How can you stop blaming yourself for your toxic
job? What mistake do most toxic worker survivors
make that I don't want you guys to make? And how
do you actually get over your toxic job, that's
what we're going to be talking about today. First
real fast, I'm going to do something that I
haven't done before, I'm gonna give you guys a
little bit of an update about me because I've been
posting about it. If you're not interested, I'm
going to have the chapters linked in the
description. So you can jump to any point in this
video that you would actually like to get to. So
for those of you who follow along with my
community posts, you know that a couple of weeks
ago, I had a flood in my office slash studio. So I
have temporarily set it up so that I can film this
video for you guys. However, it is still out of
commission, we still have to get repair work done,
it is still leaking, and not from like the
tropical storm hurricane thing anymore. But we are
still having water come in. So I'm not totally
moved in yet. It's really annoying. But I also
decided while I'm at it, because I have to do some
repair work in here. Anyways, I decided that I'm
going to upgrade the space and actually build out
more of a studio more filming spaces for myself.
And with that, I just decided to upgrade my
equipment. So I have some new stuff that I'm
filming with today. So if anything's weird, it's
because I'm actually still getting used to my new
lighting my new microphone like I know, there's a
shadow behind me that's going to drive me and you
absolutely nuts now that I've pointed it out. So
sorry about that. But really, what I wanted to say
to you guys was I wanted to thank you so much for
all of this card that you gave me because I did
have to change my video upload schedule, because I
want to make sure that you guys are still getting
content on a regular basis from me. And I had so
many wonderful messages from you guys on that post
in my DMS over on Instagram, over on LinkedIn, I'm
really I feel so lucky that we have created this
wonderful community here while we talk about toxic
jobs. And it's not easy, and a lot of us are going
through hard times, when we first arrived here,
it's really incredible to me the way that we
support each other. And it's just it really got me
through some very stressful times in the last few
weeks. So I wanted to thank you my career besties.
Anyways,
I'll stop telling you about myself. And let's just
get into the actual video now. All right, let's
talk about blame and shame after leaving a toxic
job, or when you're in a toxic job, I did put up
an entire post about blame and shame yesterday. So
I will link that in the description if you want to
go and check it out. One of the big things to
emerge from my last video was really a discussion.
And a lot of people were like, Whoa, no one's ever
acknowledged the fact that I blame myself and that
maybe I shouldn't be blaming myself and how we're
told to blame ourselves. And that is also
incredibly toxic. Now I think that there are
several reasons why we blame ourselves when we are
in a toxic job, when we have left a toxic job,
then we start blaming ourselves for not leaving
fast enough. And all of that kind of stuff like
you guys, you know the way that you're blaming
yourself right now, why do we do it? Well, first
of all, I do think that most of us probably just
gravitate towards accountability, the way that you
were raised plays a big role in this. But when you
have high ownership over your mistakes, you're
committed to your personal growth, you're very
open and receptive of being willing to admit when
you have made a mistake and to see where you might
have gone wrong in a situation, which is totally
cool. And that is actually going to be something
that makes you very successful in your career.
However, in a toxic work situation, especially
because a lot of you are high performers and top
performers and high achievers, we really are so
focused on how to fix the situation that we
started to take accountability for everything that
is happening. So the actual dynamic in the toxic
work environment. If you haven't watched my toxic
job science video, we talked about how this
happens. But there's a lot of gaslighting, there's
a lot of blaming, there's a lot of accountability
transfers, because toxic people that you work with
just don't want to take accountability for
anything that they've done wrong. So they turn all
of their problems into you problems, which is so
not cool. So we are in a toxic job on top of the
socialization where you are an uncountable human
being, which is a good thing. The toxic job is now
also going to lead a healthy dose of you blaming
yourself because everyone else is blaming you. And
this behavior becomes a habit. So of course when
you're in the toxic job, when you leave a toxic
job you start to search for and find ways that you
could have improved the situation we set you might
have attributed to the toxic work environment, you
blame yourself for staying in the toxic work
environment for so long, because you knew it was
bad. You just really it's how bad it was. And then
you blame yourself for not knowing that even
though there's no way of you really understanding
what you were going through until you were out of
the situation. And side note that is your brain
protecting you from the trauma that you're
enduring in the toxic work environment. So quite
honestly, if there's one thing that I want you to
get from this video and from the conversations
that we have here on my channel, is I want you to
stop blaming yourself. Now of course I want you to
be accountable, but that doesn't mean that I want
you to take all of the blame. There is such a
thing as having too much again accountability.
