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Chapter  
4

Choosing a Career Can Be Emotional Work!

By Shanquela Williams (with Amy Foy Hageman)

Chapter  
5

Learning to Test Negative Assumptions

by Eli Davis

Chapter  
8

Clearing Emotions Can Be a Daunting Task

by Carole Marmell

Chapter  
17

We Will Learn Today

By Charles Shaw

Chapter  
15

Act Out of Values Rather than Emotions

By Ashleigh Gardner-Cormier

Chapter  

I Need to Understand Where She's Coming From

By Ashley Ochoa

Chapter  
18

Testing! Testing! Digging Deeper into Initial Resistance to Change

By Erika Young

Chapter  
21

Goal: Create A Culturally Responsive Organization

By Sylvia R. Epps

Chapter  
19

Introducing New Ways of Thinking into a Risk-Averse Organization

By Melissa Simon

Chapter  
6

Dashed Hopes and Expectations

By Tracy Forman

Chapter  
13

How Do I Deal with a Hostile Work Environment?

By Orfelinda Coronado

Chapter  
16

Compassion Wins the Day

By Treshina Smith

Chapter  
20

Anticipate a Certain Amount of Resistance

By Mary H. Beck

Chapter  
7

Can Anyone Be a Social Worker? The Challenge of Correcting Misinformation

By Alicia Beatrice

Chapter  
9

What You See Depends on the Lens You Use

By Steven Hayes

Chapter  
4

Choosing a Career Can Be Emotional Work!

By Shanquela Williams (with Amy Foy Hageman)

Chapter  
5

Learning to Test Negative Assumptions

By Eli Davis

Chapter  
3

Hijacked!

By Emily Schwartz Kemper

As a freshman in college, I felt confident about my life’s path. I majored in Nursing, consistent with my history of service to others. A bonus was the great group of friends I had in the nursing program.

Vanishing Confidence

By my sophomore year, however, I was feeling completely lost. I was bored with the nursing program but extremely stressed out at the idea of trying to find another major. What else could I do that would serve others but also guarantee a decent income? My friends didn’t seem to understand what I was going through. But how could they? I was too embarrassed to even tell them I wasn’t enjoying the classes the way they were. And though I had a close and supportive family, the idea of telling them what I was feeling was anxiety-producing. The confident path I had been on vanished. I was left spinning.

When I found my way to the guidance counselor at my university, she asked me all sorts of questions about my life and interests. I remember talking a lot about my history as a volunteer with the Salvation Army and local nursing home.

After hearing all this, she asked, “Have you considered social work as a career?”

I laughed out loud. “Isn’t the whole point of college to get a degree that prepares me to support myself? Social workers work really hard, put in long hours at all times of day and night, and often place themselves in possibly dangerous situations—separating kids from their parents, for example. And all that for little to no money. No way do I want to get into that profession!”

“I hear your doubts, but social work seems like such a natural fit with your past history and values,” she responded. “How about at least exploring it as an option? What if you enrolled in just one course, Introduction to Social Work, next semester? Just to see what all the field entails. Even if you don’t end up majoring in social work, the course would count as an elective.”

Finding My Own Way

I did enroll in the course the guidance counselor recommended, but also decided to do some in-depth research on my own on the field of social work. I figured if I didn’t find anything I was interested in, maybe I could get out of the social work class and find something else. But the more I researched, the more surprised I became at the vastness of the field. I found jobs I never would have guessed fell under social work education. And many of those answered my felt calling of helping others, as much if not more than nursing would.

I started seriously considering changing my major from Nursing to Social Work. But if I felt lost before, now I was panicked. With the nursing major it seemed simple—my family and friends were all on board and I would easily get a job with steady pay. Changing my major to Social Work would totally uproot that plan. I couldn’t see a direct path to success. And I knew that my friends and family would think the same things I had thought—that social work would be all work and little pay.

I decided to separate myself from my friends during this time of indecisiveness. I felt a need to focus on myself and my well-being. I was afraid spending time with loved ones right then would only inflame my anxieties. I would only hear more doubts about a career path and financial security.

Emotional Clearing and Affirmations Reveal My Path

I started journaling. I wrote everything I could think of—how scared I was to change majors, the opinions of my friends, the judgments I’d probably receive, the possibility that I would invest so much in my education only to gain a low-paying job, the agony of not having as clear a career path as nursing provided, the fear of being an outcast among my friends. The list went on.

