Career trauma and stress - ignore these whispered messages at your peril
Valentine’s day, 2005. An unlikely day to propose marriage to someone who hates Valentine’s Day.
But, a good day for a surprise proposal. Picnicking under Sydney Harbour Bridge, with titbits from the Kirribilli deli, as speedy boats sped by, and commuter ferries beeped their arrival and departure.
He leaned over, somewhat too eagerly…for the tzatziki! Awkwardly landed on one knee, tiny box in two hands and whispered a proposal.
Whispered messages are often very significant. But, sometimes it’s too noisy to hear them.
Life trauma vs career trauma
Only the least human of humans can deny the physical and mental burdens triggered by marital problems, parental illness or death, health issues in children, or personal, partner and friendship health scares.
We all understand that traumatic life events bring stress to both body and mind.
Career trauma is less discussed and less understood by the busy midlife career professionals I encounter daily.
Career trauma presents itself either in the form of either a single traumatic event, or ongoing, heavy traumatic stress.
Single Traumatic career events include:
involuntary redundancy (and sometimes voluntary redundancy too)
a surprise exit
a nasty exit
an eroding performance management process
exposure to a specific work-place bully
a new cultural clash (with a boss/new owners)
yet another impossible-to-achieve deadline
Ongoing traumatic career events include:
working in environments that equate to your Kryptonite
promotions into positions outside of your Superpowers
eroding, excessive work demands - over years
ongoing work-place bullying (especially where personal values are being attacked)
or the results of chronically poor leadership
Career trauma presents itself either in the form of a single traumatic event or ongoing heavy stress.
Three ways career trauma impacts professionals in their 40s and 50s
Career trauma goes way beyond the usual “feeling a bit stressed” in terms of personal impacts. Career trauma impacts midlife professionals in three major ways:
The body’s reaction to career trauma and
The blurring of the connection between body and mind
1. Career trauma - your brain’s reaction
Career trauma interferes with your brain’s ability to recognise danger, and throws you into fight/fright/freeze behaviours.
You can’t see today’s danger, never mind imagine the impact on your future career! You can’t see the wood for the trees, which means you can’t see what’s important - or and what’s not! So you waste time and energy focussing on the wrong things.
You can’t again start functioning in your “normal” mode after the fight/flight/freeze behaviours have been triggered, so you stay on high alert. This runs the brain’s battery down. You feel overwhelmed by changes or added responsibilities, no matter how small.
You struggle to imagine who could help you, so you tend to carry the weighty burden alone. You don’t know how to ask for help, or what help to ask for.
You struggle to recognise and describe your feelings - so you tend to shut down because you cannot articulate what’s wrong. This leads to a disconnection from others - others who might be helpful to you.
You enter auto-pilot mode, when you definitely need to be in manual mode as you’re in new territory.
You might struggle to learn and adapt to new information - that could be helpful - because you cannot process it, or take it in.
Result - situation stays the same...if you’re lucky. More likely...your body starts to whisper messages of warning
2. Career trauma - your body’s reaction
When your brain begins to perform differently, the body starts to operate differently.
The body’s ability to both manage, and recover from, the adrenal/stress responses to the fight/flight/freeze signals is impaired. The hyperactivity of the flight/flight/freeze state, means that your breathing becomes less effective at pumping oxygen to your vital organs.
Your body struggles to perform it’s core functions - breathe, sleep, digest and maintain your immune system.
Result: Your ability to cope with tomorrow, is less than it was today
3. Career trauma: communication between your mind and body
Career trauma interferes with your mind’s ability to send and interpret signals from your body. You become numbed to the whispered messages your body is sending your brain to - GET HELP!
I’ve seen clients ignoring whispered messages, such as shooting arm pains, recurring chest pains, unexplained muscle pain, chronic back pain, or blinding migraines.
They don’t recognise the seriousness or importance of these whispered messages of pain. So the messages remain, and often grow, into screams for attention.
Career trauma also tends to be accompanied by a lack of feeling fully present, a remoteness, a disconnection from others, from certain situations, and sometimes from yourself.
Sometimes this leads to a laissez-fair attitude about self-care and/or action-taking towards change, almost leaving both in the lap of the gods.
