A while ago, I came across a post on Instagram from a psychologist. Sadly, I didn’t make a note of who wrote it.
The post was about dating after the end of a relationship. One idea in particular stayed with me: when you begin a new relationship, you don’t arrive as a blank slate. You bring aspects of the previous relationship with you.
He said, “Your nervous system is still calibrated to your last relationship.”
Not necessarily because you want it to be, but because experience shapes expectations. Things that happened before can affect what you notice, what you worry about and what feels safe.
And recently I’ve been thinking: the same is true when we start a new job.
Continue reading What we carry into a new job