Latest / Finding God at Work / 18: Unlearning Learned Helplessness

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18: Unlearning Learned Helplessness · Finding God at Work

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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This is Finding God at Work.
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Just a reminder that Finding God at Work
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isn't just a podcast, it's also an online
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course.
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Check it out at findinggodatwork.org.
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Our current series is wholehearted, becoming healthier Christians
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at work.
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In our last episode, we looked at trauma.
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In this episode, we're going to keep looking
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at trauma, but specifically looking at the workplace
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as a place of healing.
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Now, that might sound like promising a lot.
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Really the workplace as a place of healing.
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And maybe there are some workplaces where that's
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not possible.
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But at the very least, those of us
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who are disciples of Jesus can view ourselves
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as agents of healing in our workplaces.
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We can bring the presence of Jesus with
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us and help foster healing and recovery and
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grace wherever we go.
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And in as much as maybe several different
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disciples of Jesus, several different people of peace
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can contribute to that culture in a workplace,
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I think the workplace itself might even in
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some situations become a place of healing.
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So I want to look at three different
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ways that a workplace can relate to trauma.
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So the first is when workplace is the
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place of trauma.
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The second is when the workplace is protecting
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against trauma.
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And then the third is when workplace is
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a place of healing from trauma.
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So first, when the workplace is the place
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of trauma, there's even technical language for this
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and the psychological literature, workplace trauma, sometimes the
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place where people are having that inciting event,
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that traumatic experience is the workplace itself.
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And this can happen in so many different
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ways.
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I'll just read a brief quote here from
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social psychologist Shana B.
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Tayon.
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And she's writing about how trauma and retraumatization
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of people who have been previously traumatized can
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happen in the workplace.
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Toxic work environments where bad employee behaviors like
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intimidation, bullying or harassment aren't addressed quickly and
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directly pose a particularly great risk of retraumatizing
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the traumatized.
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This is also true for workplace environments that
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simply lack psychological safety, which is the sense
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that you will be punished or humiliated for
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sharing mistakes, ideas and questions.
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So what Tayon is saying is there's two
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different ways that work can become a place
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of traumatization or retraumatization.
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One is where there are bad employee behaviors,
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there are bad actors, and they are harassing
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or intimidating or bullying their colleagues.
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And so obviously that's traumatic in and of
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itself.
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Or you simply haven't done the work to
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create psychological safety.
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So people are just afraid of making mistakes,
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afraid of being punished for sharing their ideas
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forthrightly.
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It may not come to that same place
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of like the abusive bad employee behavior, but
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it's still not a psychologically safe place where
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people can be themselves fully and take healthy
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risks.
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So either way, the workplace itself can be
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a place of trauma.
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If that's the situation you're facing at work
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right now, my prayer for you is that
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you will find grace to endure and the
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courage to speak up for yourself as best
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you can to be protected against future retraumatization.
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It's really hard, though, because our work is
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our work.
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We need it to get the paycheck.
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We need it to provide for ourselves, perhaps
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for our loved ones.
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And so even when we're facing trauma in
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the workplace, it can feel like we can't
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say no, like we can't get out.
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It's a really, really hard place to be.
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If that's where you're at, make sure you're
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reaching out to somebody that you trust to
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talk to them about what you're experiencing at
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work and to think through what options for
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next steps might be for you.
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Okay, so that's the first thing.
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Work as the place of trauma.
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Now, second kind of middle stage work as
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protecting against trauma, the place that protects against
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trauma.
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This would be a workplace that promotes psychological
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safety, where people are not punished for sharing
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ideas or for making mistakes, but where there's
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healthy feedback, opportunity for people to ask questions
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and grow, and so forth.
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Okay, so there's another psychological idea that I
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think can help us here, this idea that
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there can be a protective factor against traumatization.
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And that's the idea of secure attachment.
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So just real brief background here, there was
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a developmental psychologist named Mary Ainsworth in 1978.
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She did this study called the strange situation,
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where she got a number of mothers and
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their kids ages two or younger, and put
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them in increasingly strange dynamics, right?
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So maybe mom had to leave for a
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little bit.
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And so the kid would be distressed that
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mom had left, maybe a stranger entered the
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room.
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So the kid was like didn't know that
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person, right?
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Different factors of strangeness introduced, and then observing
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how children responded.
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And then Ainsworth analyzed the different patterns of
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response that the children had to this experience
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as different styles of attachment.
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And what seemed to be the healthiest response
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was what she called secure attachment.
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So that's where the child showed mild distress
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when the parent left, but then was quickly
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able to reestablish contact when the parent returned.
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So this idea like, okay, I'm secure.
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I'm attached to my adult person.
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When they go away, that's distressing to me,
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but I'm okay when they come back.
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So that that was kind of a foundational
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experiment that led to a broader framework of
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what's called attachment theory in the discipline of
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psychology.
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And you know there's continuing nuances as people
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explore how that works today, and how childhood
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experiences can affect how you live as an
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adult as well, in terms of how you
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relate to other people.
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Okay, an interesting quite recent version of a
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psychological study like this was a meta-analysis.
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That's a fun term, right?
