss, the leader of the crusade, then abruptly canceled the program launch against my protest and offered no good explanation to those who had worked quite hard on it.

Then, subsequent meetings were held to talk about how my team and I had hurt her feelings because, in the process of killing the program, she felt like she was being a bully.

She was?

I am a big girl; I have no qualms or ill will about an executive business decision that does not impact my life in any way. I do, however, have a problem with how this played out on a human level.

Secret conversations, conspiring, unwillingness to listen, unnecessary personal attacking, and office cliques ganging up on the team members that make this company run.

“I hate work,” I stated matter-of-factly to Dr. K.

Not because of the work itself, but because of the hierarchy that allows for superiority complexes to run rampant. No empathy, no compassion, just “do this or else”.

I do not play nicely in these spaces. I am not afraid to be confrontational. I’m not aggressive about it, but I am highly aware and articulate, so I will point out the contradictions in your words or actions. But this does not always serve me well at work, and, logically, I know from years of childhood experiences trying to reason with the unreasonable adults to whom I was subordinate that it’s a waste of breath every time.

The old wound and the present injustice are activated regardless of logic, for try as I might, logic does not negate feeling.

The wise Dr. K reminds me that hate is personally inflicted poison. It does nothing but ensure I spend 40+ hours a week living in a state of hatred.

She asks me how I feel… defeated, useless, angry, frustrated, etc.

“How does that show up in your body?”

Tense, jittery, impulsive, heavy, empty. And usually, I am out of energy for work or anything else by Wednesday morning.

“Can you just kiss ass and cash your paycheck?”

No.

“Why do you think that is?”

Because I grew up the powerless victim of a narcissistic tyrant. I spent 22 years kissing her ass as a survival mechanism. Doing so now feels like defeat.

“That is a teenage part of you talking - can you hear her?”

…

“Think about it. You are an adult. You are employed at will. You are rewarded for this with a paycheck.

A job is just a job; it does not reflect more about your life than what you are willing to do for money, which is something we all need.”

I hear you. I know you are right. And something inside me can’t accept it.

“Right, because that teenage girl is unhealed and went unheard. Your boss is not listening when you speak, which makes her feel threatened. It makes sense.”

I am trying, I reassure her. Previous versions of me would have quit already. When this week of unnecessary drama unfolded, I was activated. My feelings and traumas were stirred, and my nervous system told me I was not safe here anymore.

Run it urged.

Hide it begged.

Fight it offered.

I managed to do none of the above, with difficulty.

We got on those meetings where, somehow, it was my fault my boss had been acting like a bully, and I didn’t react.

She wanted me to react.

By doing and saying nothing at all except listing our pragmatic next steps, sans emotion or opinion, I maintained control of my power.

“Your nervous system pulls you towards what is familiar, what it knows. That is not always the path to safety or success. Growth begins when you feel that pull and choose to go a different direction,” Dr. K responds.

Or if you choose to do nothing at all.

“Exactly.”

And it’s true. Silence is a superpower. The ability to know you are activated, know your body is pulling for fight or for flight, and to sit with it while doing nothing at all.

People lose control over you. Their persuasion and influence decline. But they have nothing but their own internal nervous system responses to your silence to contend with because you’ve offered them nothing to respond to, nothing to argue, nothing to blame.

If they hold your silence, your lack of reaction, against you, then the joke is kind of on them? It seems a little nuts to be mad at someone for doing nothing at all.

It is unsatisfying to the body and brain, of course. The carefully crafted rebuttal that was sure to knock your opponent on their ass has to sit inside of you, begging for an exit strategy. And you want to be heard. You want to be seen. Silence can feel like it accomplishes neither of these things.

But, and here I’ll argue with myself, I think it rather does accomplish both hearing and seeing yourself. Knowing that your peace is yours to keep and to honor. And in silence, you honor your right to remain at peace.

Instead of living in anguish and hate, live in your peace so determinately that the actions, words, and judgments of others find no purchase in your soul.

-June

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