How I Recovered from Getting Burned in My Career (As a Woman)
Image by Food Photographer Jennifer Pallian @foodess on Unsplash
I was cooking dinner one Sunday before going back into the office, on edge and bracing myself to see a few individuals in leadership the following day, who were not seeing my value and giving me the run-around on a promotion proposal.
My anger, which had been slowly building over a period of a month during these negotiations, now bubbled up unexpectedly, as I was cooking pasta for dinner on the stove.
I turned around too quickly, distracted, and suddenly, an entire pot of boiling water fell on my right arm. The shock set in, as I watched in panic how my arm turned first bright red, then shifted into a dark purple color.
I rushed to the emergency clinic 20 minutes before it closed, and thankfully I acted quickly because the mass of my arm that was affected by this burn was huge, making it my entire forearm. This incident made me finally realize that I needed better ways to process my emotions and be in my power. I believe illness and accidents can serve as a warning sign that something else is off balance, usually in our mindset and emotions. The state you’re in when accidents happen says everything.
I knew somehow with a more healthy, embodied, way of being, that I could learn how to be a woman at work who is powerful, unapologetic in her value, emotionally empowered, in alignment with her true essence as a woman: not trying to pretend to be a toxic version of a man. I couldn’t ignore my discontent about my promotion any longer. Sometimes it takes a shock to your system to show you that the way you’re being is no longer supporting you, showing that it’s actually physically harming you.
I learned from the doctor that I would need 6 months of recovery, which meant I couldn't go in direct sunlight and had to have my arm bandaged for at least a month while the skin healed and regenerated. I knew I was in for a journey of taking care of myself, and it also made me keenly aware of the severe, long-term impact unchecked emotions can have on you.
How did I get here?
I was used to performing and being perceived as perfect, through extracurriculars, grades, sports, then careers - all to get my validation and approval needs met. This is something I picked up in childhood and from being a woman in a patriarchal society. I was conditioned, just like all women, to seek approval in the external world, to confirm my value as a person. Having these accomplishments and accolades were a testament to my worth, my reason to take up space.
Working in the corporate world right out of university, in London, NYC, and Boston, taught me that I had to fight tooth and nail for what was meant for me in my career, that it would not come easy or from deservedness. Promotion conversations became battle grounds, performance reviews became traumatic experiences, workplace harassment was real, and I experienced the first firing, abroad no less, in my life at 24. I was learning that being a woman in this working world was incredibly challenging. That no matter how hard I hustled it was always an uphill battle. I should just be thankful for any opportunity I got!
I proved my value to the company I had reentered full time work in, through countless successful marketing initiatives, projects, and innovative ideas in just my first year. At this rate my role was made up of three functions! I was doing the work of marketing, PR, brand, and all willingly I might add. I was following the formula of overachieve and receive, expecting it would pay off down the line. The praise and positive feedback was constantly flowing which felt incredible after the past work experiences I’d been through, and made me feel certain I would be paid accordingly. When it came time to negotiate for a promotion and pay increase however, the outcome did not reflect my quality of work. This is the moment when I started to realize how I wasn't able to fully receive for my work. I was so used to overgiving.
Performance review time rolled around one year in, and I carefully outlined the ways I had made a measurable impact with undeniable results, (growing marketing engagement by 300%, even 500%) to senior management. Yet I was told to wait until next year for the promotion. A whole year. It was extremely uncomfortable for me to push for reconsideration and stand in my power, at the time I just didn’t have the emotional capacity or communication skills. I took my manager’s response, who I respected, as truth. By the time my two year anniversary arrived, I was overqualified for the overdue promotion and as a result, completely bored of my work, on the brink of burn out.
Even though I knew how to ask for what I believed I deserved, to present my negotiation and the reasons I deserved it (and the fact that I had the courage to even do so!) my body still remembered all the times I was hurt and told no in my past work experiences. It was a lot for my traumatized system, full of this frozen tension, to ask and present myself powerfully.
