Personal Check In: I've been up this morning with the full moon, so you're getting all that "middle of the night insight" goodness. Hah!
Today's vlog is about mama wisdom. Mama wisdom is my way of connecting the dots between the skills required for caregiving and the skills required for leadership.
A key skill for mamas is doing our work to regulate our nervous systems so we can co-regulate our children's nervous systems. If that sentence didn't make sense, go down a Dr. Becky rabbit hole. ;) When our children are upset in our presence, it means they felt safe enough with us to release uncomfortable feelings and rely on us for co-regulation support. All children need this, and many (if not most) don't get it. Including us when we were kids, because...well, look at societal support for parents.
We then show up in social impact organizations and purpose-driven businesses with a LOT of unprocessed inner work. Sometimes, feeling very safe with a co-worker (or especially a supervisor) can open these pathways of unprocessed work. We (or they) may be seeking co-regulation support, even if we're not aware of it. Once we become adults, it's no longer another's job to regulate us - we must regulate ourselves, what the respectful parenting world calls "reparenting". If you're experiencing an upset with a colleague that feels out of proportion to the issue at hand, it could be these reparenting dynamics.
It's not our job as co-workers to walk our colleagues through reparenting pathways.
We can have grace. "I'm seeing that you felt safe enough with me for this work to surface."
We can have boundaries. "I'm not willing for our relationship to be a place for this type of processing".
More details in the vlog, and I would love to hear how you've navigated these types of situations.