How to leave your work frustrations at work

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:01]:

Welcome to Scared Confident. I'm your host, Tiffany Sauder. Okay, this episode is all about your questions answered. A couple of weeks ago, I sent out a form to my newsletter list and said, like, hey, I want to know what questions you guys wish that I would answer or topics I would talk about on the podcast. So we're going to be like, doing some of these. So fun. I like, so appreciate your feedback. So this one today, somebody said, I said, what question do you wish I would answer? And somebody wrote this.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:31]:

How do I not take the bitchy part of work home to your spouse or significant other? How do you not take the bitchy part of work home to your spouse or significant other? Okay, so I think what this really means is how do I not take my frustration, my exhaustion, my irritation with things that are maybe not going well in my work world? How do I not take those things home into my house and make my family kind of pay the price for that irritation and frustration? And I think if you say it out loud to yourself, that's actually kind of like not what we want to do, right? Like, if friend a is frustrating you, you don't take it out on friend b. Like, that doesn't make any sense. But for some reason, we can look at our home base as this place that's so familiar and so guaranteed that we don't need to take care of it. Like something that we value and is precious to us. And when I say it like that to myself, I'm like, well, of course I'm not going to take my frustrations and my exhaustion from something that is really unrelated to these people home to them and acted out to them. But I know we're not always in our rational brains and that we sometimes just need a place for that emotion to go. So a couple of things that I do, I think in the micro, one is sometimes just to be able to name it and say it like, hey, family, I am going to be a little edgy tonight. I had a really bad day at work.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:03]:

I had a project not go very well. I had a client chew me out. And I just kind of feel at the end of myself. And I know I don't have a very full cup. And so I just need your patience with me. I need a little bit more cooperation. I just don't have much in the tank right now. And I want to say that to you so that if I seem short, if I don't pay attention, if I seem distracted, I want you to know where that's coming from.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:26]:

It's not that I don't love you, it's not that you're not important, it's just today was a bad day. I think sometimes that can free the bird a little bit. Where you just tell everybody here is what is happening and I do not have as much capacity as I would like for the regular parts of life. I'm just going to be irritated and I'm really, really sorry. There are times where I will react to my girls and I will realize that was an outsized reaction, like, holy crap, I just came down on them. I was like, you know, just kind of a jerk. Like I wasn't the kind of parent I want to be and I'll just apologize. Like, I am so sorry.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:00]:

That was more about me than it was about you and I need to roll that back and try again because that was gross. I can see on your face that you feel gross. I feel gross for the way that I behaved. That is not what I want to like feed into our relationship and so I just need to own it. You might also just need to take ten minutes. I have done this before where I go to my room, I change out of my work clothes, I put on something really, really comfortable, I put my airpods in, I listen to some like calming or meditation music and let my jaw relax, let my shoulders relax. I give myself ten bloody minutes and I turn on the tv or whatever needs to happen because sometimes I have a pounding headache, I'm super dehydrated. It's just been one of those days where I'm just physically a mess and so therefore I know I'm going to not show up in a way that I'm very proud of.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:49]:

So sometimes you just need to take a beat and take ten minutes. I have older kids, so sometimes I can say to them, I need ten minutes, literally only ten minutes, but I need ten minutes. I need no questions, I need no, mom, I need no. What are we going to eat? I need, I just need none of that because I'm in person and right now my cup is not very full, so that's some micro stuff. Also, junior is actually better at this than me. Sometimes you just need a long hug. It's so silly. I know there's science around physical touch.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:18]:

I can't say it because I don't know it off the top of my head, but I know there's science around physical touch, but sometimes I just need a big hug from junior that like makes me feel safe and protected and that helps me just chill out a little bit and relax. A little bit. I think that can sometimes help, too. Okay, that's micro stuff. I think macro. If you are finding day in and day out that you are just not ending the day in a way that is serving you or your family or the people and the things around you, I would just say take stock of that, because our days are leading into our years and our years are leading into our lives. And so pay attention to that. If you're in a space, you're in a place.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:04]:

And I'm not saying that everybody in the world needs to go quit their jobs. That's what I'm saying. But I'm saying sometimes we need to just take a look at what is it that's actually making us so grumpy and why are we feeling so out of sorts. But it is not our spouse's fault, it is not our kids fault, it is not our friends fault. And we need to make sure that those people feel like they are powerful participants in the plot in our lives and not adversaries, and not punching bags to what's happening outside of the home, that they don't feel like we're dragging stuff into the house that is not serving the family unit that you're wanting to create. Like, you got to figure out, I think, how to make boundaries around that. So, I don't know. There are certainly times when Junior and I get into conversations and we realize we are talking about the wrong thing.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:49]:

The real thing is that junior has a lot of pressure at work. I have been unavailable to support that or, like, whatever the thing is, sometimes the mountain just grows and you trip over it, and you've got to figure out, like, how to get over it together. But that would be some of my advice. You know, I think that kind of sums it up. Okay. Hopefully, this helps you think. How do you not take the bitch part of your job home to your family? Because it is not their fault that you had a bad day, and it's only going to make your day worse if you feel bad when you go to bed and you feel less connected, not more connected to them in the evening. So, all right, hopefully this helps you protect team number one, which is always our families.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:25]:

And we know there's lots of outside pressures on our time, but, man, our family is always going to be there for us. So, like always, thanks for listening, and don't forget to go run into your life of and and if you love this podcast episode, please share it with somebody. It is the fastest way that we are growing the show. So thanks a lot for listening.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:43]:

Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared confident. Until next time, keep telling fear. You will not decide what happens in my life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:53]:

I will.