Being patient and being in denial are two different things. It’s okay to be patient, but when your patience and kindness ends up getting abused by those around you, then it might be time to draw the line. Denial comes in many ways, and you first need to be aware for it to stop.

Dr. Jane Greer is a Marriage and Family Therapist, psychotherapist, author, radio host, and creator of “SHRINK WRAP”, the popular commentary on what we can learn from the trials and triumphs of not only celebrity, but all relationships. Dr. Greer is recognized as a leading national expert in love and relationships through her media collaborations and professional insights. She is the author of six books, including her latest, Am I Lying To Myself? How to Overcome Denial and See the Truth.

In this episode, Jane talks about what denial looks like in the workplace and how you can deal with it to overcome freeloaders and stay-stuck complainers. She also shares some of her amazing tips on how you can effectively set boundaries.

What you will learn from this episode:

  • Discover what denial looks in the workplace and why you need to establish boundaries
  • Learn what  stay-stuck complainers are and what you can do if you’ve come across them
  • Understand why you need to trust your gut and take action on what you see

 

“Coming out of denial is seeing the reality. We stay in denial in order to feel safe and secure, but it’s a big price.”

– Jane Greer

 

Valuable Free Resource:

Topics Covered:

01:29 – What does denial look like in the workplace?

02:57 – Is workplace denial more prevalent in women than men?

04:50 – How can you know if you’re actually lying to yourself in the workplace?

08:15 – How do you deal with the denial of others?

11:57 – Once you’ve acknowledged denial, what do you do?

15:15 – What are stay-stuck complainers and how does it look in the workplace?

18:24 – Why is it important to set boundaries?

20:40 – Do the stay-stuck complainers eventually get the message?

22:35 – What is whistleblowing in the workplace?

25:04 – Dr. Greer’s top tip: Trust your gut. Seeing is believing. If you’re seeing it, believe it. Write it down. 

27:54 – What is the ”going nowhere” relationship and what are their “watch out” signs?

Key Takeaways:

“If you’re not dealing with denial and seeing things clearly, you’re making a bad situation better.” – Jane Greer

“People have expectations of you. And without having clarity, in terms of what your own expectations are, you attempt to meet those expectations.” – Jane Greer

“You need to take care of yourself because they are not going to take care of you. It’s just that simple! They’ll take care of you if your needs don’t interfere with their needs.” – Jane Greer

“You need to figure out what it means to you to have your clarity… because then you’ll be able to handle the other person’s angry reaction and disappointment.” – Jane Greer

“Setting the boundaries is tricky because it means you’ve got to be clear how much you’re going to listen.” – Jane Greer

Ways to Connect with Jane Greer:

Ways to Connect with Sarah E. Brown:

 

Full Episode Transcript:

Jane Greer  00:00  

If you’re not dealing with denial and seeing things clearly, you’re making a bad situation better and it’s really worse than you think. And it needs attention, and it needs focus.

Sarah E. Brown  00:18  

Hello, everyone. Welcome to The KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women, where we talk about challenges senior female leaders face in being happy and successful at work. I’m your host, Dr. Sarah E. Brown.

Sarah E. Brown  00:38  

My guest today is Dr. Jane Greer. She is a marriage and family therapist, a psychotherapist, author, radio host and creator of “SHRINK WRAP”, the popular commentary on what we can learn from the trials and triumphs of not only celebrity, but all relationships. Through her media collaborations and professional insights, Dr. Greer is recognized as a leading national expert in love and relationships. She’s the author of six books, including the one we’re going to be referencing today, Am I Lying To Myself? Jane, welcome!

Jane Greer  01:18  

Thank you. Thank you for having me!

Sarah E. Brown  01:21  

So, give me some examples of what denial in the workplace might look like in terms of denying our needs, for example?

Jane Greer  01:30  

Well, it starts with denying our needs in terms of the hours we work, workload we take on, how much responsibility we handle in terms of our own job, and then taking on assignments, workloads of other people and negating our needs, denying that it’s important for us to leave at six o’clock to go home for dinner, to be there with our children, that this report has to be in by the morning– it’s more important. And so, denial is easy to say, well, it’s just what we tell ourselves is, “It’s just for now. It’ll get better.” “It’s just this project.” Also, denial comes up into place in terms of colleagues and bosses– how they interact with you. What I see is a lot of times, colleagues will confiscate ideas, or cut somebody out of the meeting– over talk them, interrupt them. And we tell ourselves, “Well, they didn’t mean that. They didn’t realize it”, or “I wasn’t making a good point. What they have to say is more important.” So that’s some of the ways in which you can see denial raise its head in the workplace.