Believe it or not, I'm really one of the things
that I hope that you walk away from my videos with
is that there are several things that you should
not be blaming yourself for, or holding yourself
accountable for. Now, something that came up a lot
in the comments on that last video, and in my
conversations with you guys is that there's a lot
of people that are either hesitating to quit, or
have some regrets when they actually leave their
toxic job because they're like, what if it wasn't
toxic? What if it was me and again, with things
that are blaming yourself, and this is where you
need to trust yourself, you know, if that
workplace was toxic for you, it doesn't have to be
toxic for everyone. Remember, this is an
individual experience. And your experience doesn't
invalidate or validate anyone elses and vice
versa. And when you're in that toxic work
environment, at the point where you're like, I
can't take it anymore, I need to get out of here,
chances are, it was only going to get worse. Now I
know that this doesn't absolve you guys from
blaming yourself or falling into that shame
spiral. But I do hope that it helps you and it's
something that I want you to keep in mind. So feel
free to save this video or do whatever you need to
do, and come back to it and even just listen to
this piece whenever you need it. Now, the next
thing I want to talk to you about is something
that it's going to be a little bit of a hot topic
for you guys. And it's something that I think is
very natural for us to do. And it's actually
something that we do a lot on this channel. And
that is psycho analyzing the toxic people at work.
So one of the things that I've seen, especially
working with toxic job recovery clients, either
individually or in my toxic job detox program, is
that one of the things that we want to do is we
want to understand why it happened. Now, this is a
very natural human response. We want to understand
our experiences, we want to know the motivation.
It's like if you ever see a crime, you want to
know like why that person did that thing. We're
fascinated. And first of all, the dysfunction
because dysfunction has some inherent level of
interest, at least for me, maybe that's my
criminology degree talking. But also we want to
rationalize the reason why that happens. So we
want to know that, you know, the serial killer was
like abused and treated horribly in their
childhood. And that explains why they grew up to
be this terrible monster who hurts people now in
the context of our toxic job, which hopefully does
not include any serial killers might include a
psychopath or two, we want to understand the
motivation for why the person did that. Why did
they treat us like that? Why were they undermining
us discrediting us, bullying us harassing us, all
of these things we want to understand. So again, I
understand it, I personally spent time to mean
this when I left my toxic job. But I think there's
something that's really important for us to take
note of here. And that is that cycle analyzing is
not a solution. understanding the context that
we're in when we are in the toxic job does not
solve it. Understanding psychology and the
psychopathy, potentially, of the toxic people that
we were working with, isn't going to solve the
harm that we incurred as a result of being in that
toxic work environment and working either with
that toxic boss, or the toxic co workers. Or maybe
everyone was toxic. And let's face it, we can do
all sorts of guesswork. And we can psychoanalyze
until the cows come home. It's all guesswork. And
it's all speculation. I think there's something
that fundamentally a lot of toxic job survivors
really want in the situation. They want that
person to know where they went wrong, they want
them to do better in the future, right? Like we
want humans to grow, we want them to feel bad when
they hurt us, because that's what you're supposed
to do. That's what a normal empathetic human is
going to do. They're going to feel bad. But when
you're working with toxic people at work, we need
to understand that that might not be something
that they are capable of. There's a study that
said about 20% of corporate leadership could be
diagnosed with psychopathy, at some level, there's
actually a range there, and what do psychopaths
lack, they lack empathy. So even if you totally
didn't do anything wrong whatsoever, and this
person was actually a psychopath, they are not
capable of feeling remorse, you're never going to
get them to say sorry, they're never going to feel
bad for the things that they did. They're just
going to justify them in their own heads, which is
something that even the non psychopath, toxic
people that you work with are going to do, we need
to face the fact that that person might not feel
bad, they might feel justified in their conduct
and the things that they did to you in that toxic
workplace. Because remember, just like what
constitutes a toxic job, then acting that way, and
especially if it was a toxic team, or the entire
company was toxic. This is a feature not a bug. So
they're not going to say that they're sorry,
they're not going to feel bad. So there might not
ever be any resolution in terms of them
apologizing to you, or them feeling bad, are them
acknowledging the things that they did wrong. And
I know that that sucks. And this is where I find a
lot of people are spending too long in the dwell
phase. And trust me, I am not someone who's like
don't dwell about it. Don't be mad, don't have
your feelings. No, no, no. I want you to have all
of them they're necessary. I do believe in setting
parameters because I don't want you guys to ever
live in that place. It's not a happy place to be.
But it is something that we need to visit because
it is part of the toxic job recovery process,
whether it's pleasant or not, but I do see a lot
people that get stuck in the dwell phase because
they are trying to understand the situation.
They're trying to understand the motivations,
they're trying to understand that person. And what
they really want is for that person to apologize
and there to be some sort of closure in the
situation by when there isn't, what do you
actually do in order to get over this toxic job?
