When setting work agreements, the important thing is for you to realise that everyone has emotions, with various intensities.
For instance, regarding the emotion of fear, if we don't feel fear, we won't be able to feel other emotions like fearlessness, resourcefulness, boldness, courage, and bravery. So, fear is also there for you to know and appreciate other emotions and other feelings.
Sometimes, when we have these emotions, we tend to want to block them, as we don't want to look at them, to see them. The invitation here is to be a little bit more curious about your emotions and not to be afraid of them.
When we feel fear coming on, it's important for us to take a breather, a moment of silence. Locate it in your body so that you are not remote-controlled in your life. When you do this, you remove it from inside you, and the emotion is no longer you. You are not this emotion, it cannot define you, it cannot control you.
When your thoughts generate your emotions, ponder on their origin. Ask yourself:
What are these thoughts?
Where are they coming from?
Who taught me?
Where did I learn it?
Where did I learn these thoughts to associate with this situation?
This is really important as when you do that, you can also empower yourself to realise that maybe the person who taught you, (because usually, it's a person who's taught you these, this is what we do - we model, we have our role models, it can be a teacher, it can be your mom, your granddad), when you realise that this is that person's truth and not yours, you can create a new truth for yourself.
Say, "No, I'm not going to react like this in this situation, this is not my truth. And this emotion is not me, it is outside of me. And I can look at it, and I can observe it. And I can learn from it".
As an example, fear is something that we have been taught to run from. When it comes up, we've learnt to run and hide. But fear is everywhere. Fear is in adverts everywhere, fear is in TV series, in movies, in soccer games, it is in your work, your home, your family environment - fear is just about everywhere.
The goal now becomes to experience your emotion without attaching your identity to it. When you attach your identity to it, then it becomes harder to process the emotion.
When you believe that you are your emotion, the internal dialogue takes a judgemental turn.
Identity self-talk: "I am anxious."
No, you are not anxious. You are just going through a moment of anxiety.
Identity self-talk: "I am very fearful. I have no courage. I am not brave."
No, you are very brave. You have this in you. If you have fear, you have bravery. They're both there.
As you build your truth, with time and practice, you will learn how to process your emotions so that they won't control you when you experience them. The emotions you have are meant to protect you, to keep you safe, they teach you how to survive in the society we live in. So you can learn to be grateful for them while understanding their power and limitations.
That's why when setting work agreements, it's best that you understand the emotions you feel at work so that you can process them and communicate/set the agreements in a grounded, calm manner and not from a place of fear.
With care and dedication,
Nicole Quartin