Welcome to the Elephant in the Room...

Welcome to my new blog which will contain articles and reflections based upon my work as a mindfulness based personal development coach with ananda-veda.com 

My recent reflections have revolved around mindfulness in the workplace and the emotional literacy required to deal with 'the elephant in the room'. The elephant is an issue that remains unvoiced, unutterable, yet known to everybody present. It preoccupies workers involved to such an extent that it can interfere with productivity and colleagial relationships, which may become tense and 'overcharged' as a result. In my own work I once tried to address the elephant in the room with a colleague that I worked with as a consultant. Rather than bring up the issue in the workplace face to face where 'walls have ears', I began to address the issue by email. My invitation to meet was ignored, so I tried to address it further by email. I then waited patiently for a repsonse while nuzzling up to the trunk of my big grey friend...enduring a long radio silence.

So why do we sometimes find it so dfficult to deal with feelings and undercurrents to the point where we prefer to deny the existence of emotional reality, and put up a sanguine defence, pretending everything is ok, when we KNOW it is not? I know I've done this countless times, only to find later that I've not succeeded in making the elephant go away, I've just suppressed the issue, which increases the charge it carries over time and risks it surfacing mindlessly, even explosively, at a later date. We can take another path in service of professional values such as integrity, openness, honesty and trust - that is trust that colleagues can work it out together if we address the elephant mindfully. 

What can you do when close colleagues refuse to communicate about your concerns? I trawled the web looking for some resources and found some useful links. We cannot control the outcome of addressing the elephant, but by owning our own feelings first, explaining our resulting confusion, and requesting help with clarification on the situation, we can do our mindful best.

Motivation to contribute to shared project can suffer, in addressing one elephant one can uncover another, the mother elephant of avoidance can be shielding the baby elephant of emotional illiteracy... as it so often does. The result can be projects that go off the rails... the solution could be some emotional literacy training in the workplace. I endured the radio silence with my colleague at the time by up holding up my professional values elsewhere... and now I'm starting this blog and inviting others to share how they have dealt with their own 'elephants',... at work, at home, in relationships...mindfullly or not? I am especially interested to know how much damage emotional illiteracy does in the workplace, where the importance of emotional processing is so often minimised. I suggest that in the 21st century, the denial of emotional reality, which is the foundation of what it means to be human, must be openly addressed - at work as well as home - for people to remain productive. Let me know what you all think :-)