282: Power Gap #7: Allowing Past Pain and Challenge To Continue to Shape You

You are not your past. You're all of it. Past, present and future. So do the work to release the shame and the humiliation and the negative judgments you have about yourself. You are not just your past.

Hello everyone, this is Kathy Caprino and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created this show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in their life, to rise up, speak up and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts and the entrepreneurial world. And they'll be sharing their intimate stories.

Of Finding Brave and offer their best.

Strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful.

And meaningful life, business and career. Hello everybody. Kathy Caprino here. Thank you for being here with me. I wanted to share that this episode is actually a Repeat of episode 130 and it covers power gap number seven, which is one of the seven most damaging power and confidence gaps that I have observed and worked with in coaching and speaking in training with thousands of people in 17 years. And I want to say that virtually every day I'm working with somebody on this power gap and it's a deep one and it's challenging because sometimes we're aware of it, but often we're not aware of it and sometimes it's conscious, sometimes it's not conscious. So I really want to share this information with you and if it resonates with you, I hope you will reach out to me if you'd like some hands on help. Towards that end, I'm offering a 25% discount code off of two of my programs. One is the Career and Leadership Breakthrough Succession private coaching program and the other is my most powerful you video training program. Each of these will help you with this gap and the six other gaps. So I hope you find this very helpful. You can see the links to those programs and to the coupon code down in the show notes and anywhere that you see this on social media. And if you'd like some hands on help, feel free to email me@infooathycaretheathy caprino.com I would love to be of help. Hello everybody, Kathy Caprino here. Welcome to another episode of Finding Brave. I am coming to you. I'm recording this Tuesday before the Thursday release of this and again, I love that because I feel closer to what's going on, you know, the day you hear this and I hope you're doing well. It's been such a time, hasn't it? This episode is number seven of the most powerful you series, which is bringing to you a deeper look at the seven damaging power gaps that professional women face that I'm covering in my book that comes out July 28th. Oh, it's so interesting to do this podcast and even listen back when I started in January 2018. You know, as I'm going through things, it comes out in what I'm talking about and how I'm seeing what I'm talking about, and this is no different. I feel like this book is even more relevant today, and I want to tell you this particular power gap, allowing past trauma to define you. This is gap number seven. I have to say, I think this one is maybe closest to my heart because I have lived this in such a deep way that I just never understood until I became a therapist. And I feel that people are going through this today in a very powerful way, that the past and what has happened to us is defining us in unconscious ways. Let me just dive in. There's a lot to talk about, and it's challenging for me to get it all in, but here we go. This is Power Gap 7, allowing past trauma to define you. What people with this gap often share is some version of this. I'm devastated by what's happened to me, and I can't seem to put it behind me or get over it. 62% of the women I've surveyed said yes or maybe to this gap. I want to say what's almost even more damaging about this gap is so often we are not aware of what has shaped us and traumatized us. And I want to even talk about that word, trauma. But the truth is, life can hurt us badly and it can leave deep scars. No one is immune to this, and every single one of us has experienced some form of pain or suffering or sadness, isolation, rejection, and, yes, trauma. There's not one human being on the planet that hasn't had some form of trauma. Now, it's important to understand that trauma is experienced on a spectrum. So there can be PTSD from being in war. That's very high on the level of trauma. There can be something that someone said to you that traumatized you. And so this is subjective. And a lot of people will even say, I think this is silly that I'm feeling so upset about this, but I can't get over being fired or laid off. And what I want you to know out of the gate here is there's nothing silly about feeling traumatized by something. It's who you are. It's how you've been raised. It's how you've been programmed to think. It's the challenges you had as a child, coping with your own family, even if it seemed joyful and loving. So I want you to understand if you're not able to get over something, the very first thing I want you to understand is you're not silly, you're not foolish, you're not weak. It's trauma. And often I say this when no amount of talk therapy or talk coaching, you know, meaning talking out your problems is shifting you. It's probably an energetic issue. In other words, the trauma got into your energy system. And a lot of the people I hear from and clients I work with and course members, I send them to Lynn Carroll, an energy healer. And it's not woo woo. She's incredibly well educated. She's certified in a number of critical domains. But she happens to sense energy. And because of that and her gift, she's able to shift energy. So if this resonates with you, reach out to me and I can give you more information. But what I want to say here is there's one thing I never realized before I became a therapist, and that is how you integrate what happens to you in your own identity is going to shape not just your personal life and relationships, but your professional life and your career success. So it's interesting. I see a lot of career coaches or career counselors and they're working with people who are going through a lot of struggles, but they don't do a deep enough dive. And I don't mean to cast dispersion on the whole coaching industry, but to me, what is going on that's keeping a professional stuck or unhappy or thwarted or not being treated well is not a superficial thing. It's what's happening deep inside and how they've integrated what's happened in their life and how that's showing up in how they relate to others, how they think about themselves, how they speak, how they act, how they interrelate with others. So what we need to do here is, again, I say this over and over. Greater awareness equals greater choice. We need to help you get more aware of the pain that you've experienced that could be keeping you stuck today. And it's really true. And I think part of this is some ability I have that within 10 minutes of speaking to someone about their professional challenges, I can see it and feel that there's something deeper. And I usually, I don't mean to say I'm a witch or anything like that. I just have an ability to sense when and sometimes I can sense what it is, exactly what has happened. And often it's narcissism or being raised by an abusive or emotionally manipulative parent. I can tell something's in the way and I can tell what it is usually. I want to share with you a little bit of the story of the amazing woman, Cheryl Hunter, who I featured in this book. In this