Sarah E. Brown  02:48  

Mhmm. And I can see how we’re lying to ourselves. So just out of curiosity, do you know if this is more prevalent in women than it is in men?

Jane Greer  02:57  

I think it’s pretty balanced. Because everybody in a work organization has to deal with competitive colleagues, demanding bosses, difficult hours, expectations from bosses and colleagues, to what I call demander’s denial to meet their demands. And I don’t think it matters whether you’re male or female, because the demand for performance is constant. And it’s there for both men and women. I deal with it with all the men that I work with, and I deal with it with all the women that I work with.

Sarah E. Brown  03:34  

Well, just out of curiosity, so if denial is the same, do we lie to ourselves the same way? Or do we lie to ourselves differently?

Jane Greer  03:42  

Everybody lies to themselves in the same way. There are certain components of denial, what I call “wishing and hoping”, where we focus on how we would like things to be. We’re wishing and hoping that the job improves. We’re wishing and hoping that our boss notices that we’re putting in these long hours and comes and says, “You know what? You’ve been really working hard, and you’ve done a great job. Why don’t you go home tonight.” And so, the wishing and hoping doesn’t matter if you’re male or female. The wishing and hoping can go on if the boss got angry and blew up at you in the office. And you go home and you’re thinking, “Well, I hope tomorrow he’ll be in a better mood. Tomorrow, he’ll appreciate and see that I’ve really worked hard this month and be positive.” And so, wishing and hoping is a very core component of denial for men and women. 

Sarah E. Brown  04:34  

Okay, I see that. So, you talk about “watch out” signals or warning signals in your book around relationships. Are there warning signals in the workplace that we could be attentive to, to actually alert us that we’re lying to ourselves?

Jane Greer  04:50  

Yeah, well, you know, when we talk about lying to ourselves– that’s denial! Trying to make the situation better. Trying to, telling ourselves, “It could be worse. It’s not so bad.” And the reality is, it’s worse than you think. If you’re not dealing with denial and seeing things clearly, you’re making a bad situation better. And it’s really worse than you think. And it needs attention. And it needs focus. And so, watch out signs begin when you start to see people making demands, expecting performance, expecting you to stay late, to not complain, to come in early, to just do the report that they tell you. You know, if they throw something at you at the last minute, except they’re coming in and out of your office without knocking, or expecting you to leave your door open all day, and just bombarding you with their needs when they come. The watch out signs are when somebody else’s needs, a colleague or a boss’s needs, start to overwhelm and bombard you, and your needs start to get eclipsed. And when that starts to happen, pay attention to the way you talk to yourself because that’s when you go into denial.

Sarah E. Brown  06:12  

Okay, that makes sense! So, the gist of it is we have to become aware of when other people’s needs are taking priority over our own without setting correct boundaries. 

Jane Greer  06:27  

Well said! 

Sarah E. Brown  06:28  

But it also means we’ve got to be very clear about what our own needs are. And I have found that, particularly among women in the workplace, they don’t always know what those needs are.

Jane Greer  06:40  

That’s very, very true. I think what happens with a lot of women in the workplace is they come into it in the same way they deal with friends and family– being empathic, caring, overextending, trying to be helpful, doing more than they really realistically can do. And as a result, winding up depleted, and not even realizing that they’re being taken advantage of. And thinking that if they listened to their colleagues’ problems, that person will help them out in a jam. That person will just go away feeling better and relieved, and you’ll still have three hours worth of work to contend with. And so, one of the distinctions between men and women in the workplace is that men do have clarity that it’s just business. They’re doing business. And they’re not letting their emotions and desire to help, look out for, take care of the people around them, interfere. And so, women’s denial comes into play around looking out for and taking care of other colleagues and people on the job ahead of themselves.