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This means a study of studies published in
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2023 in the journal Development and Psychopathology.
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And it had a number of different authors.
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The first author's name was Toby Cushing.
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So this is a Cushing et al study.
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And the title is the relationship between attachment
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and post-traumatic stress in children and adolescents.
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So they were looking at, okay, this idea
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of attachment, that do you have a style
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of how you can attach to other people,
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your parents, as well as others socially, and
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does that affect how you experience a traumatic
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event?
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Because remember, going back to our last episode,
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right, there's kind of when we're thinking about
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the workplace, those three parts or three steps,
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right?
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There's the painful or distressing event, step one.
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Then there's the lasting emotional response to that
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event, step two.
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And then there's how that affects our experience
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of work or work performance, step three.
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So they're looking at, okay, how does your
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attachment style affect that step two, that lasting
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emotional response to a traumatic event?
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Because different people can have different responses to
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the same event.
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And what the results indicated is that children
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with that secure attachment style, in general, had
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fewer post-traumatic stress symptoms than children with
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other attachment styles.
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Okay, so that was that was a lot
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of technical language.
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What does all that mean?
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It means attachment protects against trauma.
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That's the simple version.
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Now what does that have to do with
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the workplace, right?
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We're talking about children and teens and their
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parents and things like that.
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But I would suggest a workplace where people
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have healthy attachments to one another could be
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a workplace that is protective against trauma.
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When something really negative happens in that workplace,
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maybe a colleague dies or there is an
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instance of a bad actor behaving in a
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certain way.
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If people in that workplace have secure attachments
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with one another, that's going to protect against
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the severity of the distress and the fallout
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of that traumatic event.
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Okay, so that wasn't a study about the
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workplace that I cited, the meta-analysis, right?
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That was about children and teens.
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So we'd have to look at different studies
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about attachment styles in the workplace to really
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say that confidently.
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But at the very least, it probably doesn't
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hurt in a workplace when people have a
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secure attachment style, a capacity to relate to
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others in healthy ways, to be secure in
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themselves.
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That probably contributes to protection when a traumatic
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event occurs in some way.
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Okay, so, so far so good in terms
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of workplaces protecting against trauma.
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And that's often as far as the discussion
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goes in the literature that I've seen.
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Like, okay, how can we help workplaces at
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least not do more harm than good?
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How can we at least protect against trauma
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in the way that we build our workplace
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cultures?
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But I think, again, as disciples of Jesus,
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we can go further and ask what would
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it look like for the workplace itself to
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be an environment of healing.
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And again, it's going to depend on specific
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workplaces, whether it can really be realized in
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that way, but it's something we can aspire
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to.
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Another study, also from the 70s, 1972, that
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I think can help us with this, is
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the foundational study that gave us the concept
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of learned helplessness.
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So this was from Marty Seligman and Stephen
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F.
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Meyer.
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They did this experiment with dogs.
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Not very pleasant, so heads up that we're
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gonna talk about what they did to the
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dogs here.
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So in part one of the experiment, they
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administered electric shocks to these dogs.
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And I'm just like, oh, the poor dogs.
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Like, why do we have to do this?
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Even if it does yield psychological insights.
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And that's a different podcast.
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So that's part one.
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They administer these shocks to the dogs.
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And some of the dogs were given a
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button, and if they pressed the button, they
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would make the shocks stop.
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Whereas other dogs had no control over the
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shocks they received.
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Nothing that they did made a difference.
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Then in part two of the experiment, the
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same dogs from part one were then put
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in an environment where they could all jump
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a short wall in order to escape the
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shocks.
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But the dogs from part one, the ones
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where nothing that they did mattered in part
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one, they wouldn't even try to jump over
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that wall in part two.
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They just laid down and whined while the
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shocks continued.
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So in other words, the dogs who had
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learned that they were helpless in part one
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of the experiments continued to act as if
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they were helpless in part two, even though
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they weren't.
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Okay, so it's not hard to see how
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this experiment created a paradigm for how we
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as human beings can learn helplessness.
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All of us have those part one experiences,
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those traumatic events from our childhood, from our
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early life, or even from more recently where
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things are out of our control, where we
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didn't have a say over how things went
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for us.
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And because of that, it's easy in new
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situations to feel like, man, I don't have
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what it takes.
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I can't get things done in this situation.
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I can't determine my future.
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So at work, this sense of helplessness could
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manifest in all sorts of ways.
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Maybe a boss is doing something and you
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want to ask them to stop, but you
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think, I just won't even bother.
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Or maybe you feel like you could ask
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for a raise, but then you're afraid like,
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no, no, no, I wouldn't want to ask
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and then get rejected.
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And so you don't do it.
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Or maybe you just don't even search for
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a certain job or you don't prepare for
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a possible promotion that you could get because
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you just have a sense like, nah, I'm
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not going to be able to do that.
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These moments that could in some ways amount
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to self-sabotage or missing opportunities that are
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right there for the taking.
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It's easy for someone on the outside of
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that experience to look at someone else and
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say like, just do it, right?
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Just take advantage of the opportunity.
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Just jump over the wall.
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But it's not about how high the wall
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is.
