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Quiet quitting was a term made up in 2020 or a little earlier. Recently, this theme has been coming up in a lot of conversations and social media posts. The high demands of staff to perform at work, lack of resources, poor recruitment and low pay have now led to even more staff quiet quitting. Quiet quitting is one of the hardest things to uphold at work, no staff member wants to quiet quit, but they are forced to when the company culture, resources, and toxic office politics burden the workforce. Individual skills such as resilience or adaptability will not be the solution for poor company support. Even the best of employees will leave or quiet quit.

So what can we do to feel we are thriving or see work as fulfilling? It’s a complex answer, but there are a couple of things we can do; One can be giving insight to management and the team at large. For example; if you have been in the position for a number of years and you still enjoy the work and the team, it would be good to speak kindly but firmly about the issues within the workforce and that you want to help the department move forward. Therefore, not putting the spotlight on yourself, speak on the challenges and threats to the workforce/department. If you can get a group to support you this would also be positive. Changing the perspective of those that can make a difference is key. The moment you quiet quit and sit back, and don’t take action the longer the feeling of burden can increase. Furthermore, if you see that the changes won’t be a priority, then you may want to move jobs.

I recently read a book called Noise. It’s a brilliant book that gives analytical insight and details into why noise within organisations destroy performance, production and most importantly good decision making. Sometimes, when we quiet quit at work and don’t leave, is due to knowing its systemic and hopefully it will change one day, or the pay is really good, or located near home. These could be really good factors to stay even though we feel emotionally exhausted and stressed at work. If we are looking at what outweighs what at work, but we need to be honest with our fulfilment and purpose at work as opposed to pay and location, etc. 70% of our lives are spent at work, doing bare minimum and not feeling excited about the job can effect us badly over a long period of time. To feel like we are thriving we have to take action and responsibility for where we are in the organisation. Set boundaries, ask for changes and don’t be afraid to be an advocate for health and wellbeing and psychological safety at work. You may not be able to change the bigger issues they are causing you to quiet quit in the first place but you can be strong and firm in your demands for better working conditions.

Sometimes, we may just need to get the courage to leave a job for a new one. Again, being communicative and critical, whether management listen or not is still a step in the right direction for positive change. It also shows you are thinking of the group/work at large. Remember its not what you say to line management, or the board, its how you say it that counts

When we go through difficult changes, or unexpected events arise, these can cause emotional exhaustion. However, emotion exhaustion will depend on how many things are also happening at once to you. If there is a load, we may not know how to deal with them all at once. Therefore, causing burnout, depression, anxiety etc.

Somethings we are not in control of and that’s natural. When this happens, remember that we cannot have all the answers or skills, or solution to deal with them. We might not already be in a great place sometimes when more events happen, this is where we need to be mindful of the importance that we give to each of them. Of course the event maybe important to you, but given it too much importance will allow the mind to take over causing you to feel exhausted.

The good thing to do is process it first, acceptance and give yourself the permission to go forward with what’s at hand, not trying to avoid, which is called avoidance coping, which in the long run collects negative energy that then over spills. If its not recognised, accepted and worked towards. Events need a process to happen in your mind. Not necessarily trying to figure and fix but process, acknowledge and understand it mentally. Once this has been done then you can start the solution, calming or re balancing of oneself. Emotions are like an electrical current, they need to keep flowing and stay in motion.

Things that help are; Talking to someone about it, taking time to process it, demanding time in your day to process the event. Time is of essence here, some people need longer than others, do not rush your mental state and do not put the pain aside. Once you start this you can be free of exhaustion, even if you do find yourself emotionally exhausted you will come out of it very quickly. Again, processing is not about speed of recovery its more to do with working through what needs your attention

As a public governor for the NHS, my role is to represent and communicate the needs of the public, but I also work closely with the staff governors who stand for NHS staff needs.

