Is your team being triggered by your behaviour?
So have you sent any members of your team on training for mental wellbeing at work?
You should. It’s amazing that we now recognise that mental health actually is important, and can be impacted by work. For better and for worse.
And it’s also wonderful that there are organisations specialising in this and providing quality training.
But….
I recently heard back on the syllabus from a mental wellbeing course. Attendees were advised to not use certain words, as they may trigger some of their team or audience.
And they were given examples.
I’m going to write one of those words here. Dangerous, I know, as this is the internet, which allegedly has several billion users. So those of your with a nervous disposition, please read no further.
The word is…
Crazy.
I kid you not. I’m not crazy, but crazy as it sounds, crazy is the word that should be avoided.
Why?
Because “it may trigger someone”.
So here’s my issue. And not just with crazy, insane as that may be.
My issue is that I’m wondering whether it your responsibility to avoid every word that could possibly trigger anyone at all?
Or it is your responsibility to avoid being too easily triggered by certain words?
To be clear, I’m not talking here about racism, misogyny, homophobia or any of those other abhorrent perspectives.
Though even there, I’d say that it would be more constructive is to work on getting people to drop racist, misogynistic or homophobic views and bolster my own resilience than to develop a culture of triggeredness.
No, I’m talking about words that 0.000001% of the population may find offensive, and 0.0001% of them be “triggered” by them.
Like Crazy.
If all we work on is avoidance of any words that may trigger, rather than our resilience and ability to not be triggered by words, then we will eliminate vast tranches of vocabulary simply because someone somewhere may possibly in certain scenarios at a certain time take offence and be triggered.
And we’ll be left with impoverished language and a humanity even more fragile than it already is.
Which would be crazy.
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