Sarah E. Brown  07:56  

Ahead of themselves, right! So, you also talk in your book about dealing with the denial of others, when other people are denying what’s going on. Tell us a little bit about how that manifests? How can I see it? What should I do about it? All of- how do I deal with that?

Jane Greer  08:17  

Yeah, that’s a great question. And that is one of the hardest nuts to crack, I tell you! A chunk of my career is devoted with my patients to helping them deal with their denial around a significant other’s denial– be it a parent, a husband, wife, child, or colleague or boss. What this really entails is that people have expectations of you. And without having clarity, in terms of what your own expectations are, you attempt to meet those expectations. I had a patient once, she was working till 11 o’clock at night, because the expectation of her boss who was single was that she would stay late and just keep working and working and working, so the denial was the demand. That was the demand. And her boss could not see that she needed to go home at 10, 9, 7 o’clock for dinner. She couldn’t see it because she was so devoted, and her job was her life. So, her boss was in complete denial. And my patient was expecting the boss to recognize how unfair, how unreasonable her expectations were. This demand, this denial that I call it, that her demands were not a part of her job description. And she couldn’t see that her boss was not going to see it. The only way she was going to make headway is if she had to recognize her boss’s denial. She had to see the demand for denial. They feel entitled and they will just have you keep jumping through hoops to prove you’re a good son, a good daughter, a good employee. And it took a very long time to finally get her to see that she was lying to herself, see through her own denial, see her boss’s denial. I encouraged her to go read her job manual, the job description. I said, “You tell me if, in your job description, it says you’re supposed to work 15 hours a day, that you’re supposed to stay till 11 o’clock and skip dinner? If it’s in there, okay! But if it’s not, then you’re not working according to your job description. And that’s what you need to address with your boss.” And she did! 

Sarah E. Brown  10:41  

Did she? 

Jane Greer  10:41  

Yes! I mean, I was knocking on her head for a couple of months there because it was just so unfair. But this kind of demand, this denial in the workplace, it goes on everywhere! And people just go down the rabbit hole, in terms of trying to get the other person to see that their expectations of you, their demands of you, are not fair. They’re unrealistic. And more importantly, these are people that do a lot, work hard, are always giving and extending, whether it’s on the job or in the family, to a significant other. And the person that they’re trying to devote all their energy to doesn’t see it. So, they’re constantly trying to get them to recognize and acknowledge and see their needs– approve– in order to validate their needs, and it will never happen. That’s what people have to recognize. 

Sarah E. Brown  11:38  

Okay. So, once you’ve recognized that, then do you just confront it? I don’t mean antagonistically. But I mean, do you just go and start addressing your own needs as a way? Or is there anything else you need to do to deal with the fact that, say, for example, your boss is denying something? 

Jane Greer  11:56  

Yeah, here’s the deal. Great question! And I love the word “confront” because what you don’t do is confront the other person. That’s continuing to invest in getting them to see what you’re saying, and not getting through demander’s denial. When you see the denial, you change the way you handle yourself. You start to set boundaries. You start to put limits in place, and you need to learn to tolerate and expect that the other person may be angry, may get upset, may have a reaction– they’re not necessarily going to like it, but that’s okay. You need to take care of yourself because they are not going to take care of you. It’s just that simple! They’ll take care of you if your needs don’t interfere with their needs. If you want days off, and there’s nothing on the calendar– okay, fine! But if they need you to be there to do something, or they want you to stay late because they need to go somewhere and you’re going to pick up the slack. Forget it!

Sarah E. Brown  12:58  

Got it. Okay. All right. So being sensitive to that, and then dealing with it in a very proactive but respectful way is what you’re suggesting.

Sarah E. Brown  13:16  

Hi, this is Sarah Brown, again, the host of The KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women. I hope you are enjoying this episode, and gaining some tips and inspiration on how you can be happier, more successful and experience less stress at work. If you would like to learn more about how you can take control of your career, and do it your way, visit sarahebrown.com. There you will be able to download a free chapter from my book, Let Your Personality Be Your Career Guide. It contains information and exercises on how you can identify your unique interests, strengths and needs, and translate that into career goals that are just right for you. Now back to this informative episode!

