Work-husbands. Boss-parents. Co-worker siblings: Do your work relationships hit a bit too close to home?

Oct 5

4 min read

“We’re like a family here.”

How many of us have used this line in an off-handed way to describe the closeness of the organizations in which we work?

We had no idea just how accurate we were being.

I’ve experienced all of these dynamics in my 15 years of work in the corporate world:

bosses who felt like surrogate parents, with whom I mirrored the fawning and emotional regulation I’d honed in my birth family.
co-workers who matched the emotional volatility and competition of my sibling relationship, where I could perform my peacemaking skills between them and the people in charge.
employees who felt like my own children, who I protected from harm and raised to adopt my own beliefs and traditions.

Perhaps you can also identify relationships in your work environment that feel a little too familiar.

Where the role you play is one you’ve perfected for years.

Where the costume fits just like it was made for you.

This is not by accident. We talk about how the people we date mirror our parents – of course the people we choose to work for do, as well.

What family patterns look like at work

It’s only since leaving my 9 to 5 and working mostly independently in my own business that I’ve realized how much my family has pervaded my work life all these years.

Because even though I work for myself now, they’re still here.

Before, it felt like this:

Showing up to meetings and playing a familiar role: for me it was scanning the room for upset, staying silent when things got heated, and taking on whatever tasks would smooth things over quickly.
Navigating and measuring my own ambitions against others’: I let myself ask for a raise only when it was convenient; I minimized my contributions to avoid too much attention.
Allying to my organization even when it didn’t make sense: I kept the ugly things secret and maintained the public image of being a happy family where nothing bad ever happened.

Now, as a solopreneur it presents a bit differently:

Every time I want to focus on a new project, there’s a family crisis
When I start to get successful at work, something happens in my family life that makes me question my abilities
My family doesn’t understand the work I do, so I assume no one else will, either

For you, it might be different. There might be other roles you played in your family that are mirrored at work. Other “traditions” you kept in the home in which you grew up that you’re still keeping now with people who aren’t your blood.

Here are a few other examples:

self-abandonment to preserve peace
instigating conflict to receive attention
emotionally regulating others to feel safe
caregiving or over-nurturing
aversion to teamwork or collaboration
equating constructive feedback as an attack
people-pleasing
fighting for space in group environments
performing competence to impress others
over-achieving to prove worth

These are not just habits or personality traits – they’re patterns we learned and which were reinforced very early in our lives.

And sometimes, they can make showing up for work extremely uncomfortable.

The good news is: we can change them.

How these dynamics quietly limit you

As a corporate manager turned clairvoyant, I’m commonly asked by my clients to look at the energy of their career space.

I get questions like:

What’s my path?
How do I stop over-giving at work so I can feel better at home?
The job I have now is fine and pays the bills, but I feel like there’s something else I’m meant to do.
Why does work feel so draining?

And when I observe these energies, it has so little to do with the actual work people are doing, and everything to do with the relationship dynamics, unspoken agreements, and energetic patterns they find themselves perpetuating – often to their own detriment.

It’s important to look at the energy in your work relationships because they contribute to things like:

how much money you can earn (and what’s required from you to earn it)
how much power and influence you can have
how safe it is to be seen and heard
how comfortable and well your body can be at work
how much attention and recognition you can receive from others
how much joy and fulfillment you can receive from your work

If you feel limited in any of these areas, that limit likely goes back much further than you think. It’s an energetic imprint.

If you've been ignoring it elsewhere, it will show up at work

Whether you realize it or not, you’re working with your family.

And if your family was an uncomfortable, demanding, or threatening place to be, work may feel uncomfortable, demanding, or threatening.

This realization fundamentally changes the game. Because if you’re unhappy at work across different organizations and positions, simply finding a new job or getting that promotion may not be the fix you think it will.

Healing your relationship with work itself (and how you get to show up with the people there) is where you’ll actually start to see the shift you’re looking for.

You deserve to feel at home in your work – but it doesn’t need to be the home you remember.

Want to heal your relationship with work?

My Corporate Detox program offers 1-on-1 support and small group workshops to dismantle the systems that make work feel hard: forced productivity, rigid schedules, and constant output. Reset your mind and body to make work a place where you can be comfortably yourself without performing.