William P. Macaux Ph.D. William P. Macaux Ph.D.

Are You Working Too Hard?

You have probably heard reference to the Protestant Work Ethic, an attitude toward work characterized by a pioneer in the field of Sociology, Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism). It’s an attitude, which Weber saw exemplified in Calvinism and most fully manifested in America. It regards work as a moral virtue, valorizes hard work, and with equal vigor it judges idleness and dependency.  

It’s a harsh ethic that became a pervasive theme in the mythology of the self-made man and American meritocracy. But my purpose here is to address the way in which excess can be avoided and a properly positive regard for work and achievement can be preserved. What will help us notice when our approach to work, even hard work, has become unhealthy and has generated patterns of compulsive overwork? 

The Effects of Overwork

One answer to this question consists in noticing signs of deterioration in our behavior, emotions, and overt performance at work. The table below summarizes some of the ways overwork can undermine our effectiveness in the workplace.

Implicit in these specific warning signs is evidence of fatigue that may become a rather common theme of complaints in your conversation with significant others. The fatigue is caused by growing levels of stress and strain, which increase even more quickly as our coping resources and resilience are depleted. It cuts deep and becomes more difficult to recover and feel recharged after a long weekend.

Better Ways to Cope

What is described above is a chronic pattern of overwork. The chronicity of this pattern can easily signal to us that something more fundamental is at issue, i.e., our competence, our character, our hopes for career success. Wow! That can breed feelings of desperation and vulnerabilities to act impulsively. By this time, we have lost our internal locus of control. We feel that we are at the mercy of circumstances.  

Indeed, there may be something more fundamental at issue, but it’s less likely to be a flaw in our basic abilities or moral character than it is an unmet need to learn from our experience. One of the simplest solutions to this problem is a shift in attitude, to suspend our reactive fears and insecurities and become curious about what our experience (physical sensations, rational observations, feelings) are teaching us. 

It is almost always the case that others have already noticed. They can see that we are no longer the healthier version of ourselves. So, there is little to lose in owning the fact that we are approaching burnout and need to get some fresh perspective on how to adapt and adopt a more sustainable approach to work. Your supervisor and/or your significant other may be a good starting point.  

Among the more common recommendations I encourage people to explore is finding their proper maintenance cycle. Each of us as individuals and as couples, given our circumstances and the demands of our career, will usually benefit from periodic times of rest and renewal. For some of us it may be every 6-8 weeks, for others it may be every 3 months. But it is usually more frequent than we currently believe it is. These breaks can vary in length, but they should be planned times of being totally unplugged. 

Another recommendation is to be more mindful of how you start your day and how you end your day. We can all usually design a way of starting our day that leaves us feeling less put-upon and rushed, even if that start-up routine is brief. Similarly, at the end of the day we can usually find a way to decompress from the emotions of the workday and transition to the moment of rejoining our family or significant other. If you need help in reshaping these patterns, find someone to talk to – it’s healthy and adaptive.  

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William P. Macaux Ph.D. William P. Macaux Ph.D.

The Power of Empathic Notice

Even when we want to be alone, we don’t want to remain alone. But when we find ourselves divided by strong feelings, we often do not fully understand them or know how to communicate them. And as these experiences persist and become chronic, the divide may come to look unbridgeable. It’s at this point that people usually seek help, and a major challenge facing any professional third party is how to help their clients see the situation more clearly. A model that can generate insight into these chronic patterns of relational strain and how to overcome them is the Interpersonal Circumplex

The Problem

In a marriage or committed relationship, and even in a close collaborative relationship at work, we learn to read the other’s negative moods even before they are overtly expressed. Our notice of these moods may not immediately rise to full conscious awareness. We’ll first feel their presence as a growing tension accompanied by an inclination to be cautious about what we say. Indeed, others often count on their behavior having this effect. Deep down, they want us to notice their mood shift, it sends a message.  

These moods affect our reactions and generate self-talk. In the aggrieved party it may take the form of, “Why do others make life so difficult for me?” or “I don’t have the patience to deal with this anymore!” These are not neutral thoughts, they reflect feelings of strain and pain, which only intensify when they remain unexpressed. But if we can relax our fears and inhibitions and adopt a positive attitude, perhaps we and the other (intimate or colleague) might find ways to talk about what divides us, even resolve it.  

