21 May 2025
Confrontation
I can’t say I would immediately trust anyone who said that they thrived in confrontation. For most people it’s the last thing they want. Many will go to great lengths to avoid confrontation, which can lead to its own problems.
People make mistakes, often innocently. Others make mistakes that might be termed “mistakes of neglect;” that they didn’t get around to x. The problem is that when x is a deliverable, and your company is on deadline, these mistakes often need to be addressed. By you.
Take a deep breath, because it’s not if but likely when we will be in a situation where we’ll have to roll up our sleeves and have a difficult conversation with our employee, or—perhaps more intimidatingly—our co-founder. How we do this can be called an art form. It’s easy to say what we don’t want: we don’t want to blow our top, we don’t want to make outsized accusations (an unfair portrayal), and I’m pretty sure we want to give them an opportunity to explain what it was they were (or weren’t) doing that led to the mistake.
Confrontation requires a steady hand. It requires us to both articulate our disappointment or frustration, while also self-regulating our emotions. And, as mentioned earlier, if we habitually avoid confrontation—to pretend that it didn’t happen, or that the neglect will simply self-correct—we risk a pile-up later on which may be even harder for us to address (or to self-regulate our frustration).
Business therapy can give you the space to unpack what’s going on with your confrontation avoidance, and to better understand what makes it tick. Perhaps it’s a combination of introversion and previously bad personal experiences that are informing your situation. Perhaps you were raised in a chaotic home environment where you ended up internalizing a message that keeping quiet was—in every sense of the word—safe. It’s also possible that a lot of what you’re feeling with respect to confronting someone is your subconscious projecting more onto the situation than what’s actually there.
There’s nothing better than facing our fears, though the road can be unpredictable (after all, it would be naïve to think that what we were feeling was entirely our creation; your employee or co-founder might have their own issues with confrontation—namely being told that they made a mistake—that can make the situation tempting to avoid). The great thing about Business Therapy is that if we can get you and your co-founder in the same room (virtual or real) and hash things out, then the two of you will be on the same road together, and that’s a much better way to go about it than having to navigate this on your own.
It’s not supposed to be easy. But there’s growth to be had in tackling these things!
If you are interested in learning more about my services, about me, or perhaps booking an appointment, please call me at 416-873-7828 or email me at info@downtowntherapy.ca for more information.
filed under: anxiety• business• Business Therapy• change• corporate• psychotherapy• resilience• stress• work
23 April 2025
Scary Times
Even if you aren’t an “always online” person, it’s hard not to notice how difficult the world around us has become in such a short period of time. It’s not like it didn’t have its already-serious fires that needed putting out, but now things have begun to slide in other ways — politically, economically, socially.
It’s hard to keep our heads up when it feels as if the sky is going to fall. Whether acutely or accumulatively, we can find ourselves “wearing” the anxiety, the lack of confidence, the not-knowing.
In times like this — and I gotta say, I hate the fact that the precedent is only recent — I think of the lockdowns during the first two years of COVID hitting North America, and what made things worthwhile for us:
- friendships
- movement
- self-compassion
- looking forward
Friendships are imperfect; depending upon the circumstances we may not always be so lucky as to have friends who will genuinely give us space when we need it, and yet it’s important to remind ourselves that we aren’t alone, and that we are living in a shared world. If we aren’t exactly drowning in friendships, then meet-up groups are another good alternative.
We are embodied organisms. We are capable of incredible ways of movement (ask a dancer, martial artist or gymnast). Just as the acting of writing is also one of exploring ideas while doing so, so to is the act of movement. If we’re feeling trapped, going for a stroll can help remind us not only of the world around us that we share, but also that we are not, as I like to put it, just brains in jars — which how we can especially feel when we are “very online.”
The economy at the whim of a larger storm, which means that those of us who are currently looking for work may be finding it harder. This can chip away at our sense of self-worth, facing the silence of recruiters, the lack of a response in our inbox. It’s important to remind ourselves of the wider storm happening around us that — fairly or not — is making all of our efforts to live normal lives that much harder. Find grace with yourself. Even people who habitually stick to strict timelines can benefit from switching gears.
Being able to look forward allows to avoid getting stuck in the mud of the present. Perhaps there’s a language course being taught via Continuing Ed that you can sign up for? Perhaps the local art gallery is having a debut next week? Maybe driving out of town with friends is something to plan? I’m not suggesting filling our calendars, because that’s another kind of stress, but looking forward to things is important when we’re struggling with the present.
Those are just a few thoughts.
If you are interested in learning more about my services, about me, or perhaps booking an appointment, please call me at 416-873-7828 or email me at info@downtowntherapy.ca for more information.
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