Career Transitions and Trauma

Career transitions create space for the different parts of yourself to emerge. A part of you might want to keep travelling the familiar road. Another part of you might want to embark on a new journey and explore what the unknown might hold for you. Maybe there is also another part of you willing to do something that feels not too uncomfortable and consider to narrow the gap by doing a job that is the right stretch for you. The scenarios can often be multiple, adding more pressure and confusion to your transition journey. Sometimes, it will be easier for you to identify these parts through the way you talk to others - and to yourself. Sometimes, all that is familiar to you is the mix of feelings and thoughts that these parts will trigger. These parts "come to life" through thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations. Some of them will be "louder" than others, at times leading to a state of inner conflict. Some parts will be hidden because it might be too painful to acknowledge them.

These parts represent the diverse aspects of your personality, beliefs, and emotions, shaping your thoughts, behaviours, and overall well-being. Some parts may be more dominant and familiar, while others may be hidden or suppressed. Acknowledging and understanding these parts is crucial for your personal growth and self-awareness, particularly when you navigate transitions. Understanding the purpose of each part through their motivations, needs, and beliefs, can guide you through change and uncertainty, and make the process more supportive for you. When you acknowledge and embrace the diversity of your internal landscape, you are more able to make informed decisions that are aligned with your core values and aspirations.

Like everyone else, you have traits that you're proud of, and traits that you don't feel so confident about. The issue is not the trait but what your mind projects on to it, and the story that projection triggers. Is it an empowering story or a limiting story? Does it come from a place of love or from a place of fear? Often, in the face of difficult decisions, and career or life transitions, these parts with their mind-made fear-based stories trigger a stress response. Your body can’t tell the difference between what is a legitimate fear and a fear that exists only in your mind. This sets off the mind-body-emotion stress cycle required for survival. These fear-based thoughts activate the fight-flight-freeze/fawn response, releasing adrenaline and cortisol in your body as it’s preparing to defend you from a perceived threat. It is this sense of deep discomfort that often leads you to repress those hidden parts of yourself to avoid confronting your darker side, where "darker" very often is something that your brain is doing its best to protect from. That's when you might feel paralysed in face of an important decision or you might revert back to that sense of familiarity that gives you comfort. Often, these rejected parts of yourself come up as negative self-talk.

Jung wrote: “The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one's own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is.”

Your shadow self can include unwanted?personality?traits, painful memories, forbidden impulses, negative thoughts, and past trauma. Your shadow self can be very much present when the transition you're going through is a result of a career trauma. Trauma can happen through a single traumatic event or through an on-going heavy traumatic stress.

Single traumatic career event include:

• involuntary redundancy (and sometimes voluntary redundancy too)
• a surprise exit
• a nasty exit
• exposure to a specific work-place bully
• a new cultural clash

Ongoing traumatic career event include:

• promotions into positions outside of your superpowers
• eroding, excessive work demands - over years
• ongoing work-place bullying

Trauma is what happens inside of you in response to these events. Not everyone will be traumatised. Addressing career trauma requires a compassionate and supportive approach to help you acknowledge and reconnect with those parts, in order to make harmonious and conscious career choices. It's important to be aware of how these events/experiences have affected you emotionally, mentally and physically, as well as how they have influenced your perception of yourself and your skills and abilities (this is when you might want to notice your inner dialogue and what you believe about yourself, and the world around you). Confidence is very often affected by career trauma and can affect your willingness to take risks or pursue new opportunities.

Addressing career trauma may require professional support or therapy, depending on the severity of the trauma. Whether or not you need support, my invitation is to ask yourself what would be healthy for you to at this stage while you navigate your transition. Very often, it's about focusing on tiny safe steps to cultivate a healthier relationship with your career and rebuild your confidence while honouring your whole self.

#careertransitions #career #trauma