Cool your jets – it’s becoming tense out there

Small niggles and tensions between colleagues are now becoming more obvious as we settle into home working and life ‘loving the video’.

For our mental wellbeing we really need to help each other call out when we see overt unkind behaviours to each other. Sighs, rolling eyes, short answers – it’s all there for us all to see.

According to Monica Worline, a research scientist at Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. “When we’re under severe stress, we go back to coping patterns that are familiar and very hardened in us, and we have a hard time seeing that there’s any other way to do what we’re doing. We think we’re right and others are wrong,” she explains. This isn’t good for your interactions with your colleagues. “We unwittingly break our relationships with colleagues, causing more suffering.”

So try and:

– Accept that your colleagues home lives are now relevant to you

– Acknowledge how you’re feeling

– Accept that we’re all coping differently