Befriend Your Defence Mechanisms

It's time to stop pathologising our reactions to toxic cultures.

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Survival Tool#15: Befriend Your Defence Mechanisms

In our toxic workplace, we can easily fall into a vicious circle:

1. Something Painful Happens

For example:

• A superior speaks to us in a shaming tone.

• We’re excluded in some not-so-subtle way from an important call or meeting.

• Our integrity is called into question.

• Our attempts to maintain healthy boundaries are quashed.

2. Our Nervous System Reacts

For example:

• We feel shaky in meetings.

• We become tearful.

• We get angry and say things we regret.

• We become preoccupied and distant from colleagues and even our loved ones. (Survival Tool#9: Don’t Let Your Anger Come Out Sideways).

3. We Judge Ourselves

We think:

• “I shouldn’t be so fragile.”

• “I should be strong enough to handle this.”

• “Why am I letting them get to me so much?”

• “I just can’t seem to get a grip.”

This pattern is extremely common.

Our self-judgment compounds the impact of our toxic workplace.

If you notice this pain-reaction-judgement pattern at work within yourself, take a pause:

As our self-awareness grows, it’s all to easy to add yet another layer of self-judgment for experiencing such a pattern in the first place.

Self-judgement is an extremely common response — and it’s also insane.

It’s time to step out of the vortex.

Understanding our Reactions

The key to escaping this vicious cycle is to stop making ourselves wrong for reacting the way we do.¹

We begin to acknowledge that the defence mechanisms that make us angry, shaky, tearful or withdrawn are highly intelligent responses designed by millions of years of evolution to keep us safe.