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Luch of Truth's avatar

The hardest step is to face envy and shame without taking it personally. Sometimes the same community that cuts you down ends up respecting you for not breaking. The paradox: why must recognition often arrive only after rejection?

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Karina Schneidman MBA, MS's avatar

What a fantastic conversation. One of my favorite moments was learning that you studied the ‘matrix’ of how cells should and could work together and their behavior to connect with each other in order to succeed which translates so well into what you do now! I see us (humans) as a cell, and what connects us is how well we work together or don’t depends on that tissue around the cells (community) my guess? I may have totally butchered this, ha.

What I took from this conversation is the importance of self-awareness. It’s rather hard to keep feeding the shadow when you know you’re feeding it instead of healing it.

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Nathalie Martinek PhD's avatar

I'm glad you were able to take something away from this chat! Yes - my professional beginning involved studying connective tissue/matrix-cell interactions. I see the matrix as the culture and bureaucracy that influences the behaviour of all the cells in a group. Some cells depart from the group and have a mind of their own, and try to take over the system. Extreme progressive left can be an example of that. So far, the equivalent of chemo and radiation therapy in workplace remediation removes a few cells, sometimes, but never restores the system to health.

Thank you for playing with the metaphor which prompted this little explanation on workplace toxicity and cancer!

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Karina Schneidman MBA, MS's avatar

This is absolutely fantastic and makes so much sense. Thank you! The conversation was DEEP and does explore the crisis that I think you talk about a lot as a result of lacking internally and how envy becomes its own entity in a sense. So good.

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Nathalie Martinek PhD's avatar

Yay!! I know I keep promising more on envy but I do promise it's coming. I want conversations on this emotion because it's so misunderstood and it's so dangerous when unrestrained.

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Karina Schneidman MBA, MS's avatar

Looking forward to it!

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Traci Ruble's avatar

Nathalie I have been trying to refine my thinking on this. Have some sticky situations at the moment so always appreciate you doing some of the intellectual lift here for me. Thank you.

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Nathalie Martinek PhD's avatar

I'm glad the chat was helpful Traci! More to come on envy soon!

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The Strategic Linguist's avatar

This is so important. You don’t have to have full-blown NPD to behave like one, at times, when power and status are at play aka the workplace. It can make it feel like a threatening and unsafe place just by these subtle dynamics at play. I love that you explain these subtleties, thank you.

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Nathalie Martinek PhD's avatar

Thank you for listening to our conversation! We're often playing status games to compensate for feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, which are more prevalent in dysfunctional, toxic, and assimilating workplace cultures, unsurprisingly.

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Colleen's avatar

Shame has been identified as the driving force underlying domestic violence/abuse. Shame and entitlement.

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Nathalie Martinek PhD's avatar

Yes- disowned, unprocessed shame is a driver of all narcissistic behaviour but likely not the only emotion involved. Contempt, envy, disgust, hatred operate with shame to promote violence that the perpetrator feels is justified.

Shame that is acknowledged and owned requires maturity to drive healthier and restorative behaviour.

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Jake Wiskerchen's avatar

My pleasure!

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