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It's not about that part two of the
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experiment.
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It's about part one, that traumatic experience where
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you didn't have control over anything in your
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environment.
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And so you learned that you were helpless.
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That's what's really going on.
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Like we talked about in our last episode,
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doing the work to figure out like, oh,
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okay, here's this work performance issue I'm having.
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Step three, let's move backwards.
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What's the emotional response I'm having?
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Step two, okay, let's move backwards.
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What's the traumatic event that's informing that?
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Step one, and then making that a place
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where you welcome the presence of God and
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you can experience healing through counseling, through prayer
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at church, through other means.
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One of those other means is your experiences
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in the workplace itself.
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Now this depends on having a workplace that's
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at least at that stage too.
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At least at that stage where it's like
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relatively healthy, protecting against re-traumatization, possible to
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take some healthy risks.
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If you have a workplace like that, the
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way the work itself becomes a place of
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healing is when you unlearn, learned helplessness through
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what you're accomplishing at work.
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Okay, so this takes courage.
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You got to face that moment, whatever it
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is, the boss that you need to ask
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them to do something differently or the raise
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that you need to actually ask for, the
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promotion that you need to actually prepare for,
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and you have that moment where you need
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help.
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You need some outside help to get over
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that wall, to jump over the wall.
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But if you can get that help and
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you do jump over the wall, then you
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learned that you weren't helpless.
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Then your workplace itself became an environment where
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you unlearned your learned helplessness, where you learned,
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wow, I can do it.
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I have what it takes.
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Now the good news about part two of
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the experiment is the researchers eventually did decide
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to help the dogs.
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So the ones that were just sitting down
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and whining, they reached their hands in and
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picked the dog's feet up and moved them
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over the wall.
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And then the dogs realized, oh, I can
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hop over this wall.
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So what does that look like in our
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workplace?
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What does it look like for somebody to
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help us pick our feet up and move
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over the wall?
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I want to look at three people in
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the workplace that can help us in this
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way.
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So one, bosses, two colleagues, and then three,
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Jesus himself.
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So one, bosses.
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Bosses have a unique role because they often
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are the ones who can set the challenges
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in front of someone.
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They're the ones that set how high a
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wall is to jump over, right?
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Like, here's a challenge.
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I think you have what it takes.
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When a boss says to someone, I see
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this in you.
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I see that you have what it takes
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to meet this challenge.
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Go for it.
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That boss can be a minister of healing.
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Maybe that person has a story that you
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have no idea about, even though you're their
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boss, and you inviting them to pursue a
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challenge that really is an appropriate challenge for
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them could be a moment of healing for
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them.
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You may not even know.
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So this is one of those reasons why
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if you're in a managerial position, it's so
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important to name people's strengths correctly.
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And no, sometimes you're naming strengths that they
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may not even see in themselves yet.
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Okay, so one, bosses can be ministers of
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healing even without realizing it just by doing
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their job as boss as well to give
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people appropriate challenges and to name the strengths
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of their team members.
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Two, colleagues.
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Often your co-workers on your team know
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what you're good and bad at even more
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than your boss does, right?
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And that's one of those kind of ironies
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is like the person that's in charge of
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making decisions about you knows less about you
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than other people do.
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But given how well colleagues know each other,
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this is also a place where help can
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come from.
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If you see something in a colleague that's
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a strength of theirs, maybe you're not in
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a position to change their workload or their
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work challenges.
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But just like name that make a habit
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of naming other people's strengths.
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And you don't have to be like an
16:19
especially masterful, encouraging person to do this.
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I literally I have a reminder in my
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task management system to say encouraging things to
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other people, because I don't always remember to
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do it.
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Whatever you need to do to remember to
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name the strengths of the people around you,
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you can also be a minister of healing
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where people might say like, oh, I can
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put my foot over that wall after all.
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And then three, Jesus himself is ultimately the
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one who's helping us even when it's ministered
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through a boss, through a colleague, through our
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own will being engaged to say, yes, I'm
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going to try and jump over this wall
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even though I'm scared.
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All of that are varied forms of God's
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grace for us in Jesus Christ.
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I want to look at just one verse
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that I think says this so beautifully.
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This is in Hebrews chapter 13 and the
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author of the letter to the Hebrews is
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citing a verse from Deuteronomy 31 six and
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then also from Psalm 118 verses six and
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seven.
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Never will I leave you.
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Never will I forsake you.
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So we say with confidence, the Lord is
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my helper.
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I will not be afraid.
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What can mere mortals do to me?
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The Lord is my helper.
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I will not be afraid.
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What can mere mortals do to me?
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Ultimately, it's Jesus who reaches down into the
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cage where we're feeling the shocks, where we're
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whining and we can't move.
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And he gently takes our feet and shows
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us that there is a way over the
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wall.
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When we minister that power of Jesus to
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heal in our workplaces, I don't think it's
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too much to say that our work is
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becoming a place of healing.
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Lord Jesus, thank you that we don't have
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to be helpless.
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Thank you that we can unlearn, learn helplessness.
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Do your work in us as we do
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our work with you.
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Amen.
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Thanks for listening.
18:28
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18:30
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18:33
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