Jane Greer  14:10  

Putting your checks and balances into play. You know, I have so many people, whether it’s a parent who wants a phone call, twice a day, every day, once a week, once a month, it doesn’t matter. No matter how much you call, they’ll always say, “Well, why did you call now?” or “Why can’t you call more?”, “Why are you calling me now?” And I say to people, “You need to figure out what it means to you to have your clarity. What do you need to do to feel that you’re being a good employee on the job, a good son, a good daughter?” And that’s what you do. Because then you’ll be able to handle the other person’s angry reaction and disappointment. And eventually they come to respect that they can’t just walk all over you. You know, you can’t do the Mexican hat dance on your head all the time.

Sarah E. Brown  15:04  

So, when you talk in the book about “stay-stuck complainers”, what are you referring to, and what would be an example of that in the workplace?

Jane Greer  15:15  

Stay-stuck complainer– everybody knows one, or has one in their life. That’s the person who’s always complaining about something wrong in their life, something they’re unhappy about. So at work, it’s going to be the person who’s complaining about the work project. The boss isn’t being nice to them. They’re not being included in meetings. They’re not being acknowledged in meetings. One of their colleagues is interrupting them, and nobody’s inviting them to lunch. They’ll complain and complain and complain, and everybody wants to be helpful. We all want to help and make things better for the people we care about. So you jump in, and you start to try and help them. And what you’re met with is, yes, but everything you offer, every suggestion, every piece of advice is rejected. “I tried that. It didn’t work”,  “It’s not going to work,” “I can’t do that,” “I don’t know. I’m afraid,” “I don’t know how to go about that.” And you come away, exhausted and depleted. And they’re happy as a lark, because they vented! The stay-stuck complainer wants to complain. They are not going to do anything! If it’s a family member, you might have somebody who’s always complaining that they’re so depressed. They’re so depressed, they don’t have the energy to go do this. “I’m so lonely. I’m so bored,” if it’s an older parent. “Your mother’s making me miserable,” “Your father’s upsetting me,” “Your brother’s doing this,” “I can’t. I don’t have the time for this.” They’ll complain about any and everything, and will do nothing to change it! If you suggest, “Well, why don’t you talk to him?”– “No, that won’t work!”. “Why don’t you see a doctor? Maybe talk to somebody. Maybe to help to talking it out”– “No, that won’t work!”. “Maybe an antidepressant?”– “No, I’m not taking medication.” They are stuck. They’re not going anywhere. And the hardest piece of it is that they want a big chunk of your attention, and time, and energy. So you need clarity about how much time you’re going to give them. Because I have people who say to me, I get on the phone with a friend, a family member. I’m on for an hour and a half! I’m in the middle of cooking dinner, and I’m listening to her. And somebody was saying to me the other day, “I’m trying to make dinner. My friend calls. She’s having a crisis. She’s in a relationship. The guy didn’t show up. And she’s going on and on and on.” And I said, “Well, did you hang up?” “No. How could I hang up?” I said, “Well, you’re dealing with a stay-stuck complainer. How long has she been in this relationship?” “Oh, about two years.” I said, “Well, you’re not going to solve that in an hour conversation in the middle of your dinner.” “But she’s gonna feel better when she hangs up because she vented. Got her frustration and distress off her chest.” And you’re gonna be aggravated at the frustration and helplessness that she just poured on you. That’s a stay-stuck complainer.

Sarah E. Brown  18:19  

Got it! And so, I guess the antidote is to set boundaries, huh? 

Jane Greer  18:24  

Yeah, setting the boundaries is tricky because it means you’ve got to be clear how much you’re going to listen. And what I tell people to do, and it works, is, I say, “You know, give them permission to complain ahead of time. Tell them, they got 20 minutes to complain on your phone call. And in 20 minutes, you say, ‘Alright, time’s up. I’m hanging up. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I’ll talk to you next week. I hear what’s going on and take care.'” So you can do that by putting, you know, by letting them know, ‘Go ahead, complain. Bring it on!” The other thing is to say in advance, “Look, I have half an hour” or 15 minutes, whatever you are able to give them. So, “I just want to give you the heads up. After 15 minutes, I’m going to have to hang up.” Now, here’s the important piece. After 15 minutes, when you say, “Oh, you know what? It’s 15 minutes, I got to go.” They’re not going to say, “Oh, okay, bye.” They’re just going to keep talking. And talking, you cannot wait for their permission or approval to hang up. You have to say, “I’ve got to go” and you hang up while they’re talking. They will get the message. I had somebody who came in and said to me they were out with their brother-in-law at dinner. And the brother-in-law is a stay-stuck complainer. And every time he and the wife would go to dinner with him. You know, it was just all the problems– he didn’t have enough money, he couldn’t pay his bill, the boss was mean. You know, on and on and on and a litany and a catalogue of all his woes! So finally they said, “Well, the dinner’s over.” The check came. We have to leave. And he’s talking and talking. So the husband, she tells me, “The husband literally puts his feet up on the table, to go, ‘We’ve got to go.’ And this guy kept talking.” I said, “So what’d you do?” She said, “Well, finally, we just got up.” There was no queue. There was no queue to stop him from talking. You’ve got to just leave, hang up, get up, walk out.