After several days of writing down predominantly negative emotions, I thought of Jeremiah 29:11. (“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”) This prompted me to write down affirmations:

This is my path and there will be a way.

This is MY journey, and I WILL prosper.

I WILL find a job that allows me to serve while blessing me with abundance.

After days of these affirmations, I felt able to believe in myself, and in my decision to change my major to social work. I also felt prepared to talk to my friends and family about it. When I did so, I also told them of all the research I had done, and my discovery that social work was a giant field offering a vast variety of job roles and opportunities. Some of my friends were surprised, and as I expected, quite skeptical. But many of them were happy for me. They didn’t seem to have the intensity of judgment I expected.

I had found my path.

Want Decision-Making Clarity? Try Emotional Clearing
(Reflections on Shanquela’s Story)

Shanquela was emotionally hijacked—a state of intense emotion which blocked her ability to think clearly. Her story describes the steps she took to clear those emotions. It is also a story of how making assumptions can cause unnecessary pain.

Shanquela had a mistaken set of assumptions about the field of social work. While social work as a career choice might be aligned with her values of service to others, she believed it would not satisfy her goal of financial stability. She tested that assumption through her conversations with the guidance counselor, by gathering more information about social work as a profession, and by stepping up to take the introductory course. As she gained new information, she moved from the answer (certainty about what she knew) into the question (openness to new viewpoints) and felt better about possibilities available to her.

Yet new information also brought a new set of dilemmas. She became even more anxious when she imagined telling her friends and family members about her contemplated change of academic major. She believed they shared her views of the field of social work and would disapprove such a change. She was afraid they would think less of her if she switched career paths.

With this new set of worries, she became immobilized and fearful. Recognizing that her intense emotion about the decision was clouding her ability to think clearly, she withdrew temporarily from interactions with friends and family: “I just needed to find a way to calm down and accept this new life path, unknowable as it was.”

Once something happens that triggers us emotionally, we have three options: (1) pretend we don’t feel what we feel by suppressing the underlying emotions, (2) find something to take our mind off our constricting, swirling emotions by finding a temporary distraction (which leaves the emotion suppressed), or (3) resolve the unacknowledged emotions by facing the emotional upset. Shanquela wisely chose the last, rather than leaving the suppressed emotions to fester, or to reveal themselves later in unanticipated ways.

Although she didn’t have a name for it at the time, Shanquela used what is called uncensored journaling, an effective tool for clearing emotions. She describes writing “everything I could think of”—her fears and uncertainty, her concern about the reactions of her friends and family, even her fear “of being an outcast among my friends.” This last seems improbable, but when the amygdala (the seat of emotional processing in our brain) has control and is reacting faster than the prefrontal cortex (where perception, interpretation, analysis, and decision-making occur), it skews perceptions.

Shanquela was not explicit in her story about when she reached the release point (an important stage in the uncensored journaling process). She does explain that writing about her negative emotions for a significant amount of time freed her up to identify positive emotions to replace the negative ones. Welcoming and amplifying positive emotions is another important way to clear negative emotions and build resilience.

Her use of uncensored journaling was intuitive, preceding her formal introduction to the principles for Conscious Change. With a fuller understanding of the process by which emotions influence thoughts and behaviors, she can now intentionally utilize uncensored journaling, or perhaps other techniques, to clear negative emotions. Gratitude journaling is also helpful in building positive emotions.

Shanquela had great instincts for how to manage her emotional hijack. In the future, she will likely recognize her hijacks sooner and be more prepared to alleviate the emotional build up. Practice makes perfect. The more you practice clearing emotions, the better you become at it.

Conscious Change Principles and Skills in This Chapter

  • Test Negative Assumptions
    • Move from the answer into the question
    • Look for multiple points of view
    • Consciously test your negative assumptions
  • Clear Emotions
    • Avoid emotional suppression
    • Clear your negative emotions
    • Build your positive emotions
  • Conscious Use of Self
    • Build resilience through self-affirmation

About Shanquela

Shanquela Williams received a Master of Social Work from the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work (GCSW), where she was introduced to the field of health behavior. She is currently a candidate for a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health. Shanquela also worked as a financial coach for two years and is passionate about the influence of financial health on young adults.

Shanquela enjoys spending time with her family, traveling the world, and volunteering at a foster care facility. She is committed to using her experiences to bridge gaps and enhance communities, local and global.

She first encountered the Conscious Change skills in a course entitled Dynamics of Leadership at GSCW, taught by the late Mary Harlan.