‘Pushing Through It!’: The Psychosocial Challenge of High-functioning Debilities in the Workplace and at Home

There are many sources of stressors in life. The popular mantras: “leave work at work” or “keep your home at home” illustrate two dominant spheres of life that create, recreate, and reinforce anxiety and stress. The problem with these particular clichés is that they are, in practice, impossible to perform. One cannot simply dislocate oneself from one aspect of life and enter another aspect—as if humanity is capable of dividing itself into two artificial and dissociable parts.

They do, however, illustrate the important principle inherent in the term: “Work-Life Balance.”
Simply put, a work-life balance strives to intentionally manage these two dominant arenas of life in a way that is healthy and wholesome while developing the skills of emotional resiliency and mental vitality despite the stressors one may experience. The balance impresses a formative vision of the ideal in one’s life that, like a pendulum, can sway one way or another depending on the cumulative and circumstantial stressors one experiences.

All too often, the formative vision of balance remains underdeveloped, resulting in an unmanaged, reactive response to the stressors experienced. As a result, the cognitive individual wills themselves to push through the stressors—a reactive maneuver designed to keep up appearances, preserve one’s reputation, and demonstrate continued competency, dignity, and grit. In other words, the individual is responding to a psychosocial challenge in the midst of experiencing a high-functioning debility.

The psychosocial challenge involves remaining intentionally dependable and reliable to fulfill one’s obligations, whether at work or at home, in a manner that is considered culturally, relationally, and socially appropriate. At the same time, the individual is personally experiencing the weight of tremendous stressors that stimulate a strong desire to collapse and/or walk away from their responsibilities. The psychosocial challenge of “pushing through it” illustrates the reality of high-functioning debilities—a non-clinical umbrella term that points to working or socially engaging in various responsibilities of life despite the presence of a debility, whether permanent or temporary.

A Plausible Scenario

Consider the following scenario:

An individual:

• Is experiencing difficulty paying bills and not making enough income to offset expenses.
• Has a child that is struggling academically in school while also getting bullied.
• Is emotionally drained from helping elder parents with daily tasks.
• Was in a car accident the previous day and is feeling tremendous guilt for the passenger’s injuries and continued pain.
• Is distressed that the community outreach program they volunteer with can’t help its client base due to a lack of resources.
• Is tired of listening to the same defeatist, negative, victimization story from unteachable colleagues.
• Has a boss that repeatedly demonstrates a passive-aggressive form of leadership.
• Is fundamentally shaken that the job places no emphasis on compliance while outwardly declaring that the business operates under “best practices.”

This scenario illustrates the aggregate weight of:

• Vicarious stress: Concern for children; passenger injured in a car accident.
• Compassion fatigue: Helping elder parents; tired of listening to negative and unteachable colleagues.
• Moral distress: Inadequate and unavailable resources for outreach; duplicitous employer practices.
• High-functioning burnout: Can’t pay bills; not making enough money; passive-aggressive boss; negative colleagues.

When viewed this way, it is easy to consider that the cognitive person might strive to just push through it. The underdeveloped image of work-life balance will respond with the reactive maneuver to keep up the appearance that all is well. But is this the best response?

A Proactive Approach

Perhaps a better response is to implement the proactive maneuver. This entails reframing the overwhelming sensation by intentionally planning and triggering a counter-response. The following steps are helpful toward developing a proactive response:

1. Focus: Identify the stressors, the circumstances, the conditions, and the feelings they generate.
2. Enable: Choose a static, commonplace object (like a chair or a coffee cup)—something that is found at work and at home—and make that object the locative file for your focus.
3. Image: Create a picture that represents the process of victory over the high-functioning stressors and feelings.
4. Action: Turn the picture into a quick story that animates the stressors and feelings.
5. Immerse: Place yourself in the story (whether as a participant or engaged observer) and experience the action unfold around you.
6. Refine: Make the immersive story flow seamlessly from start to finish.
7. Review: Own the story such that the image and story can be accomplished rapidly and is fixed in the mind in long-term memory.

Putting It Into Practice

Let’s consider the following:

1. Focus: Imagine the plausible scenario earlier and all the high-functioning stressors, feelings, and the pressure to push through it all.
2. Enable: Choose a coffee cup at the workplace and at home. Label and assign that object with the focused authority and power to organize the content of your story and stand as the trigger to initiate the proactive response that removes the stress and brings recovery.
3. Image: Create a picture of, say, you excitedly drinking a cup of hot chocolate when you were six years old.
4. Action: Engage all your senses as you drink the hot chocolate. As you feel the hot chocolate going into your mouth, imagine the warmth of the chocolate liquid washing away the bitter anxiety and stressors from your mind and body. Replace the sense of high-functioning debilities with the sweet taste, smell, and warmth of hot chocolate. Let that taste turn anxiety into a delighted smile in the moment.
5. Immerse: Feel the warmth of that soothing heat dissipate the stress such that you are no longer captured by the high-functioning debility, but are delightedly embraced with the saturated comforts of hot chocolate.
6. Refine: Make your story seamlessly flow as you look at the coffee cup and imagine the story unfold. Own the story to such a degree that you don’t have to think through the story—you live the story.
7. Review: Improve the story such that the coffee cup becomes the trigger for a reframed mind that no longer defaults to the reactive maneuver but quickly embraces the proactive maneuver.

The above approach externalizes the high-functioning debility. It also serves as an aid to remove the weight of cumulative stressors from one’s life. The coffee cup becomes the visual trigger that stimulates the mind to release stress while embracing delight.

However, it must be noted that the object you choose and the story you imagine must be customized to be relevant for your life. It is up to you to make the trigger and the story your own.

Therefore, be creative. Be immersive. And have fun doing so.

Learn More

For more on how to manage high-functioning debilities, attend the workshop:
“High-functioning Debilities: Compounding Wounds of Conscience and Empathy and the Importance of Leadership Equity in Business”