Result: These whispered messages between brain, body and associated behaviours, carry on until there is an intervention. either the bodily messages start to scream for attention, or SOMEONE intervenes with specialist help
Many clients have described this intervention as a moment of waking up from sleep-walking, a transition point, where they recognise the seriousness of their situation and begin to seek support to regain control of the situation.
Maybe you think you should “just deal with it!”?
Maybe you feel you should be strong enough to deal with it? Maybe you feel a tiny hint of shame that you can’t deal with it?
Internal self-talk can include any variation of the below:
“Man up!”
“Push through!”
“Get your shit together!”
“I’ll go the doctor if X happens”
“I’ll go to the doctor when X happens”
“I’ll seek out some career advice if X happens”
“I just need to do X and then I’ll stop.”
“They [concerned partner/colleague/family member] don’t understand what it’s like”
But as we know, if you’re experiencing career trauma, your reasoning is impaired…because your brain cannot communicate it’s messages effectively.
You might even believe partners/family members/friends who suggest taking action are scare-mongering or overreacting.
But these whispered messages from your body DO NOT LIE.
And they will grow from a whisper to a SCREAM if ignored.
When they scream, you will no longer be able to ignore them.
At that point, the repercussions, investment, and recovery time required, will be far greater than if you’d taken advice when they were mere whispers.
Case Studies
Here are three case studies, in the form of articles. Two have been written by the individuals who went through the pain of important whispered messages that grew into screams. And one is written by me.
The case studies have been anonymised for their privacy and to allow for a truthful representation of their situation.
Case Study 1: Reclaiming Middle-Aged Me:
One man’s story of how a change in company ownership brought on career trauma. (There is also a second article from a year later and a third from 3 years later)
Click the image to read the guest contribution Middle Aged Me.
Case Study 2 : What to do if your first career isn’t the right one?
One woman’s story of how following in a parent’s footsteps, led her into the wrong career, and ultimately towards career trauma. Then…how she recovered.
This is a photo of my daughter, who was the same age as this guest contributor, when she chose to follow in her parent’s footsteps…into the wrong career. Click the image to read how her career trauma impacted her health, and her recovery story.
A story of standing in deep Kryptonite for so long it starts to erode Saoirse’s energy, positivity and hope. But she turns it around.
Why I felt compelled to write this article
I write this article not to scare you, but because I’ve been talking to WAY too many professionals in their 40s and 50s recently, who have been ignoring whispered messages for FAR too long.
These are smart, successful people (even if they don’t feel like it), who haven’t been listening to their bodies and brains.
Who are behaving like they are invincible.
So, I began to research how and why that is.
I read a marvellous book on how trauma of all sorts in life can leave a toll on our bodies and our minds.
In so many pages of that book, I saw patterns and links to my work on designing work that leads towards deep satisfaction and away from trauma.
I felt that understanding how the brain and body communicate, and understanding some of the VERY common symptoms of career trauma, could help you (or someone you know) realise that they are not alone, and that there are ways to take little steps forward towards recovery.
The book is called The Body knows the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. I voted it as my favourite non-fiction lockdown book. [Warning: Read the reviews - it’s not for everyone]
Whispered messages from your mind are often represented in your body. They’re hard to hear and heed in our busy professional lives.
If you can find a way to listen hard for them, they are a heck of a lot less painful to remedy than the GIANT SCREAMING messages.
Back to Valentine’s day
That whispered proposal message, under Sydney Harbour Bridge was from my, now, husband.
It wasn’t a whispered warning (although, at the age of 33, my Irish mother had already whispered a few warnings in my ageing ear!)
It was however, a whispered message I didn’t ignore.
If your body is whispering messages to you, and even one person whom you respect suggests you get some support, consider listening.
NEXT STEPS
You can’t solve career trauma overnight - it takes time and energy.
One of the easiest steps you can take, right now, while you are sitting in front of this screen, is to get clear on your Kryptonite (the environments, people, structures and personalities that drain the life out of you).
This tiny piece of clarity is achievable in just 10 minutes. It can help you to begin a very different journey, towards a very different relationship, with your work. Download the worksheet here or click on the image.
And then…
If you are still struggling to see the wood for the trees, consider booking in for a free 30 minute Light at the end of the tunnel call.
In this call, you explain what’s going on for you, and I explain what I can offer you, by providing a couple of personalised recommendations.
What have you got to lose? Book in here.