It has been a real eye opener to see that staff members not only in the NHS but all care providing establishments are under immense pressure and suffering from mental health even pre covid. For example social workers especially have a lot of caseloads and unbooked supervision that is vital for them to process their mental and emotional labour when working in the public.

Care givers can be very strong/resilient people however they are human too. The emotional distress that comes with the work no matter how rewarding it is, can be destroying if their well-being is not taken into account and taken action to ensure they are being looked after. Supervision/Check ins/Reviews/Timeout are vital in the public and 3rd sector. No matter how strong care givers display they are, they should be encouraged to say when they need help. They need their team and workforce to be present with them. See and hear them when work gets too busy when they are going 100mph.

It is easy to forget our own needs when caring for others, therefore in order to provide the best care and support to services users/public/clients its essential that staff and care providers are also put first so they have the capacity and energy to provide their best selves. This is also relevant to those that are self employed in the caring professions. Foundations, Charities and trusts etc are businesses too and there are targets to be met, however they should not be met at the expense of great care providers.

Self denial is not always a bad thing, it does really depend on how much denial there is in oneself that actually starts to create destructive behaviours that damage yourself or others around you. Self denial sometimes needs just another way for you to perceive or get insight to that thing that might be blocking or hurting you.

We are either agreeable or disagreeable to our own behaviours. Being told off or someone flagging our bad traits etc is dependent on who is identifying it, how close you are to them and is the timing right. Timing is important here, we cannot rush or force someone to change, real change happens when it becomes someones own individual truth.

It is more beneficial for someone to realise or release the very thing that may have been holding them back. It is counter-productive to judge, blame and condemn someone for their behaviour. Learning is a journey and there are many lessons and experiences in between before an acknowledgment happens. It is better to be a natural and organic change in a sense. Self acceptance is from self, it’s the best and most sustainable way. Guidance is good but it takes the right time and person to help foster positive change.

I was talking to a friend not so long ago about how our close, loved ones can affect us the most emotionally. However, she pointed out that is not the case for everyone, for some it maybe external issues that are a problem, and that some of us are not that affected by people.

It was interesting as she said I was relational, meaning that the connection with people is essential for me. Within psychology being “relational is living in relation to others in recognition of an interconnectedness with others. It means, in our interactions with others, being engaged, centered, grounded, clear, generous, humble and kind. Which holds that the sense of connection of healthy relationships provide an essential aspect of human well-being, suggesting that when this connection is absent, mental and emotional concerns can result”.

It’s interesting when you look into this, when you look at your life over time, is it people and relationships that affect you the most or is it just situations or external material things gone wrong that cause you emotional upset or distress. Sometimes it can be a mix of both, however usually its one that outweighs the other. Depending on our sensitivity levels, and how grounded we are, and our perceptions, we will find which one gets to us the most, and from there we can work on improving how we respond and experience people or things in our lives.

I’ve been reading a lot recently. It’s been a time where I have gone over old books. You always seem to miss some important parts in educational/self help books. However when you re-read over them you discover ideas that you were not attentive to. Maybe you could say the mind was not ready for that information. I always believe that there are timings and readiness for growth. That your mind or consciousness will see the missing link when it needs to. It’s like it filters out what it is actually looking for or needs at that particular point.

It’s like your consciousness knows what it needs at that time to grow and in the same time not overload your capacity as then it will lose vital information. Just like thoughts, when we have a collection or a build up of irrational, unwanted thoughts it can feel overwhelming. However thoughts are like passing clouds, they will come thats ok, but if we just watch them and not identify with them, they won’t be as prominent or strong as they were. We cannot eliminate thought but we can less identify with them. This helps us in the long term. Becoming the watcher or observer of thoughts as opposed to merging with them is important.

You may find that over time they will tend to surface less or be less frequent than they were before, as you’re not resisting them. The ego mind tends to do that, focus and become one with them creating the distress and over capacity of thoughts. Thoughts can then be like visitors or passing clouds without bringing you down into over thinking, fear or deep sadness.

