Separating Work from Home – Considered Sharing

There are some roles within society that create a genuine challenge around what we share with those we love when we go home at the end of our day or shift. No matter the challenges we face in our working day the opportunity to share, debrief, dialogue and reflect on what we have encountered and experienced can be incredibly valuable. However, sometimes the stuff we want to talk about isn’t the stuff we want our family to know about in depth, or maybe we do want to share but we do not want to say or how to say it, and are also worried about the impact what we have encountered might have and whether it will be interpreted the way we intended it to be. Sometimes we may just want to talk and share, without a response.

At other times we’ll not want to share at all, wanting to reflect on our own and in our own way, or simply put a day behind us and move forward to spending time with our families. No matter our needs, some occupations encounter this more than others – Nurses, Medical doctors, Social Workers, Ambulance Officers, Police Officers to name a few. Those of us who work in emergency response fields, as an example, absorb what comes at us in our day as part of that day and it’s not always the kind of stuff we want to or feel comfortable sharing at home – although a little bit of sharing in the right way is usually quite healthy.

Strategies to manage this challenge vary, and need to be flexible enough to adapt to changing needs and demands we are faced with. Sometimes we put up pretty clear boundaries, at other times we wear our day on our face and body language when we walk in the front door of home, at other times we are quite open, and most of us are somewhere inbetween. There some useful strategies to manage this, however, and these can be very handy when we find ourselves in situations more trying and personally impacting than we are used to that others can be curious about.

1) At the end of the day, before we get home or once we get home, deliberately take steps to change our mood state. What this means is undertaking an activity or action that alters what we are thinking about or feeling – and deliberately creating a moment to do so. It might be a distraction, or a hobby, or even watching something on Youtube or Vimeo that always makes you laugh, listening to a podcast or listening to music. This is about creating a separation in mood between then and now that enables you to a) engage in a different way between work and home (if you wish to), and b) allow a moment to evaluate if you need something a bit more to create the desired separation between work and home (e.g. a little more time to yourself, a sit down with your partner or a colleague, or some tasks you need to address before you can start to genuinely leave the work day behind as best you can).

2) Use physical activity to engage in a familiar routine that enables you to shift the hormones in your body. In a word, some type of exercise. That doesn’t have to be something strenuous - it could be gardening, taking the dog for a walk if we have one, or playing with children (great chance to be mobile, move and let out our inner). The scientific evidence behind the role physical activity plays in shifting mood state is pretty compelling.

3) If we have a need to share give some thought to the right space and way we wish to do it. Some forethought can be helpful on this. What are the signs in ourselves that mean we know we need to share something? (By golly have I got to tell someone this!) How do we want to share that? (And how do I share responsibly pending my professional role and who the people are I have chosen to share with). What do we want the response to be (listen, advice, understand etc)? What role do those we are sharing with play (just listen, empathise, generate solutions, agree and validate)? Thinking about this in advance can be very helpful to shape what we want to share and how we do it, and also clarify what we need from them in that moment (even if only to ourselves).

4) Have a think earlier rather than later around what belongs at work no matter how I feel, and what can I bring home. This ‘due diligence’ process can really help when we feel caught out and start talking about something we start sharing but wish we hadn’t in hindsight, often with good intentions but the moment runs away with us. If we think ahead in advance it’s often easier to know where our boundaries are and we feel more confident and ready to share what we have already decided we want to, and our family can play a constructive supportive and valuable role in our wellbeing and problem solving.

5) Managing prying curiosity. If you don’t want to share but friends and family want you to that can also be difficult. The motivation is often to be supportive and to seek to understand what you have experienced, but sometimes that can create pressure and curiosity we didn’t anticipate. At times like this we can simply choose to not share and often that can work but sometimes it’s not well understood and our support team at home can be more persistent than we anticipated. A good strategy at times like this is to think in advance about what you want to and can share, keep it short and simple, be grateful for their interest and leave it at that. You’re not being rude, you’re just keeping it simple with little chance for expansion.