Sarah E. Brown  20:32  

Interesting! Well, actually, I think you’re probably right. That’s about all you can do. And do they eventually get the message?

Jane Greer  20:40  

Well, they come to respect it. They don’t get the message whereby they self-limit or talk less, but they come to finally hang up when you say “I’ve got to go.” They wouldn’t hang up. You know, instead of a half an hour, or maybe three or four minutes of going on, “Okay, have a good week. All right. I’ll talk to you. All right, I’ll be in touch.” You get a couple of goodbyes, but you hang up. It’s not the relaunch of a whole new problem, because that’s what happens. You say, “Alright, I’ve got to go.” And they go, “Oh, but you know, what am I going to do about so-and-so? So she told me this and that.” And suddenly they’ve launched a whole new question and a whole new problem. And you’re on the hook again.

Sarah E. Brown  21:24  

I’ve had that happen to me, by the way. You know, so it’s very good advice to just hang up.

Jane Greer  21:29  

Thank you. 

Sarah E. Brown  21:31  

It’s very good.

Jane Greer  21:32  

It is not easy because everybody wants the other person to say, “Okay”, that we want to be understood. We want the other person to understand our needs and to see us and to say, “Okay, I’ve been talking to you for now. I get it, you gotta go.” Uh-uh.

Sarah E. Brown  21:48  

Not gonna happen. It ain’t gonna happen with a stay-stuck complainer.

Jane Greer  21:52  

Not at all! Not, in the least. 

Sarah E. Brown  21:54  

So, Jane, one of the things that struck me as I was reading your book, and particularly thinking about denial in the workplace, but more importantly, denying other people’s denial, is I wondered about the implications for whistleblowing, and how much we might really be observing? Illegal activity is one thing, but really unethical activity is another thing even if it doesn’t quite meet the criteria for illegality. Is that playing a big role in terms of just glossing things over and not dealing with it?

Jane Greer  22:35  

Absolutely! Look, denial is how we avoid pain, difficulties, unpleasantries and, you know, in the worst case scenario– death, loss, trauma. We say, “That can’t be. No way! That couldn’t happen. It’s not real. It can’t happen.” We do it with small things. People see traffic signs, and go, “Nah, that was an hour ago. It’s clear up,” and drove right into traffic. Or you hear, “It’s gonna rain” and you look at it and you go, “No, it looks fine now”, because we don’t want to be bothered by being put out, going out of our way. So whistleblowing, not only are you going to be put out and going out of your way, but you may put yourself out of job because you’ll put yourself into potential harm’s way where people-

Sarah E. Brown  23:29  

There’s a high price to play. A high price to pay for blowing the whistle. I get it!

Jane Greer  23:36  

Yeah, absolutely! So denial is a way to, one of the other components that I talk about, is we take a little and turn it into a lot. And we take a lot and turn it into a little. So if there’s a lot of bad behavior going on, we minimize it. We negate it. “Oh, I’m imagining it. No, that didn’t happen. Oh, it only happened one time.” And we make it disappear. And that’s how we live with things that are difficult to tolerate. 

Sarah E. Brown  24:05  

Mm hmm. I can see going from a lot to a little, and say, “This is a one-time thing. I’m going to just ignore it now. Particularly, if my job is going to be at risk.”