Having the emotional capacity to stay present when the leadership team was going through their indecision and rejections, and not taking it personally, would have helped immensely. Even though my logical mind knew that what result I got had nothing to do with my actual worth as a woman, my heart had a lot of trouble with this. When my requests for updates on my promotion went ignored, after having to follow up every week with a paper trail…they were finally semi-approved.
During this negotiation period of over a month around my two year anniversary, I was understandably furious, on-edge, and trying to push these wild, chaotic emotions down to show up every day to work as my typical cheerful and positive veneered, ‘professional self’ to continue working. The mask was cracking. The level of attention dedicated to my request was not reciprocal to the level of effort and ownership I had demonstrated over the last two years at this company. Maybe because I wasn’t even fully valuing my own work, it made it hard for others too.
Instead, horrifyingly, I was given MORE responsibilities because that was my reward for being a top performer! Can you relate? I was assigned to run a new monthly initiative without extra pay. I reached my limit and I realized I had no ways to process my rightful anger. I didn’t know what to do with all these emotions.
As a woman, you’re not supposed to be mad, you're supposed to be agreeable, subservient and comforting, neutral. This level of anger was really my inner being showing me that my boundaries were being encroached on and pushed up against. I did a ton of research on how to deal with anger, one night that August, when my jaw was hurting so much from clenching my anger that had no place to go.
I felt so trapped, as this was in direct opposition of my womanly self and also my spiritual self. I was so used to intellectualizing and spiritualizing my feelings in therapy (“this is all meant to be happening,” “I’m growing from this” yadda yadda). This concept of mindset and discipline being the only factor of change, growth and development was not helping me at all in this situation. It only left me feeling powerless, like a victim of my own mind, like I had done this to myself. I knew I had to try a different approach.
All of this led to that burn by the boiling water, a physical representation of my emotions. That night, I went searching for support. The next step I took, was I researched feminine embodiment. I had a feminine embodiment & spirituality coach on my podcast Guide to Wholeness, and our conversation opened the door to this path for me in so many ways. I had never heard of this way of owning your femininity, unapologetically. That this was something that was allowed!
After a Google search, I signed up for a feminine embodiment coaching certification through The School of Embodied Arts, because I realized that how I was showing up in my career was no longer in alignment with how I identified myself as a woman, and I needed the tools to become emotionally empowered and fully conscious of the broad spectrum of emotions going on in my body. This was so clear as a next step that I didn’t even question it, it was an automatic yes. I was ready to surrender. I didn’t want to live or work this way any longer, giving all my energy away without anything in return. I was ready to leave this mode of working behind.
As women, we’re conditioned to be everything to everyone in our lives, whether that’s at work or at home. We’re expected to say ‘yes’ to taking on more responsibilities, and do so without asking for anything in return. We’re conditioned to put our own needs and emotions to the side to carry out these responsibilities. We’re conditioned to settle for less than what we deserve. What this looks like in the workplace is being expected to follow up with people to make sure their work is done, take on office housework tasks, and take on tasks that no one else wants to volunteer for. This is exactly what has stopped women from advancing in the workplace and in their careers, while men have not been faced with these same obstacles.
I had originally healed from past workplace trauma back in 2018, through the lens of being in a career path that wasn’t in alignment with my values, settling for less than I was worth, burning out because of this. But I hadn’t healed through the lens of being a woman, the trauma associated with that, and how disconnected I was with my emotions and body, so much so that I was, albeit naively, operating out of the illusion that men and women are treated the same in society and the workplace.
In my coaching experience, I was taught in the integrative life coaching modality, with the understanding that we are made up of multiple bodies: mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical; and my breathwork & essential oil training, which was really my portal into embodiment. I believe these were my initiations needed before I could fully step into embodiment work, and be sensitive and open to all my emotions alive in me.
I learned that as women, we’re taught that showing too much emotion is chaotic and not professional, so we must hide it. We’re conditioned to be driven towards perfection in all we do, when the true meaning of being a woman means accepting imperfection as part of who we are in our wholeness. This is actually when we are our most magnetic, when we show up in the fullness of our authenticity.
