It was a normal day at the office. The “office” meaning my half of the bedroom that I share with my husband. Up until recently, our bedroom had been split up into three sections. There was our bedroom, with the bed in the middle, and then on his side was his “office” and on the other side was mine. We’d worked this way for some time, since our kids had the remaining three bedrooms upstairs. It worked fine. At the time, my desk faced the wall. I enjoyed my job, my role, the people I worked with, and the culture overall. Things were lovely, until it wasn’t.

A few years in, and management changed. Shifts in the culture started taking place. There wasn’t anything that was too alarming, so I continued to stay, work hard, and enjoy my team. Until that “normal” day came.

What made it normal was that I’d spoken to my engineering manager that morning, saying I was fine to skip our 1:1 since I didn’t have anything pressing and I wanted to finish up on some specific work. Everything was normal. Until a message from a developer arrived in a direct message declaring, “They just fired me,” and then her account was deactivated. The team was brought into an emergency meeting. My Engineering Manager wasn’t there. Actually, he was calling me, but I was in the meeting and couldn’t pick up the phone. Those of us remaining learned that our manager, as well as two developers, had been let go. We were a small team, and experiencing the absence of three people was a massive shift. As my husband described it later, it was like Thanos showed up and snapped his fingers. My friends were gone.

It was devastating. Thankfully, the powers that be said we could take the day off if we needed to. I don’t remember all that I did that day, but from that movement forward, coming back to my desk felt like coming back to the scene of a crime. I had to make a change.

At least with a physical office, if you leave or you are let go, you no longer have to mentally deal with the physical space. A physical office allows you to mentally make the shift away from what you no longer have to see. If someone you worked with was fired or let go, you will know they are no longer there, and maybe the physicality itself is helpful for the transition. With remote work, your desk is your desk is your desk. All the work experiences you’ve had will always be in the same space. So, how do you deal with the physical space in your home when you’ve experienced stress or trauma?

One way, according to Naomi Wilde is to rearrange your space. Making some redesign choices can help you tap into creativity, reduce stress, and help you embrace change.

You may already do this unintentionally. I’ve always been someone who occasionally rearranges the future, just to break up the mood. But this inclination has also helped me move on after I’ve experienced sadness in my work life. After that particular day, it didn’t take me long to shift my office furniture around. I needed to feel like I was in a different space, even if I wasn’t physically in one.

There are many ways you can do this using very little to zero funds. You can move around the furniture in your office, pull in different art from around the house, or switch out the photos currently hanging on the wall. One thing I’ve done is to finish a long-time craft project (framing my Granny’s handkerchiefs). This replaced the watercolor map of the world that hung above my desk.

Now that I’m out of work, I decided to update my office again. I no longer work downstairs from my bedroom. With my oldest kiddo out of the house, I took over his bedroom. This time, I shifted my desk from facing the room and being backed into a corner to facing the door. I framed some art I bought some time back and hung it on the wall behind me. I moved my Grandma’s sewing machine table to the center of the back wall, with a table lamp for extra light. I guess I need that Ancestor energy close by.

The day after making these changes, I just felt better, like I could move forward. My office felt more “mine”, and I felt prepared to take on another challenge.

If you’ve experienced trauma or sadness in a physical space, I’d encourage you to rearrange it. Make it your own. You don’t need to spend a ton of money or even a lot of time. Sometimes a quick physical change can be the boost you need to keep going.

From my heart to yours 🌻 ☕

Till next time…

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