How to care for your mental health in the workplace

My boss looks at me. He says in a straight face,

John, let’s face it, you’re not very well-liked by most in the team.

Inside me, I feel something break. I was thankful it was over Zoom. The mute button helped to disguise the sound of my heart breaking into a million pieces. The workplace can be a painful place. In Das Capital, Karl Marx writes,

When he was seven years old I used to carry him to work on my back to and fro through the snow, and he used to work 16 hours a day.... I have often knelt down to feed him, as he stood by the machine, for he could not leave it or stop.” Fed meals as he worked, as a steam engine is fed coal and water, this child was “an instrument of labor.”

Do you feel like an instrument of labour? Work can be deeply visceral. You find yourself devolved from your own self, as you do the work. You’re called Human Resources, aren’t you? You feel like a resource, rather than a human with real emotions. Caring for your mental health in the workplace is important. Right, you knew that already. But the question is … how? Before we go to the ‘how’, we need to look at the principles of mental health in the workplace.

You’re 100% responsible for yourself.

You’re not in school anymore. You can’t expect your teacher to come up to you and ask,

Hey, what’s the matter?

As much as we want our colleagues and bosses to show that care to us, it might not always happen. You have to be 100% responsible for yourself. Being 100% responsible for yourself is about saying,

No one can take care of myself but me.

You’re responsible to others, but you’re responsible for yourself. It’s tempting to expect someone else to treat you nicely, but be unable to do that for yourself. Or you might even treat everyone very nicely, but fail to treat yourself with the same tender, loving care. Why? Because you don’t see yourself as worthy of that love. Being 100% responsible for yourself is about telling yourself - I’m worthy of love, every bit of myself. In the last meeting with my therapist, I remember her telling me,

John, I believe that you’re a great guy. Really… from deep down within. The question is: Do you believe that?

This was after 32 sessions with her over a year, where she saw the ugliest parts of me. Do you believe in your own greatness? Are you responsible for your own greatness? Amazingly, I finally got to take ownership over my own potential when I finally left to start a content agency, designing annual reports, publishing books and selling graphic recorder services. The smell of paper was something I loved. And yes, even though it didn't earn as much as the finance or tech sectors, it was money that did not have to come at the cost of my own life. I had finally taken responsibility, and all of that came to a crescendo when I even won an award for our work. It was definitely not something worth laughing about.

It was something real.

Have boundaries.

In today’s world, it’s about recognising that the boundaries between work and home have blurred. How do you build better boundaries? By being aware of them. Look at boundaries as fences with gates in them, rather than as large and impermeable walls. You see, we often look at boundaries as tall, unmoving walls. We think that they are immovable. Boundaries are about what’s okay, and what’s not okay for you. It’s about saying,

This is okay, and this isn’t okay.

Go ahead and put it down on your list. What’s okay and not okay for you? When I was working under a different boss, she messaged me once on a Saturday afternoon. When I didn’t reply, she followed up with an email an hour later. You might think,

John, it’s mean of you not to reply!

But when I said ‘yes’ to her, I was ultimately saying ‘no’ to myself. I was saying ‘no’ to my own needs for space, outside of work. Saying no to others is about saying yes to yourself.

Emotions are neutral.

It’s how you respond that gives it power. If I slapped you today, it’s a slap. Isn’t it? It’s how you choose to receive it, and respond to it, that gives it power. It takes two hands to fight. And two hands to reconcile. If you’re not able to build that space between emotions and your response, you will never be successful. A few months ago, I had forgotten to pass a form. I received an email from my manager, copying everyone else within the message. She wrote,

I want to place it on the record that John… has done this for the second time.

Okay. Yes, it was publicly humiliating. But it was how I responded next that put me in hot soup. I went up to her, and held the form up in my hand. I was disrespectful. Caring for your mental health at work is about choosing to respond in love. To respond as you would like to be responded to. This much is certain. You are going to have difficulties at work. But it’s how you choose to respond that will bring you joy, or greater pain. When something happens, you can choose to stew in your anger, frustration and pain. Or you can choose to transform it to a useful lesson. Which will you choose? Some questions that might help you to check in with yourself:

• What am I feeling?
• Why is this affecting me so much?
• Does this remind me of instances in my past?
• How might learning from this allow me to grow?

We are built for relationship.

I admit. I’m not the most relational person. You see, when I first joined my company, I would spend lunch times on my own. I would meditate in the room, and then eat lunch alone. One day, I found myself struggling to understand why I did work all alone. There were great colleagues around me. People who were nice, relational, and extremely kind. Then one day, I discovered that my colleagues went out together after work! I thought to myself,

Aren’t you already seeing each other enough during work? Why would you do more of that after work?

Then I realised,

Work is about relationship. Work is not transactional, but relational.

You and I are built for relationship. Depending on your colleagues for help, sharing with them, having ‘work-friends’ is all necessary for you to grow.

Conclusion

A client once told me,

You grow through what you go through.

Yes, work is difficult. Taking care of your mental health during work can sometimes seem like the hardest thing. Especially when things come fast and furious. But sometimes, it’s also sitting through the pain of your emotions and asking yourself:

• What am I feeling?
• Why am I feeling like this?

It’s not running away from your mental health. But it’s realising that your mental state, reveals important things about meaning. That life is not just ‘GO GO GO!’, but it’s also pausing, checking in, and understanding yourself.

By-line

John is a registered social worker who’s passionate about helping young people to live with purpose, passion and joy in their early careers. He writes about how they can excel at work at liveyoungandwell.com.