There’s No Crying in Business (And Why That Gets to Change)
When we talk about trauma and its relationship to entrepreneurship, most people think of very serious and significant things that cause strife and stress in business.
Putting everything we have into a business and having it “fail”
Needing to file for bankruptcy or go back to working for someone else
Having a client or partner steal, lie, cheat, or betray our trust
Receiving undeserved negative press, and/or
Being injured “on the job”
These are worst-case scenarios in business, after which most humans would have “big” feelings. We’d also be likely to be supported and validated in our feelings by the people surrounding us.
However, beyond these serious and significant experiences, most adults have been conditioned to NOT bring their feelings into their work- and this holds true for entrepreneurs and their businesses.
One of the most common trauma “imprints” (behaviors or beliefs that developed in reaction to past painful experiences) we see at our Institute is entrepreneurs feeling fear, constriction, or shame when they are experiencing something difficult in their personal or professional lives that does not seem valid enough to be upset about.
We are often scared to express our feelings about our businesses outside of these catastrophic scenarios because many of us have had experiences where someone shamed us or invalidated our experience around something that felt distressing.
A great example of this type of invalidation can be seen in the movie “A League of Their Own”. In one famous scene, Tom Hanks, a dysregulated baseball coach, is frustratedly yelling in the face of a female player. As she is listening to him, she begins to quietly cry. As Tom Hanks sees the tears slide down her face and hears her begin to whimper, he screams with exasperation “Are you crying?!? There’s NO crying in baseball!!!”
Our ITPS team knows this feeling intimately- many of us have past encounters of being told that our tears or our emotions (which we tried to hide but leaked out) were evidence of our unworthiness or lack of professionalism.
We learned quickly in life to do our best to shove our feelings down and to “boss up”, and pretend that we were not feeling anything but calm.
We also know we are not alone- We’ve heard countless stories of entrepreneurs who have similar experiences, both as children and as they grew up and went into the workforce. They all learned quickly to disconnect from their emotions and dissociate from their bodies to respond in ways that appear professional and logical.
What is the long-term impact of this disconnection and dissociation?
Does it really help us to have an unspoken ban on crying and other forms of emoting in entrepreneurial/professional workspaces- or does it actually cause HARM?
Here are just examples of how we suppress our emotions and pretend we are “fine” in the business space:
We pretend we are 100% when we are tired, sick, or under-resourced, sacrificing our holistic health to uphold workplace standards.
We show up with a full face of makeup for our client calls, instead of allowing ourselves an extra 20 minutes of sleep and time to grab an extra cup of coffee because our toddler kept us up all night.
We say "YES" to every client request, including unexpected projects and discounted rates (even when we already feel overworked and underpaid) so others don’t perceive us as needy or difficult.
We don’t speak up when someone is yelling in our face (or in someone else’s) for fear that we will be labeled as “too sensitive” or over-emotional.
When our coworker notices we are tense and asks how we are doing, we say “I’m fine”- even though we have something scary or distressing in our personal life because we fear being perceived as weak.
If you read these examples and thought “Yes I’ve done those things AND that’s just what is expected.”
Here’s my gentle invitation to consider-
What if suppressing your emotions and feelings was NOT expected?
We have been testing this business model at our Institute for the last 2.5 years, and what we’ve found is pretty remarkable-
As our team and our clients have learned how to validate their feelings and discern the valuable information that accompanies our feelings, we have grown in our ability to stay regulated on a consistent basis.
As we have celebrated our team taking sick days, and sharing when their capacity is limited, our productivity has skyrocketed.
As we have prioritized being open and honest with one another, our ability to trust one another and make difficult decisions together has increased.
And as we have learned to say “no/not now/not like this” when something feels out of alignment- our ability to live in alignment with our values has deepened.
By allowing ourselves to cry, or be frustrated, or take time to process-
We haven’t weakened. We have become stronger than ever- both as individuals and as an organization.
And I believe this growth and strengthening is due to a simple truth-
When we don’t feel AFRAID of our feelings (or how others will interpret them)
It feels safer to have them, let them move through us using whatever practice we prefer, and THEN get back to making our next move in our business.
And honestly, sometimes the best business move IS to say-
"I need to reschedule today"
"I can't continue to work like this"
"I need something more/less/different"
To hold to our boundaries around our humanity.
To stop pretending we are robots.
And to remember that 99.9% of things in business aren't so serious or emergent that we can’t feel our feelings before deciding how we want to respond.
If you can see how it would be helpful to shift your views around it being “safe” to cry in business-
Invitation to join ITPS for a virtual event to help you learn how to do this in your business!
See you there!