Nightmare on Hospitality Street: 

Living In a Haunted House - Guests and Co-Workers
Renting Space in Your Head

I met Donna in Florida where she worked for a major corporate hotel chain and would often find herself in the middle of employee and supervisor dramas.  She was particularly disturbed by what she thought was the bias of her boss toward certain employees.  It appeared to her they were �the favorites� and received preferential treatment. 

As a result she worried a lot and complained to others.  �It�s not fair she was promoted ahead of me,� Donna would complain. �Why shouldn�t I be angry!� she would say under her breath but loud enough so others could hear her. �He�s probably planning to fire me� she confided to a co-worker. �Without my job I have nothing and no way to pay all my bills.�  This fear was also reflecting in her interactions with guests and she over amplified every negative encounter which only fueled her fears. 

Guest and Co-Workers Renting Space in Your Brain

Donna was living in a haunted house in her own head. One of the 12 Tools I shared with Donna is to �Evict People Renting Space in Your Head.�  We are scaring ourselves to death when we keep running the reel of a negative encounter in our heads. 

Each time we re-experience all the emotional upset, anger and frustration as if it was the first time.  When people are renting space in our head that should be populated by more productive and positive thoughts, we need to take charge and evict them once and for all. 

Our bodies do not distinguish between something real and something vividly imagined.  By talking about it we experience the pain and upset all over again. We don�t let go and keep imagining the scene in our minds, running in a continuous loop the movie of the hostile incident with the co-worker, supervisor, or guest. 

Then we call family and friends and talk about it.  At lunch, in hushed tones, we go over it again. Each time we create a detailed account of what happened to us and how awful or frustrated or angry it made us feel.  Each time we tell the story our body re-experiences the frustration and upset all over again.  People are renting space in our heads and we need to evict them. 

If you are living in a haunted house, and people are renting space in your head, I suggest doing the following: 

Writing the Eviction Notice

Write your own eviction notice to the thoughts, ideas or people that are renting space in your brain. 

Example:  You no longer have my permission to haunt my brain anymore.  This is your official eviction notice, (be specific.) 

For example, if you had a negative encounter with a guest or co-worker, and you keep re-living the situation in your head, you are allowing the haunting to continue, write the eviction notice and move on. 

These are the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that need to be evicted to make space for more helpful and hopeful thoughts and attitudes.  Check it out the next time you are telling everybody you are �Fine!� Are you really? Or are you allowing people, places, and things to rent space? Eviction time, tell them to �go haunt someone else�s head!� 

Happy Halloween! 

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Gay Lynn Williamson-Grigas, CEO of Grigas Consulting and author of Trigger-Proof Your Way to Success: 12 Tools to Keep Your Cool and Confidence, Corporate trainer and Psychologist. Email [email protected].  Visit www.Trigger-Proof.com