Sarah contacted me after hitting rock bottom in the face of a bullying scenario in her workplace.

Sarah had always been straight up with giving her opinion. But there had been a change in management some time ago.

Only now, Sarah had understood that the new manager did not value her honesty. Behind her back, he had said nasty things about her, as she found out only by chance.

She felt shaky with it all, very anxious and close to tears whenever she thought about her workplace. Sarah is a Busy Perfectionist. This Dream Destroyer copes with a childhood environment full of rejection and criticism by making themselves very busy. They focus on their work to tune out unpleasant things, they keep busy. So much so that most other things in their lives, their inner emotional lives as well as love and friendship, will typically play second fiddle to work. Just like that, Sarah had made herself very busy in her workplace, working longer hours than the rest, even looking after other people’s areas of responsibility at times.

When she stopped and thought about this, Sarah could only now see that she had never received recognition or thanks for this. Busy Perfectionists can be prone to missing those warning signs because they are… keeping busy. Having grown up with parents who were constantly preoccupied with themselves, who gave her little attention, love or recognition, Sarah had developed undue tolerance for this kind of environment. When she thought back, she realized that her work relationships had actually been deteriorating for some time and that those hostilities weren’t exactly new. She felt that at times, she hadn’t done herself any favours by saying exactly what she thought about the team’s standards that she felt could be improved.

Most people like to have an easy ride at work, she said. They weren’t dedicated to pushing themselves or doing their best, not like she was.

Busy Perfectionists set high standards for themselves and can be critical of others who simply don’t share such high standards.

And being perceived as being critical often gets Busy Perfectionists to the bottom of the popularity list while their incredible dedication, contributions and hard work are taken for granted. Sarah had been blind to this rejection because it felt all too familiar from growing up.

Only a little while down the line when we had reduced the intensity of her painful emotions somewhat, Sarah could see that she had been working way too hard, for way too long and for way too little by the way of rewards. Losing the bird’s eye perspective because of being too busy is one of the major Busy Perfectionist’s dilemmas. As a child, Sarah had used busyness not only to distract herself from her parent’s emotional unavailability and rejection, but also from her older brother’s sexual advances. That’s how she had learned to tune out the warning bells. Working together, we addressed this abuse and the complex layers of feelings it had left her with. She loved her brother and felt betrayed by him as well as confused about the concept of this love. If he loved her, why would he do this to her? And on top of it all, feeling let down by her parents who failed to protect her and overall feeling so alone.

There was a clear moment of liberation when Sarah got in touch with anger towards her brother and parents. This anger, she had kept safely locked away for all these years.

Feeling it gave her a sense of power and control she hadn’t felt in years.

When the intensity of the emotions dropped and the painful memories moved more into the distance, Sarah had new insights. She now began to see how the hostile work environment she now found herself in, while upsetting in itself, was particularly hurtful for her because the feelings had resonated with her past experience of feeling betrayed, abused, unappreciated and unloved in her childhood. Giving this much missed love and appreciation to herself now by forming a strong bond with her Dream Destroyer inner child changed not only how Sarah felt about herself, but also how she felt about her here and now. As the emotional overwhelm cleared and the intensity of anxiety symptoms was dropping, she could now once again hear the quiet voice in her heart that had been telling her for years that rather than work for a company, she would so much rather work for herself. As it turned out, Sarah had quite a concrete idea as to what she wanted to do. There was some fear holding her back but we cleared that, too so that we could then prepare her for her ideal future. By the time we finished working together, while there was a lot of work ahead of her to achieve her goals, Sarah felt emotionally ready to embark on this new chapter in her life. She now had replaced anxiety and self doubt with solid self belief and confidence. If you are ready to clear old painful emotions and free yourself from anxiety so that you can become free to get into the driver’s seat of your life then get in touch and we can chat about whether my REPAIRenting® programme may be the right fit.

If you are a therapist and you like what you are reading and would like to get the same results, please look out for Havening® and REPAIRenting® training.

You can watch client testimonials about my work here.

My upcoming English speaking Havening Training will take place on July 15th, 16th and 17th from 14.00 - 20.00 Dublin time each day.