Of course, the non-aggrieved party, will have their own self talk in response to the implicitly expressed mood of the other: “There it is again; something’s wrong and they won’t let me in on their feelings!” or “Something is off, I can feel it.” Our discernment of the tension is usually accompanied by inhibitions that prevent us from expressing what we are noticing and feeling. Neither we nor they are ready to risk that. So, how we do break this circular conspiracy of silence that allows the mooded state to fester? 

Enter the facilitative presence of a third party, as coach or as therapist. How do they help? It begins with empathic understanding and accurate insight into the inhibiting forces affecting the clients: “Okay, I can see how they notice the mood but suppress expression of what they notice. Now, how can I help them become aware of this chronic pattern sooner and generate alternatives to suppressing expression of what they see, actions that serve to de-escalate emotions and work toward resolution?” 

This is when the professional begins to frame the challenge for the clients. First, it’s about assuring them that they are doing nothing but trying to keep themselves safe and avoid conflict. Second, it’s about how their present actions fail to achieve their goals, how their fears restrain expression of what they notice, thereby relegating them to the fight-or-flight level of “lower brain” function and blocking transmission to the “upper brain” where a more equanimous attitude and reasonable qualities of mind prevail.  

The Interpersonal Circumplex (IPC)

The IPC has two axes, both expressing basic human needs in interpersonal relations. The vertical axis (Dominant-Submissive) concerns the expressive and receptive qualities of human behavior. In that sense, these descriptors can be deceiving, for none of us want to be dominated or reduced to a submissive role. Rather, these terms represent the extreme poles of a continuum that reflects our needs for control, i.e., to freely assert ourselves and to be heard, and to listen and to understand what others have to say. 

The horizontal axis (Hostile-Friendly) represents our basic needs for affiliation. We are social beings and feel safest and most open to hearing others when we experience friendliness or warmth from them. So, even if they express these positive emotions in a reserved style, it disarms defensive feelings that close us off to communication. The length of the vectors originating in the center of the circle represents the affective strength of the behavior being expressed. And Neutral represents a “place” of reflective pause.

Coaching Guidance

Based on observation, the professional helps raise the clients’ awareness of the behaviors that tend to produce and sustain patterns of chronic strain or conflict (behaviors on the left side of the circle) and helps them acquire skills for noticing rising tension early and for expressing it appropriately and with empathy. This helps them shift interaction that may be trending hostile to the Neutral Zone, and from there to the right side of the circle where they take turns talking and listening empathically to achieve mutual understanding and to promote goodwill. 

Back and forth discussion in the friendly side of the circle helps them come to appreciate their individual differences and ro recognize triggers that activate their defenses and impede communications. With this insight and regular practice (homework), they can become more skilled at noticing when and maybe why tensions are growing. Their growing skills in mindfully noticing escalation and tension as a cue for moving interaction to the Neutral Zone becomes more natural. Fears that inhibit communication lessen.  

Here is a typical message I might deliver to clients as they leave a session with homework to use the IPC as a mental model for noticing tension and moving interaction to the Neutral Zone:  

  • When you first notice that you are feeling the familiar tensions and negative emotions, know that this awareness is important. Welcome it, knowing that you are already gaining more control over your chronic reactive tendencies, and that you now have choices. That is your first step in breaking the chronic cycle of dysfunctional interaction and it’s a critical achievement.   

  • Now, what can we then do with this awareness? Our notice that there is tension grants us some emotional distance from tension. We are no longer totally immersed in it; it has now become the object of our awareness. So, we can speak with less fear: “I am feeling that things are a bit tense, and we may be seeing things differently or feeling differently right now.”  

  • And this “process observation” may lead us to some further communication: “It feels like one of those moments we talked about in our last therapy/coaching session when it may be helpful to go to the Neutral Zone and start again so we can make sure we are hearing and understanding one another accurately. What do you think?”  

  • Remember, it is not unusual that our first efforts may fall short. It’s a learning process, so be ready to try again while maintaining a calm and patient attitude, giving the other person time to feel the sincerity and goodwill in your message. Importantly, it doesn’t matter who starts the move to the Neutral Zone; it’s not a competition. 