We are taught to deny our pleasure, our sense of aliveness, to prioritize profit and to contort ourselves into an outdated model of working that is in direct opposition to our natural cycle as women. No wonder women are burning out, feeling drained coming home from work, with little energy or time to dedicate themselves to what actually really matters in their lives. I recognized that this new way of being in the world as a healthy embodied woman would involve being comfortable with receiving more, working in an easy and flowing way, and unapologetically showing up, fully expressed - willing to be seen. NOT in a pushy, forced, overworked, dominant way as I had been experiencing and what I was modeled.
I resigned from this role, walked away once my needs were no longer met and it was clear my feedback wasn’t being taken into account. I had grown in the last two years, and valued different things than when I had started. The wisdom I gained from this experience showed me so much. It taught me that I never need to settle, that I now have the embodied experience in my body of what it means to hold a boundary.
I forgave everyone involved, including myself, as I consciously let go of this chapter with a ritual I created. I know this wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t become embodied and sure of my value and trust in myself to figure out my next steps without certainty. From this experience, I developed a radical new system of choosing aligned careers from the get-go to make sure it supports your life goals, and tools to help navigate, and evaluate your career with so much self honesty.
This made me aware of the pitfalls that got me to this overworked and underpaid place in the first place. I knew I wasn’t the only woman who chose to leave a company when her voice wasn’t heard and values were no longer in alignment. I broke the pattern of settling for what was once working. I had a new vision for my life that didn’t revolve around work anymore, it was now centered on my personal goals, and I was able to feel into and have faith for what was next for me, with complete trust and clarity.
The Truth
The truth is, the fact that you’re a sensitive, feeling woman doesn’t put you at a disadvantage in your career or mean you have to forgo your natural way of being in the world in order to have an impact or be taken seriously. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. It means you must fully embody all of who you are, own your feminine gifts, your imperfections, and let go of the outdated beliefs and conditioning that live in your subconscious, your body.
As a high-achieving woman, you’re an ever-changing being, and that means that your values and career aspirations can change over time and often. And that is completely okay and normal! It means that you must regularly evaluate yourself and come into a deeper relationship with your core needs, letting go of the old version of yourself, meeting each new version of yourself as you grow. Being your own loving parent, friend, support - this is what will give you the permission to align with a career & life that fulfills you.
It requires a deep sense of self honesty to pinpoint when things are shifting within and outside of yourself as a result, then trusting this intuition, and course correcting. In short, the relationship you have with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have in your life, and directly influences the level of success & satisfaction you will experience.
What I learned through this experience is that mindset is not enough to succeed in your life and career, it only makes up 10% of the work that’s informing your actions, the rest of your being makes up 90% of your subconscious. True self trust and confidence can only come from a full-body experience of that sense. There is a TON of conditioning and your own trauma, frozen tension in your body, resulting from incomplete fight, flight, freeze cycles, that stand in the way of you fully expressing yourself. It’s not just enough to say ‘just be yourself’ as I’m sure everyone would do that if it was so easy.
This experience lit a fire in me, as I realized the outdated biases that exist towards women in the workplace, how many high achieving women are living in a disembodied way, and how it us up to us to reclaim and redefine our careers, in support of our big life goals. I believe that the future of women’s equality and embodied leadership in the workplace starts on the individual level: women unsubscribing from the outdated working model we’ve been indoctrinated in, that isn’t in resonance with our way of being in the world.
Instead, working with our natural cycles vs against them, prioritizing flexibility and freedom in our careers to allow for our energy levels to balance. This factor, along with unconscious biases, are what I believe to be the true reasons for burnout, so prevalent for women. The future looks like women redefining their relationship with work with what feels true to them, allowing their careers to support their fulfillment, values, health, vitality, and emotional wellbeing.
