You know when someone asks, “Are you OK?” and your automatic response is, “I'm fine”?
Only you’re not fine.
You are not even close to being fine, but you still say it because it’s a habit.
The words escape your lips before you’ve even had a chance to figure out how you really are feeling.
The noise in your head is deafening.
And you couldn’t answer the question even if you tried to give an honest answer.
I was thinking about this tendency to say “I’m fine” even when I’m not really fine during a conversation with a co-worker this week, who also happens to be my business partner.
We were discussing the inappropriate behavior of some of our male counterparts towards women in particular, and how, as women, we have very little recourse for standing up for ourselves without being judged or thought to be the problem.
I experienced this situation multiple times from two different male co-workers in the middle of large project meetings that she wasn’t in.
I’m not going to revisit the details of those incidents, but I did talk about one of them in Episode 50 (“What To Do When You Get Triggered at Work, and It All Falls Apart (A Real Story)) of Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide, if you are interested in hearing the whole story.
I’ve learned through many painful experiences in the past that sometimes the best course of action to take when you’re triggered at work is to go on mute.
I was clearly triggered by those incidents, but I also knew that if I fought back or said anything in that situation, it wouldn’t be professional and would tarnish my reputation. I was trapped between “damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.”
So, I did what I’ve learned to do as a trauma survivor with CPTSD in the workplace…I put on my armor so I couldn’t be hurt again, and I answered, “I’m fine,” when someone asked me if I was OK.
Only, I wasn’t fine. Not even close.
Why do we say we’re fine when we’re not?
Many of us grew up in environments where emotions weren’t always safe, welcomed, or supported, so minimizing what we feel became a remarkably adaptive protection strategy.
Perhaps we adopted the thinking that we are not going to let them know that they hurt us. We aren’t going to give them the pleasure, so we developed really thick armor.
Maybe we learned that expressing our emotions made things worse.
Maybe maintaining composure over our emotions gave us a sense of control and power, and perhaps earned us approval.
So we adapted.
And then we grew up.
We built careers.
But adaptations don’t automatically disappear when the environment changes.
They become automated responses you can find in mail rooms, project teams, or boardrooms.
Becoming Grounded As An Anchor To The Present
That’s where becoming grounded matters.
For a long time, I thought being grounded meant being calm, but I’m beginning to understand it differently.
Being grounded means anchoring your awareness in the present physical moment to stop feeling overwhelmed by past experiences.
Being grounded doesn’t necessarily mean that we aren’t triggered, angry, hurt, or overwhelmed. It doesn’t mean we always know the right thing to say in the moment.
Sometimes becoming grounded simply means becoming aware of what’s happening inside of us while it’s happening. Noticing:
The armor is going up.
I’m saying I’m fine, but I’m not.
My mind is racing.
I’m trying to protect myself right now.
That awareness may not change what we do in the moment. Going on mute may still be the wisest choice. Saying “I’m fine” may still be all we have capacity for right then.
But now we’re noticing.
And there’s a difference between automatically putting on our armor and consciously recognizing that we’ve reached for it.
Becoming grounded isn’t about never using our armor, because sometimes we need it, and it has served us well.
It’s more about recognizing when we’ve put it on, and knowing when it’s safe to take it back off.
Because the meeting ended.
The call disconnected.
I closed my laptop.
And in that conversation with my co-worker, I removed my armor and admitted, “I was NOT OK…but I am now”, because I know how to get myself grounded when the unexpected knocks me off-center.
There is a quote often attributed to Viktor Frankl that says, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about that space.
Because for those of us whose responses became automated long before we ever entered the workplace, sometimes there doesn’t seem to be much space at all.
Something happens.
The armor goes up.
“I’m fine.”
And only later do we realize what happened.
For me, becoming grounded is about learning how to create more of that space.
Not so I always make the “right” choice. Not so I never get triggered. And certainly not so I never need my armor.
But so that eventually, I have a choice.
I can notice what is happening inside of me. I can recognize the automated response that wants to take over. And I can decide what I need next.
Becoming Grounded is about creating enough space between what happens to us and what we do next so that we have a choice.
I’ve shared what my armor looked like in this situation.
Now I’m curious about yours.
What does your armor look like at work?
Maybe it’s saying “I’m fine.”
Maybe it’s going quiet, working harder, making everyone else comfortable, or pretending something didn’t bother us.
Message me and let me know. You don’t need to have figured it all out. I’m genuinely interested in what “putting on the armor” looks like for us at work.