Well, that brings me to the next thing that I
wanted to talk about in this video. And that is
forgiveness. Now right away, you might be like,
Jennifer, you are nuts. There's absolutely no way
I'm going to forgive my toxic boss. Now, I know
that a lot of us have a different perspective in
terms of what forgiveness is. So I want to be real
clear here in terms of what forgiveness is not
forgiveness does not mean that you were saying
that what happened is okay, or that you're
condoning any of their behavior at all,
whatsoever. Forgiveness does not mean that you are
repressing the emotions and the hurt that you
experience as a direct result of the situation. In
fact, it's the exact opposite. Again, forgiveness
does not forego accountability. So you're not
saying oh, no, you didn't do anything wrong, it's
fine, you're fine. It's all fine. Let's just put
that down in a box real deep. into fact, in my
opinion, I think that forgiveness requires that
you acknowledge what they're accountable for, that
they're accountable for the harm that they caused,
whether they are accepting that or not, and
forgiving the individual. Let's just touch on what
the definition of forgiveness actually is. And I
love this, I'm just gonna read it straight on the
website. It's from the greater good.berkeley.edu.
And it says, psychologist generally defined
forgiveness as a conscious deliberate decision to
release feelings of resentment or vengeance
towards a person or group who has harmed you,
regardless of whether they actually deserve your
forgiveness. And here's the real thing about
forgiveness. And for this, I'm going to tell you a
personal story from my toxic work experience. For
a long time. After I left my toxic job, I was
very, very mad at my toxic Boss, I was quite
honestly, bitter AF about it. And I spent a lot of
time and energy and attention to the fact that I
was hurt. I didn't want them to be successful. I
didn't want them to be happy, because I was
miserable as well. But let me ask you a question
for all of my misery and all of my ill will that I
was feeling because I was very bitter about the
toxic job. What impact do you think that had on my
toxic boss zero, the only person that was being
hurt by me dwelling on that toxic job, and not
figuring out how to get over that toxic job with
me, it was impacting me personally. And
professionally, I was miserable. And that misery
was walking around with me everywhere that I went
forgiving, that toxic person that you worked with
isn't releasing them, it's releasing you. And that
really is who you need to forgive. in this
situation. We just talked about how much we blame
ourselves for staying in a toxic job or staying in
a toxic job too long, or for leaving a toxic job
or for whatever it is, the person that you really
need to forgive in this situation is you do need
to forget yourself. So how do you forgive
yourself? And how do you forgive these toxic
people that you've worked with, especially the
ones that won't admit to doing any harm? Well,
I'll tell you how I did it. And I hope that it
helps you. First of all, we need to start from a
place of empathy both for ourselves. And for other
people. I know it's easy when you have had a toxic
boss or a toxic co worker to just assume the worst
about them. They're evil, they're immoral, they're
malicious. They're psycho like all of those
things. We want them to be a bad person in the
narrative, because in our story, they are the
villain. But remember, in their story, they're the
main character and not the bad guy. So perhaps no
matter how awful and toxic, they were, maybe that
is that person doing their best, which is
unsettling when the behavior is toxic. And you
know, maybe even seeking to understand their
perspective, like maybe my toxic boss thought I
was a toxic employee, quite frankly, his toxic
behavior probably made me one. So it's not
necessarily about understanding. It's not
necessarily about validating someone else's
experiences being superior to yours. It's just
having empathy for another human being and the
fact that most of us are just humans trying to
human as best as we can. Second, I actually hold a
lot of hope both for myself and them in the
situation. For instance, for my toxic Boss, I hope
that they have progressed a long, long way. Since
they worked with me, I want them to succeed, I
want their company to succeed and want their team
to succeed. I want that success for myself. But
really what makes this possible and how I found
the path to forgiveness and to really letting go
and getting over my toxic job was the toxic job
recovery process. And this process is the exact
one that I'm going to be sharing with you guys. If
you come to my toxic job recovery workshop. It's
totally free goes down in like week, week and a
half details are going to be in the description
bar down below. This is the same process that I
used that I helped my clients through in order to
recover from their toxic jobs, and to get their
career and their confidence back on track. What I
want for you is to not be stuck in dwelling and
miserable because of a toxic job. I don't want you
falling into the toxic job loop. What I really
want for you is for you to recover from your toxic
work experience and start intentionally Creating
the best possible career that you can build for
yourself. So that's really what it's all about. So
if you're interested in joining it is at toxic job
recovery calm. All right, hopefully that wasn't
too ranting and rambling and made some sort of
sense for you guys let me know if this was helpful
and if I'm going to see you in the toxic job
recovery workshop, and just in case you haven't
seen my last video that really sparked the
conversation, you can go right here and watch it
right now. But before you go, dude, hit that like
button if you enjoyed this video, it really helps
my channel and I appreciate it so much. If you
haven't already, consider subscribing and becoming
one of my career besties and I will see you in the
next video my friends bye for now.