The expert has the benefit of specialized training and is positioned to see things from the outside. They are sought out with the hope that they will be able to help change the dynamics of the relationship. Still, lasting change takes time, and the coach and clients gain traction in waves. Initially, it consists of calming fears, increasing self and other awareness, and building confidence. Transformational changes in insight become more possible as clients become more trusting, open, and ready to use the mental model. 

Note: A classic resource on Interpersonal Theory for professionals who wish to know more about the model and related research is Contemporary Interpersonal Theory and Research by Donald Kiesler, John Wiley & Sons (1996).

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William P. Macaux Ph.D. William P. Macaux Ph.D.

A Five-Step Pathway to Positive Attitude

Like many others, I am annoyed when hearing “flim-flam” motivational speakers enthusiastically, urging a positive attitude and optimism that wilts at the first encounter with the real challenges of everyday life. But I am equally troubled by those who are too quick to dismiss attitude as a powerful factor in mental life. They err in underestimating how much emotionally-toned qualities of mind can make a difference.  

What’s often missing is an intelligent understanding of what we mean by a positive attitude and how one can acquire this attitude. One way to do so is to view it as a developmental achievement, as a stable and productive tendency of mind that consists in the belief that one can be an effective agent of action. It’s what we call a can-do attitude in common parlance, or what Albert Bandura called self-efficacy.

Attitude, in this sense, is a stable mental structure, not a transient state of mind, like mood. Merriam-Webster defines attitude as “a position or bearing indicating action, feeling, or mood,” a “persistent disposition to act either positively or negatively toward a person, group, object, situation or value.” It shapes the way we view others, our circumstances and possibilities for action.

Of course, we naturally form a variety of attitudes based on early life experience, the beliefs and values we acquire in our family of origin, and in subsequent experience outside the home. They arise organically, less consciously. But we can also choose to cultivate a more positive attitude (e.g., on race or openness to learning) when we see reason for doing so, and when our current attitudes do not serve us well.

Notice how, when we consider our goals for growth in life, they often imply a positive shift in attitude: from reactive to proactive; from defensive to conciliatory; from hopeless to encouraged; from avoidant to approach-oriented. All these changes involve moving from a dispositional tendency that is negative and self-limiting to a positive attitude and outlook that promotes positive change.  

So, the important question remains: How is it that we can achieve this kind of attitude change? In what follows I shall briefly describe a five-step pathway to cultivating a positive attitude.

Cultivating a Positive Attitude

Since we are social beings, most of our development and our attitudinal changes involve adaptation to a social context that is defined by the interpersonal relations we rely upon to thrive. When our actions are not working for us at work or outside of work, there will usually be some cause for reflecting on the way we are approaching things with others. With this in mind, you will observe that there is an interpersonal dimension that is essential throughout this step-wise model.  

1.       Insight and understanding

Negativity and positivity convey a tone that manifest in shades or gradations. They are felt in pre-cognitive experience. Positive implies something good, desirable, reassuring, and negative something not good, undesirable, threatening. Rational analysis in the presence of a disinterested (objective) third party interrupts automatic patterns of interpretation and reaction. It invites a neutral tone, especially when it is deployed with the aim of seeking understanding (not evaluation) of the phenomenon at hand. This can happen more easily away from the inciting environment and with facilitation that provides emotional safety.

2.       Distinguishing interests and concerns

Negativity and positivity are relative directions of evaluation, they’re defined by our values, but also by our interests. They shape our automatic normative attributions of right and wrong, good and bad. This rational appraisal provides the emotional distance required to empathize with the other party’s interests and concerns, to see the logic associated with their view of things. And as both parties arrive at that insight and understanding each other, it is evident to the other party. Greater confidence is gained, we can see that “they get it.”

3.       Transcendence and motivation

The emotional distance referred to above involves rising to a broader scope of perspective. While seeing the concrete social context and circumstances of our struggle, we are now free from the grip of legacy attitudes that previously constrained us. We are able to regard one another, the situation, and what’s at stake with fresh eyes. We see normative considerations of what is just and fair, what properly considers the needs of all parties. We see the complexity of competing interests with a greater readiness for give and take and commitment to win-win outcomes.

