Have you ever met people going through a tough situation at home or a complete disaster in their personal life and yet nothing was surfacing when they were working? How were they doing it? How do some women manage to run a team, at work, with an iron hand, but turn into a loving mom at home and a loving partner? The secret is called compartmentalization. The thing is it should not become a way of living.
How does compartmentalization work?
It’s a defence mechanism that supresses thoughts and emotions relating to a certain aspect. You are basically separating things into categories and sections. Example: you decide that when you work you are focused, serious, tough, fully rational, while when the work is over you are playful, joyful, laughing a lot, etc. This is a simple example. More often you’ll encounter this when someone goes through let’s say a break up or a loss, that person is completely messed up, BUT in order to cope with life, he or she decides to split things. So that person will allow herself / himself to cry out at home and completely crash, while at work will stay sharp. It doesn’t sound fun, doesn’t it?
Go back to the first setence in the previous paragraph. It’s a defence mechanism! It’s a temporary block, meant to prevent certain emotions or anxieties overwhelm you. Temporary. So it’s not avoidance.
Narcissists on the other hand are the top experts in compartmentalization. However, their approach is rather sociopathic. You can read more about the narcissistic personality here.
You can compartmentalize based on location (at work, at home), based on companionship (when I’m with my loved one, with my friends), based on activities (when I work, when I play, when I drive) or role (as a father, as a professional, as a lover).
Compartmentalization vs cognitive dissonance
Wow. Complicated terms. Not really. You’ve already read above what the first one is. The latter – cognitive dissonance – is, in simple words, a conflict in your brain, usually when your beliefs, values, emotions don’t match reality. Or when reality contradicts your beliefs causing conflicting values or conflicting emotions.
So there’s room for a legit question here: if I am feeling sad and I act at work as if everything is ok, doesn’t this cause cognitive dissonance? Wouldn’t this contradict the advice on reducing the gap between projected image and the real You, as explained here? Well, the question makes sense and the answer to it is no.
Compartmentalization is a voluntary effort of separating things in your life without pretending they are not there or ignoring them. It’s a defence mechanism meant to help you cope with a difficult period in life. Cognitive dissonance would be to pretend everything is fine, when your house is on fire (like in a familiar meme).
The down side of compartmentalization
While compartmentalization is rational it can make you vulnerable, because you are sort of operating with different identities. You’ve got the rational, sharp You at work and the head-in-the-sky You at home.
Remember this is a defence mechanism. It can help you overcome certain periods in your life, but it shouldn’t be the way you normally operate. When doing this for the long term, it’s damaging.
Conclusion
Ideally you should always face your emotions and allow yourself to go through them. You should also reduce as much as possible the gap between your projected image and real self. However sometimes it’s not possible.
In my own experience, a loss can hit you when you’re expected to perform on a new job or when a dozen of people are awaiting instructions while your personal life is a mess. The quick way to cope with it and get out of it is to compartmentalize. However, even in this case you need to allow yourself to crash and treat yourself humanly. No matter what mindset you have or what motivation speech you’ve listened to on your podcast: you’re not a machine, you’re not made of iron. Be gentle with yourself and treat yourself as your best friend.
At the end of the day You are the only person that will want what’s best for You, throughout your whole life, no matter what You do.
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