In this episode of Yellow Chair Collective’s podcast, therapist Megan Soun discusses a challenge she often addresses in session with clients – the ongoing journey towards work-life balance. With host Helen Garcia, she explores how the hit drama show Severance explores this goal, and offers some helpful lessons and reminders for understanding how your career can fit into your life.
Severance is a show in which employees at Lumen Industries can undergo a medical procedure to create two separate selves, their work self (“innie”) and their personal self (“outie”). Lumen’s basic premise is that one can achieve work-life balance by literally separating work and life. For the main cast of characters, each of their two selves doesn’t know any information about their other self, or about what their other self experiences.
For those of us who struggle to find work-life balance, it is certainly an interesting premise. Is it possible to achieve a perfect balance? If it is possible, is it beneficial? While we may not be able to separate ourselves in reality, it can still be helpful to consider the possible answers to these questions. Shows like Severance allow us to explore narratives we may otherwise never experience. This can be surprisingly helpful when we are feeling stuck in our everyday lives.
Separation of Work and Life
Many therapy clients report struggling to find work-life balance. But it truly is an elusive goal, in part because there will always be a new thing to address whether it is at work or in life. You may find that your work-life balance feels good one week, and then completely off the next week even if you had done nothing different. It is common to hear advice about compartmentalizing your work life and your personal life. For example, you have likely been told to avoid thinking about work outside of work hours. Advice like this, however, often feels impossible to put into practice and sustain.
As Severance demonstrates, it isn’t possible to sever yourself into two parts. You are not a puzzle that can be broken into distinct pieces. Even in the show, the characters’ work and personal selves begin to affect each other. This is a great example of the fact that we are single entities, and we bring all parts of ourselves to all parts of our lives. When you are at work, you are still the person who has all your hobbies and personal interests. And when you are not at work, you are still the person with all of your work experience and skills.
Rather than forcing yourself to compartmentalize, it can help to create more space between your work and your life. For example, you can mark the transition between ending your work day and starting your personal time by practicing a grounding ritual. This ritual can look like changing your clothes and moving your body, or giving yourself a change in sensory experience (going outside, lighting a candle, drinking a non-caffeinated tea, etc). This can help your brain recognize that you are ‘closing’ work for the day, and opening your headspace to the rest of your life. For those who work at home, it can also be helpful to carve out time and space for work, and to maintain clear markers between work and the rest of your home life.
Work, Career, and Identity
For many of us, work occupies a significant portion of our time in our adulthood. Thus, it is no wonder that our work and our career often becomes part of how view ourselves. However, as Megan shares in this episode, it can be more harmful than helpful to intertwine your work with your identity. When work becomes part of your identity, you become more susceptible to work-related stress and burnout. In other words, your mood and motivation can become very dependent on how things are going for you at work. Our work performance is often determined by so many factors beyond our individual efforts. But if your work is tied to your identity, you may feel like your struggles at work mean you are struggling in your life as a whole.
Overly identifying with your work can also lead you to placing your inherent value in the hands of your workplace. This often happens unintentionally, and without any awareness. You may become overly attached to your workplace, as demonstrated by the unhealthy loyalty the Severance characters have to their company. For example, if you receive negative feedback at work, you may take it to mean something about you as a person, and feel the need to overcompensate moving forward. Or if something unfortunate happens at work, even if it has nothing to do with you, you may feel pressured to make up for it. When you do not have your own sense of your identity outside of work, it can be dangerously easy for your work to begin to define you.
Self-Worth and Career Expectations
If work has become an integral part of your identity, know that it is not your fault. Here in the U.S., the ‘American dream’ revolves around ‘a good job’ and ‘a stable career.’ In addition to broader society emphasizing work as a fundamental part of your life, you may find that your friends and family emphasize your work too. When your job becomes the most important part of your life, or the main factor to be admired for or proud of, it can make us feel like our worth is tied to our career. This can look like feelings of guilt for not having a high-paying job, or shame for not getting a promotion.