Jane Greer  24:17  

Absolutely! The little-into-the-lot is what we see, what I see a lot in relationships. In a relationship where there’s needs not being met, deprivation, unhappiness, you get a little and you make that work. And you stay in wishing and hoping or they’ll tell you, you know, “We’ll do this. I’ll spend more time with you.” So you believe what you’re told when it’s not going to happen. And you take a little and you make it more than it is. But these are the different sort of components of denial that we all flood ourselves with. 

Sarah E. Brown  24:53  

If you were going to give us one tip to keep in mind to talk back to denial in ourselves or in others with clarity and strength, what would that be?

Jane Greer  25:04  

Trust your gut. Seeing is believing. If you’re seeing it, believe it. Write it down. I have a couple of skills called, “Do the emotional math”, which means put down on paper what you’re seeing so that it’s not “a” happening, but “the” happening. It’s not “happening” one or two times. It’s “the” happening. It’s what happens in the relationship all the time. And you’re in denial if you’re thinking it’s just a little bit, it’s just one time. So really trust your gut. Don’t doubt yourself. Take your doubts seriously. Your doubts are “watch out” signs and clues that something’s wrong, something’s off. Missing the signs is another component of denial. When you doubt yourself and say, “Oh, I’m making too much of it.” When you give somebody the benefit of the doubt, at your own expense, you lose touch with your gut. Trust your gut.

Sarah E. Brown  26:10  

I get that. And for people that are wondering about their gut, I’m one, that it’s often hard for me to trust my gut. I like the idea of writing it down because if you write it down today, and you write it down again on Friday, and then again, Thursday of next week, it’s gonna be harder to deny that it’s actually happening.

Jane Greer  26:30  

Well said, and here’s the thing, here’s another piece of denial. The biggest core of denial is surprise! Because we forget, denial enables us to forget. And so if somebody’s living with an alcoholic who says, “On Friday, I’m going to stop drinking.” You know, there’s a big episode of “I’m gonna stop. I promise. Okay, fine.” And life goes back to basics. By Monday, you’ve forgotten! And so everybody who’s in denial, when the behavior happens again, they’re surprised! It’s as if it’s the first time. So when you write it down, it’s not “a happening”, it’s “THE happening”. You see it all over the place. I also have a skill called “thread the needle”. And that means again, write down what you’re hearing somebody telling you they’re going to do, and what you’re seeing them doing, so that you’re not just floating on empty promises, and lip service to what’s going to happen. You see– they did it or they didn’t do it. And that brings you out of denial. Coming out of denial is seeing the reality. We stay in denial in order to feel safe and secure, but it’s a big price.

Sarah E. Brown  27:49  

I can see that. And that would work in the workplace and at home? 

Jane Greer  27:53  

Everywhere!

Sarah E. Brown  27:54  

Everywhere, hmm. Jane, what question should I have asked you that I didn’t that would help our listeners really come to terms with and understand denial in the workplace, primarily?

Jane Greer  28:08  

Yeah. Well, so I talked about the “going nowhere relationship” in terms of knowing who you’re dating, and that the relationship is going to be stuck. You’re not going to- it’s not going to evolve into the happily ever after that you’re hoping for. And I think that’s true for many people with their jobs as well. That they get into a job, they’re unhappy. They start to make excuses, i.e. denial, “It’ll get better.” “I’m making so much money, how can I leave?” “The boss needs me.” You know, all these variations of why they can’t really take the next step. And so the “going nowhere relationship” can be the going nowhere job. And I think it’s important to take inventory– look at the “watch out” signs. Are you over invested? Are you depleted? Are you extended too much? Are you dealing with demand or just denial around you? What’s happening? And how much are you tolerating and at what price to your own emotional well being? And if you’re in a “go nowhere job”, maybe it’s time to put a feeler out and see about changing jobs and see what choices and options you have.

Sarah E. Brown  29:23  

Well said. Jane, thank you so much for being with me!

Jane Greer  29:27  

Thank you for having me!

Sarah E. Brown  29:29  

Thanks for listening to The KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women. If you like what you’re hearing, please go to iTunes to subscribe, rate us and leave a review. And if you would like more information on how we can help women in your organization to thrive, then go to www.sarahebrown.com. You can sign up for our newsletter, read show notes and learn more about our podcast guests, read my blog, browse through the books or contact us for a chat. Goodbye for now!

Sarah E. Brown
Sarah E. Brown

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