Surviving the workplace jungle

An 8 week program to transcend difficult people and situations at work

Dealing with a “difficult” colleague or situation? Numb? Anxious? Headaches, the Sunday Scaries, or worse?

Emotional exhaustion from work drama can hurt careers, health, and relationships.

Rude behavior? Murky politics? Being excluded?

Unfair appraisal? No credit for your work, or worse? Thrown under a bus?

Poor communication or micromanagement? Unrealistic expectations?

Insensitive or outright sexist, racist or other discriminatory behavior?

White knuckling through it alone makes it worse. That’s why we’re here

8 weeks | expert facilitator | curated content | private groups

Steady progress every week:

Learn with curated insights, techniques, and exercises
Find breakthroughs and support with a live virtual session every week with a trusted expert and a small group that gets you.

For your complete needs:

→ find relief, clarity, confidence
→ become strategic and tactful
→ build lasting skills

Walk away in 8 weeks feeling lighter, with a strategy you’ve started executing, and lasting tools for work and life at large …

Facilitators

Sophia Godkin, PhD

Dr. Sophia Godkin is a psychologist and coach who’s helped people navigate challenges and uncertainty, at work and beyond, for over 15 years. She knows how the right support can change everything when life gets overwhelming – with spaces where people can be real about what they’re going through, make sense of emotions, and find insights that truly move them forward, while feeling supported by others who get it.

Subarna Mitra

Subarna will support participants with brainstorming for tactical challenges. She’s passionate about helping people thrive with resilience and has developed transformative behavioral solutions as a product leader, to help people navigate difficult experiences and achieve challenging goals. She researched the stressful and toxic experiences at work of many people to create this program, and also has her own lived experiences of curveballs in corporate, startup and other settings.

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You’ll figure out big questions

Are they annoying or abusive? Is this a phase… or a red flag?

Suck it up – or fix it? How? Talk to HR … colleagues?

What if I can’t leave? What if I have to?

You will progressively learn to

Build critical context. On your needs, work, distress and its impact.
Stay grounded under pressure. Limit the damage, find high functioning physiological stability, think critically.
Build a strong core. Show up with self compassion and confidence.
Be strategic, avoid landmines. Assess your situation, tackle problems, and take critical decisions.
Operate effectively. Develop versatile skills for common situations.
Minimize damage. If you must endure corrosive behavior, minimize the drain.
Protect your reserves. Get through this stronger with the right sleep, exercise and diet.
Prepare for the road ahead. If needed, figure out your next adventure and the tricky stuff.

Work distress is the epidemic no one prepares us for

71% of Americans had a toxic boss
Women are 41% more likely to experience toxicity at work
76% of people in toxic workplaces report impact on mental health

Work distress can cause issues ranging from headaches, numbness, anger and shame, all the way to burnout, unpleasant exits and chronic health conditions*.
‍*People who experienced toxicity at work reported developing health conditions e.g., anxiety, depression, PTSD, migraines, and cardiovascular and immune disorders.

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FAQs

Why groups?

Because they’re transformative.
Group sessions can foster unique resilience, agency and motivation, amongst other things. Quality counts for a lot so our sessions are run by skilled experts.

Why 8 weeks and the same group?

One-off sessions are easier for us but not that useful for you.
We design our programs to be optimally effective and efficient for you. There’s a lot that goes into navigating such situations effectively, that has to be assimilated in a certain manner – hence 8 richly packed weeks with the same group. We’ll have drop-in sessions for other themes better suited to them. If you have any preferences, do write to us.

I don’t feel like discussing my issues with others. Is this still right for me?

Yes, it probably still is.
If you’re a private person like us, you might be pleasantly surprised by how much you like group sessions. Dr. Godkin is skilled in creating safe spaces for reflection and support while maintaining boundaries. You won’t be asked to share personal stuff or anything you’re not 100% comfortable with. And sometimes just listening is powerful.

Is this program therapy or medical advice?

No it’s not therapy or medical advice.
It helps you build resilience, skill and community, all of which can be critical even in times when clinical treatment isn’t enough. But it’s not therapy or medical or mental health care which may be needed by some people in some situations.

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Note: This program is for educational and informational purposes only. The content and participation in the group sessions do not constitute or substitute for psychotherapy, medical advice, mental health treatment, or any other professional healthcare service. Facilitators are not acting in any capacity as a licensed mental health or medical provider in this group, and no provider-client relationship is established. Facilitation isn’t covered by licensure even if facilitators are licensed. The program doesn’t diagnose or treat a physical or mental illness. If you are in need of mental health treatment or crisis support, please seek care from a healthcare service offered by a qualified healthcare professional.

In the works

We’re just getting started and have other interesting programs in the works. We’d love to stay in touch with our newsletter. We’ll never spam you.

Stay in touch

Have a question? Something to share? We'd love to hear from you! Write to us at contact@hellotonik.com.

About us

We’re builders and expert practitioners designing a new paradigm of support for your well-being, one that truly empowers you, and that empowers practitioners to do their finest work – research backed, multidisciplinary, tailored to your context and complete needs in real life, and strengthened by the power of community done well.

We’re starting with underserved issues that have a significant impact on mental and physical health. A lot of them affect women disproportionately. We also want to play the long game, build high quality solutions that are fundamentally better than the status-quo, empower practitioners, and scale responsibly.

Subarna Mitra — Chief Explorer

Subarna has led products at pioneering health and wellness startups for a decade. She’s also a recovering strategy consultant and software engineer. Her vision for Tonik is driven by her work on the frontlines of behavioral health, and the setbacks that she’s personally faced and witnessed amongst family and loved ones.

She believes that people who need support – and the practitioners committed to helping them – deserve far better. She’s seen how mental and physical health are rooted in our practical everyday lives far more than we appreciate, and how we often find the right support too late, if at all. That’s why she’s focused on building a new kind of support, from the ground up, centered on people’s true and complete needs, starting with underserved issues. Women and girls are hardest hit by lack of such support because their experience of life and its challenges, and their physiology are distinct. Their risk for anxiety, depression, burnout, and a host of health conditions, is much higher. While the status quo falls short of the average person’s needs, it's much worse for them – it’s not designed for them, and is at best adapted to them.

What continues to inspire her is the dedication of the practitioners she works with – and the shared human drive to overcome challenges and find wellbeing, no matter the odds. When she’s not immersed in work, she likes to garden, make pottery, solve cryptic crosswords, and enjoy the Bay Area’s vibrant outdoors and food scene.

Build yourself up. Live fully.

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