4.       Deliberations on goals and strategies

With this meta-cognitive shift, we can now formulate goals in ways that are both practically attainable and right from the standpoint of an empathic concern for one another. Discussions involve weighing options and perhaps considering trade-offs that imply sacrifices and gains. Strategies often include attention to relationships and interpersonal dynamics as well as the more practical means-ends problem solving associate with any change initiative. Implementation, of course, occurs over time and requires qualities of persistence and resilience.

5.       Mindful and iterative action

Learning and change do not occur when we are on auto-pilot. Yes, habits are useful and govern over 50% of waking life, but when we’re seeking adaptive change to promote growth we must be more deliberate and attentive to our strategic aims. This allows us to experiment and notice the effects of our actions. As we apply goals and strategies across situations, small adjustments often make a big difference. Noticing what is working and why allows new habits arise. Even before new attitudinal tendencies are fully realized one’s confidence and self-efficacy grow.

Summary

There is a continuous flow of reflective action in this five-step model. Step one is call for reflection that pulls us out of our immersion in everyday life and evokes an attitude of equanimity. Step two invites an in-depth examination of one’s own situation and that of others involved our situation. It generates a more objective view of things. Step three positions us to see the larger whole, the consequential impacts of action, and the normative considerations that guide our actions. Step four highlights the goal-directed phase of figuring out what to do and how to attain a win-win outcome. Finally, step five reminds us that developmental change requires continuing attention to how things are working and a readiness to adapt.

Breaking down the path to a positive attitude in this way highlights the need for dialogue and support. It could come from your manager, your significant other, or a coach. It helps you escape the bonds of habit, to see things with fresh eyes, and it can encourage you when you falter. Consider it to be scaffolding not a sign of weakness or a long-term state of dependency.

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William P. Macaux Ph.D. William P. Macaux Ph.D.

Resentment and Ressentiment

In my experience as a psychologist, I observe how resentments accrue over time to become a scar tissue that limits the possibilities for open communication and resolving conflicts. Still, they can be overcome when something happens that weakens their grip, reduces them to a pettiness we are ready to let go of. It might be a moment of crisis in which the humanity and suffering of the other evokes within us feelings of compassion. It can also be a moment in couples therapy when, in the safe presence of a therapist, we are able to see our partner give up the fight and reveal their fears, vulnerabilities, and exhaustion.

These resentments are bricks in a wall of defenses that is constructed when we don’t communicate well, when we do not work through our differences to a deeper level of understanding and acceptance. They occur mostly in the course of interpersonal interactions, within continuing relationships, with significant others – friends, loved ones, colleagues. Most of us can find a way to face the fact that we have built up and harbored such resentments and that they have impaired our ability to see one another and hear one another as we once did. And we can then voluntarily choose to change these conditions.

It's a different matter with ressentiment, a French word that looks similar but carries different meaning. It conveys a deeper, enduring emotion of hatred and rancor, which can more permanently color one’s attitude toward others, especially those to whom superior qualities of status or character are attributed. The person afflicted with ressentiment feels inferior to this other and their feelings of inferiority produce kindred feelings of impotence, all of which are difficult to own. So, through some cognitive distortion they find ways to devalue and attribute malevolent motives to the other and their noble qualities.

The peculiarly pernicious effect of ressentiment is how it undermines veracity. While resentment leads us to use defenses and conjure justifications for our negative attitude, ressentiment runs deeper, causes us to basically falsify values at an unconscious level. What is truly noble or admirable in others – perhaps their achievements, success, or social confidence – but out of reach for “ressentiment man,” is treated as something bad and false. “Ressentiment man” also sees the other lacking the envy and impotence he feels – a painfully negative comparison – and believes the other wishes to “lord it over the rest of us.”

It is not difficult to see how ressentiment might underlie and energize some instances of class struggles and racial divisions that manifest in attitudes of bitter hatred, conflict, and violence. And while this has probably been a vulnerability among peoples throughout history, it is of particular interest to me given the nasty turn in our political rhetoric in recent years. For when we form these layers of ressentiment over decades and generations, it causes us to objectify others and to “other” them, i.e., to attribute qualities so alien and negative to them that we see little or no possibility for finding common cause.

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William P. Macaux Ph.D. William P. Macaux Ph.D.