It is important to remember that we are multifaceted beings who exist beyond our work. You are more than your work-related achievements and your career climbing. Consider your personality and your values. What are some of the things you like about yourself? Do you live your life in accordance to your values? If so, you should be proud of that. Your personal interests make up a part of you too, and your specific constellation of joys and passions make you unique. Outside of yourself, consider your relationships and how you show up in them. Think about how your friends and family care about you, and what they like about you. Your authentic self consists of so many different parts, and is so much more than the jobs that you have had.
Prioritizing Life Over Work
It can be difficult to feel like you have the time, energy, and resources to prioritize your life outside of work. However, since work does take so much from us, it’s even more important to prioritize your life and be intentional with your personal time. Many of us can relate to the feeling of wanting to turn our brains off after work and do something passive, such as scrolling social media or rewatching shows and movies we’ve already seen. Unfortunately, when we allow ourselves to ‘numb out’ after work, we don’t really get the chance to enjoy our personal time. We don’t get to recharge properly before the next work day either.
It can help to give yourself some diversity in your personal life. Give yourself the chance to do different interests and hobbies. Make time to do activities with your loved ones. Go try new things that you’ve never done before, even if it’s just going to a different coffee shop or a park that’s a bit further away. Try some new creative pursuits, the more imperfect the better. When you fill your life with different joys, you will find that work occupies a smaller piece of the pie.
It can help to incorporate some small joys into your work day too. These small joys don’t need to have anything to do with the work itself. It’s more about the way you show up. For example, you may want to incorporate some color and creativity into your workspace. Or you may want to wear clothes that make you feel good, or have a desk candle that brings you peace and calm. However you choose to approach joy at work and in your personal life, your job should not be the only place where your life feels fulfilling.
Managing Dissatisfaction with Work
It’s okay if you don’t like your work. It’s okay if you don’t like your job, your company, or even your industry. In Severance, one of the main characters, Heli, has a work self who hates her work and takes extreme measures to try to leave her work. Like Heli, you might not feel like you are a part of your company ‘family,’ even if your colleagues do. You might not enjoy the perks and benefits either, many of which are designed to keep you at the company. You might also find that you don’t resonate with or appreciate any of the external validation you receive in regards to your job or your career.
If you are so dissatisfied at work, it’s important to tune into yourself and be curious about the reasons why. It might be as straightforward as a toxic work environment. Or it might have something to do with misalignment with your values and your priorities. Whatever the reason, you are allowed to move away from your work being the most important part of your adult life. Give yourself the opportunity to talk to people with different views around your job, and around work as a whole. Hearing different opinions may broaden your perspective, and/or affirm your viewpoints. Just remember not to weigh the views of others over your own. You want to ground yourself in your feelings and your wants, needs, and goals too.
Moving Forward
Most of us will have to work for most of our adult lives. You may never love your work, or you may love your work for a time and then fall out of love with it. Regardless of whether you find a ‘soul career’ that is the perfect alignment of your skills and passions, work does not have to be the only place you find meaning and fulfillment. Remember that you have value and worth beyond your job. Allow yourself to live your life outside of work, and to find purposes beyond building a career and achieving a certain salary. Life isn’t about finding the perfect job at the perfect company with the perfect benefits. It’s about figuring out who you are, who you want to be, what you want to keep in your life, and how you want to spend the time that you do have.
Final Note
Severance offers its audience a unique opportunity to explore the idea of work-life balance. But as we see in the show, complete separation between work and life is both impossible and more harmful than helpful. You are a whole person, and your whole self is present in every context through which you move. That being said, you can still find ways to navigate a work-life balance that works for you, even if it is in flux from week to week. Remember that your work is just one part of your life, not your entire life.
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At our Los Angeles, CA, and New York City, NY-based therapy practice, we have many skilled, trauma-informed therapists who can provide an empowering therapeutic experience. For your added convenience and simplicity, we offer online therapy for anyone in the state of California or New York. We know that guilt and shame are painful experiences, and that the path to finding meaning and figuring out how to be a good person can be challenging. We want to support you on your journey. Follow the steps below to begin.
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