Low mood and mild depression can  be very subtle. It’s that kind of state of feeling that you will have that doesn’t have any face so you could be happy be joyful, and still feel low and keep it subdued. If you are going through frequent low mood and mild depression, so experiencing these for a long time, sometimes people may not even realise that you experience these states, we may be good at masking them and hiding them as well. 

It’s not the easiest thing to tell someone that you experience low mood and mild depression as you can find ways to manage it and not project the distress on to other people, even if the emotions are making you feel angry, or anxious or sad.

Some of the things that do help, are exercise eating healthy, things like yoga any kind of physical activity can help in the meantime and for that present period, but I always suggest that it’s always good to go to the source and work through the process of the emotions and the mental regulation and with the awareness so that you either get better at managing them or going through these emotional states less frequently.

For myself going through low mood and mild depression, it’s something I didn’t even realise was a big part of my experience until trigger external events happened and going through the process of healing, and then being aware of my emotions and cognitive behaviours

Furthermore, when you realise or come across your own emotional moods and states you can then see them in others a bit more to which creates greater empathy which is a good thing.

So to help low moods and mild depression is something that might take time, it is a process do not rush it, do not use self-criticism excessively and put yourself down when you are in the states, which is easier said than done but taking the time to work on them, needs a lot of time alone going through the process of finding the support depending on how you feel about it. But remember this is your personal journey and you do know best, and if you don’t you can always get the support to guide you through the mental and emotional distress. 

You know that feeling when there is three or more things happening at one in your life, it is so over bearing, I’ve been there a few times on my journey and at times I felt stuck. Allostatic load is when you have numerous of stressful events happening at the same time, or near each other, where you didn’t get enough time to process the last event. Furthermore, you may even be dealing with something that you been avoiding.

As we have different sensitivity levels, some of us may not be affected by stressful events that may have affected others. It is all relative, and thats ok. The good thing is we can learn how to adapt to life stressors, even though we may not always be strong enough to deal with more than one, we know that we can bounce back from the strongest of external forces over time. Everything needs time to process and heal, try not to rush this

I want to share some of the things that helped me when I was going through allostatic load; stop and think, deal with one event at a time, is there someone in your circle that can assist, don’t bottle it up, express to others what you are going through, try and get some quality time to process your events, be patient with your self, and send yourself love, and know you are more powerful than the stressors. Continue to build your emotional wellness skills, this will allow you to successfully adapt to life stressors and sudden change. It will make you more active in your approach to the stressors and ease the pressure off of you. The information load to the brain can take you off balance, even to the best of us, however by using your will power and faith you know you can overcome it all.

There comes periods in our lives when we start to avoid stress, and it is called ‘avoidance coping’ and it usually happens when there is more than one or two stresses in our lives that overtake our well-being and we become numb or our mind goes a hundred miles an hour. This is natural and can happen to anyone. Here I wanted to give you some tips on how to help avoidance coping, it is a defence mechanism that the mind uses as a default depending on our sensitivity levels and what we can handle, if there is an overload of external stresses mixed with internal emotional distress we can start to avoid any small tasks, any responsibility big or small or anything that involves us. It can be frustrating it can feel like we have a huge burden, and sometimes we can feel like we just want to be away somewhere free. It’s a horrible feeling, but what actually helps is by actively moving forward towards the task/responsibility that is at hand actually minimises and helps reduce further stress. 

Therefore active behavioural coping addresses the problem directly and active cognitive coping involves you changing how you think about the stressor. By trying either one of the two we can reduce the stress, however sometimes this does not always work depending on the person, but by addressing the issue there and then in real time and observing how we avoid the stress can help us immensely, this is something I never did in the past but doing this now has helped me look at avoidance coping in a different way, so now at least if I don’t directly put myself forward to address the issues. I know at some point that this is something I can do to minimise the current feeling I’m going through once I’m ready too.