Overcoming Resentment

“All the while, for almost a year, I was trying to do my best to succeed in a very challenging work environment, which involved an exhausting commute and numerous difficult personalities, and he was not there to support me. I felt abandoned. Treated poorly at work, and unsupported by my husband and my boss, I finally had to quit. Under those circumstances I was doomed to fail, and it’s undermined my confidence and my trust in others.”

This experience, whether factually accurate in every detail or not, provides an understandable basis for resentments to form. And now, a year later, it continues to interfere with this couple’s capacity to move on, to heal, to restore the emotional bonds they once felt. She has been side-lined in a once fast-rising career in medical research, unsure of herself, of what she wants, and of what she is able to do. Talk of “letting go” is one thing; achieving it is something else.

Resentment

Resentments form in most people at some point in their lives. And unlike good wines, they do not improve with age. Indeed, they often only become more rancorous and fill us with negative emotion. A test of this is when others observe that we are seeming unnecessarily negative, resentful, or unable to “let things go.” Our defenses are aroused. We feel misunderstood, unfairly judged, angry. The quickness and strength of our reactions tell the tale.  

We don’t like the way we feel when we are harboring resentments and feeling unable to be free of them. We prefer to see ourselves as motivated by positive, life-affirming motivations, open to feedback, adaptive and able to learn from it. It’s painful to own such vulnerabilities in our professional life or as a quality of attitude and behavior in personal relationships. We prefer to believe that such negativity is thrust upon us, not something we host. 

It’s no surprise, then, that such troubled and negative emotions thrive at a less conscious level of thought, feeling, and belief. We covertly attribute such experience to the sphere of external causes, causes that we can only suffer and over which we have little or no control. And it can feel so obviously true that when others suggest we may have a choice in how to see things we once again feel unheard and misunderstood, not to mention deeply hurt. 

What I describe here may be more representative of long-standing, chronic resentments rather than the more time-limited stings of resentment that resolve in a day, a week, or even a month. In those cases, other intervening events or experiences arrive in time to restore our sense of wholeness: “It was just a one-off experience. Water under the bridge.” But other resentments cut deeper, are more enduring, leaving us in need of defending against further harm. 

It's this latter kind of resentment I have in mind when I offer the following strategy for dealing with it. It’s an active strategy for coping and communicating differently.  

Mindful Presence

When we are caught in the grip of less conscious feelings of resentment toward others and external circumstances for having been the cause of past disappointments or failures, we are at risk of “letting” its negative narrative influence our attitudes, expectations, and actions as we approach new situations in the present. The task, then, is not to dispute or review the narrative portrayal of the past. We’re best advised to merely let it remain part of the past, and as such to not have it undermine the present. But how do we do this? The simplest answer is deliberately. 

1.      It begins by noticing the strength and valence of our feelings, thoughts, and assumptions about the situation at hand. Why? Because we’ll feel intrusion of the past before its impacts are consciously known. And now is the time to notice what is governing our attitude and our tendencies of thought and action. 

2.      With a curious attitude, we then begin by questioning any negativity, asking ourselves:

a.      What am I experiencing right now, emotionally, viscerally?

b.      What bodily sensations and emotional feelings am I in the grip of?

c.       Are my reactions proportionate, and do they help or hinder progress?

d.      Might there be a different way of approaching the present situation?

e.      Can I choose to suspend the remembered past and deal with the here and now?

f.        How might this shift in perspective serve my purposes now? 

3.      We can then turn our attention to the present situation to see it as it really is.

a.      What is my purpose, i.e., to engage afresh, noting any worries or concerns?

b.      So, explore and discuss any concerns as relevant to the present situation.

c.       Monitor for intrusive negative thoughts associated with the old narrative.

d.      Be assertive, share what you see, feel, think as it arises and feels relevant.

e.      Trust in your and your partner’s capacity to stay focused on the present.

We can do this in self-reflection or in dialogue to arrive at a more present-oriented picture of our situation. The more we stay in the present, the more it cues a rational, balanced, and open exchange that leads to a shared perspective and possibilities for action. This, in turn, encourages more open, emotionally safe, and complete dialogue and win-win outcomes. We become more productive as we also increase our productive capacity as a team, as partners.

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