Prioritizing this means your sense of self is not correlated with the work you do or the money you make. Ultimately this ability expands your capacity to receive through your nervous system: more love, more money, more opportunities. I learned that this inner feminine embodiment work had a ripple effect, I was showing up in a new, more magnetic way in friendships, in my finances, in dating with the opposite sex - it reset my system in a way where I could receive and give more from a place of overflow.
I know now that boundaries have to be embodied, it’s not enough to say the words in setting a boundary or think the thought. Even though I could use the best negotiation strategies it meant nothing if I couldn’t show up energetically aligned with what I was speaking. Everything is energy, and when you experience people or colleagues in your life taking more from you than you are receiving, then that’s something to look at.
There are practical steps that I learned are needed to call out unconscious bias towards women in the workplace, to navigate work-life conflicts, and to ensure you are actually moving forward in your career with the right responsibilities and goals, also known as promotable tasks. I’ve done the research and learning due to my experience, and I now weave this teaching in my coaching, offering actions women need to take differently than men to move their careers forward in alignment with their values.
Most career coaches are teaching the exact opposite: showing you how to fit into the mold of what companies are hiring for by following a strategy and defining typical roles you can apply to in an overly masculine world, instead of focusing on amplifying your unique strengths, values, and experiences, allowing yourself to attract the right opportunities and customized roles through this way of being. They usually don’t take into account what it means to advance your career as a woman, it’s not the same as a man.
I see way too many women in their careers who are experts at what they do, yet they are overworking, underearning, feeling the need to ask for permission to take charge, taking on work that isn’t in line with their goals, being the designated note-taker, secretary, office manager, events manager, follow up person to other individuals - the list goes on. This is the patriarchal soup we’re all swimming in as a society and it’s not going away until we as individuals reclaim our true roles and opt out from these outdated ‘norms’ that unfortunately live in each and every woman’s body unless they are looked at and released.
I teach these practices and frameworks to navigate your career strategically as a woman, (not job searching, interviewing, resumes - this can all be found online). What I know to be true is that these practices will only work with a healed nervous system and whole sense of self as the foundation. This is needed in order to be able to clearly communicate, to hold negotiations, to set boundaries, to hold the feminine energy & role, and to hold a healthy relationship to work.
Finally, faith has to be at the forefront of a fruitful career. When I was running around trying to get my ‘mindset right’ and force God’s hand to make things happen for me - all the while waiting for proof of my faith that it was coming true, I was getting it all wrong. So very very wrong. Having faith is what allows you to let go and only focus on what you can control and let higher power or spirit handle the rest.
It takes an incredible amount of active trust, so faith is really another tool, a muscle, that needs to be fully embodied and practiced in your being. It’s really not enough to say that you just ‘have faith.’ Your deeply held beliefs and neuroses will come out to play immediately when any challenge or growth edge comes up. It becomes your job to learn to receive guidance and trust God, otherwise representative of a healthy masculine figure, to help you. You can’t do it alone, and this is why faith is a key part of my work.
Ultimately, I learned that a sense of wholeness within oneself is necessary in order to lead with more alignment, fulfillment, and flow in your career. It takes coming home to yourself & what you value to gain clarity in what you need in your career and life to be fulfilled and make an impact. It takes reclaiming trust in your intuition and relationship to your body, and uncoupling your identity with work by redefining a healthy relationship to work, all within your body.
These skills needed to manage your emotions, to show up fully as your authentic and powerful self, and to lead with wholeness, can all be learned. You’re not broken, as I learned in my own experience, you’re usually just unskilled. Ultimately, we as women are incredibly powerful creators, and it’s my mission to remind you of this power you hold within you and give you the tools to embody it. To show you how to reclaim that power and wholeness, and apply it to your life, business, relationships, and career. If this resonates with you, and you feel the call to go on this journey, I invite you to apply to book a free 15 minute consultation with me here so I can learn more about you, what’s in the way of you claiming your soul-aligned career & life and show you how you can create this.
Want to dive deeper into learning feminine embodiment as a coach? Download a free curriculum - I am a proud affiliate for The School of Embodied Arts.
