Goodbye, Relationships (For Now)

As June comes to an end, this newsletter turns from relationships to self-care

I’ve recently decided to tackle here one topic each month. In June, the focus was on relationships (a topic too broad to exhaust so quickly, and one I’ll come back to).

Before turning to self-care in July, here’s what surfaced for me in the last 30 days, and three recommendations I’d make to any trauma-experienced professional navigating relationships at work with mixed feelings and confusion.

I was raised to think relationships and work don’t mix well. In Eastern Europe at the time, friends and family were to be managed carefully and kept separate from work, for fear of any positive bias that might arise from knowing someone socially in the workplace. Proving oneself through hard work was the only honourable way of building a career. As a loyal practitioner of this ethos for many years, I can attest that it builds competence but has its limitations.

Living and working in the UK confronted me with a different mindset. Here, people are unapologetic about using their contacts, and will pay serious money for private schools, clubs and events that facilitate access to people in power. A very different attitude, but one that raised for me a similar challenge: what is a pragmatic and ethical approach to relationships at work? How can we balance our biological need for connection and social support with the demand for mastery, fairness, and inclusion? As an immigrant and trauma survivor, I’ve had to navigate these questions carrying the extra baggage of an inferiority complex, shame, anxiety, and cultural dislocation.

What I landed on is this.