chapter seven, Cheryl is an amazing example, a shining, inspiring example of how incredibly deep trauma can be transformed into growth and service and how we can create beautiful, joyful lives that are of help to other people, even after experiencing terrible brutality and suffering. So I don't want to steal the thunder here of her story, which is so, so, so riveting. So I want you to read the book. But I do want to tell you that Cheryl reached out to me years ago, I don't know, maybe four years ago, in such a lovely way, sharing an email that my work and messages had meant a lot to her. And she asked, in this incredibly polite way and generous way if she could share her TEDx talk, Wabi Sabi, the Magnificence of Imperfection, with me. And for some reason I stopped everything I was doing, which I don't tend to do. And I watched it and I was so moved. So you've got to go watch that. We'll link to it below. And it's her personal story of what happened to her when she was 18. It's a story of horrific trauma and brutality and it's so hard to hear it. So watch her TEDx talk. But what the book shares, and it's in her own words, is after what she had been through, she had an experience where she was taught a principle, a Japanese principle of wabi sabi. And it is so beautiful and so touching and basically. But read the book for her words about it. It's the idea that it is in the very imperfections and flaws, and I'm saying that in quotation marks, those flaws, those imperfections where the beauty shines. And that is what makes us beautiful. And I love that and I believe that. But I do want to say this. What I see in working deeply on people's careers and, you know, thus their lives, when you have something that's traumatized you, and I often see it as people thinking it's a dirty secret, a dirty little secret, when you have that and you don't understand the principle of wabi sabi, that this is not something that makes you dirty and shameful and horrible and unlovable, this is something that actually can make you beautiful and perfect. When we don't understand that, that's when we suffer. That's when the trauma is continued. That's when we can't lift ourselves up out of experiencing continual and repeating pain and mistreatment and suffering. So in looking at Cheryl's how she transformed how she lives the principle of Wabi sabi and really transformed her life from this incredibly brutal experience that she had is she decided to help others. She decided to figure out how to overcome this. And what she did was amazing. She also focused on controlling what she could. There are traumatic events that happen in our life. Absolutely. But once they do, there are steps you can take to grab control back of your life. And she talks about doing that. She built a powerful support system and she talks about bouncing forward. Instead of saying when am I going to bounce back here, which is such a term we all use, she says forget about bouncing back after you've had something critical or traumatic happen to you. Forget about bouncing backward. You're not that person. How about bouncing forward instead? So amazing. So I really do hope you'll pre order the book and read it the minute it comes out and read that chapter, every word of it. So some other things I want to make sure to share. Again, trauma can be viewed on a spectrum, but the measure of it is subjective. So if you're crushed by an event, do not think should I be? That only heaps doubles down on you feeling less than if you're traumatized by it, you're traumatized by it. Now what we have to do is dig deep and understand what happened, why it's impacting you. And let's talk about the realm of careers. My boss told me I was stupid or my boss or a colleague. I see this every day. I am dismissed in meetings. I say something and people stomp right over me. Or my boss said the way you communicate doesn't fit in here. And that's because it's an all male leadership team and she's a fantastic communicator. But they don't like it because they think it's soft or weak or you ask too many questions. So we have to get to the heart of what happened now often the way we are raised and I want to talk a little bit about a personal story. You know, again, what I'm going through shapes and gives me a new lens on the thing I just wrote 2 days ago or 2 weeks ago or a year ago. So you've all heard me talk about perfectionistic over Functioning. It's what I've talked about in this book and I learned about it in therapy training where we saw that in relationships, often someone's an over functioner doing more than is healthy, appropriate, necessary. And when one is over functioning, the other partner is typically under functioning. It's a crippling experience for you to be an over functioner. I know because I continue to be a recovering one. I've added another term to it that I've seen in my coaching world, perfectionistic over functioning, which is not only doing more than is healthy, appropriate and necessary, but it's also trying to get an A in all of it, which is going to crush you down, it's going to hurt your health, it's going to hurt your mental well being, it's going to send your life off the rails. I know because this is me and this is what I deal with. And a lot of it is what I learned in childhood. I was a perfectionistic over functioner. And you do need, if you're tired of it, if it exhausts you, you have to recover from it. You know, it's almost like an addictive behavior. And I'm seeing that often when there's heightened pressure in your life, something really important, you're giving birth or you've just given birth, or you just got this very big job, or you're interviewing now and it's desperate for you because you need a job when there's heightened pressure. So for me, I'll give you a personal example. The book is coming out. There's heightened pressure. For me, I want this to reach a million women. This is my goal. A million women reaching it, hearing about these concepts and helping them transform their lives. So for me, there's heightened pressure. Well, I'm working with an amazing PR team, 40 APR. I love them and they're doing their job, which is sending me so many media opportunities, it's unbelievable. I have 11 podcasts coming up. I'm being featured on other people's podcasts, five big webinars in the next two weeks. I have interview opportunities in top media. It's all what you want. And on top of that, I'm a perfectionist over functioner. So when you add all of that to what I'm doing, I'm running a certification training, I'm running a course with 28 people. I have about 20 clients right now, plus Forbes every week, plus this podcast. When you're a perfectionistic over functioner, it's not going to be sustainable. So I'm looking at this Myself about how my own childhood, my own, the way I was raised, how I was formed, and how that is shaping how I'm operating. The world can actually do harm. So what I'm committing to myself is to not be a perfectionistic over functioner around this. Yes, this is important to me, but I can't crush myself down and get sick and, you know, struggle every day trying to do everything I think is essential. It's time to prioritize. So that's how even the experience of how you were shaped as a child is impacting you. I am 60 and it's still impacting me. So I want us to become aware of it. So again, trauma on a spectrum. I didn't have trauma per se growing up, but I had the experience that I had to be brilliant and obedient to be loved. That was what I experienced. And that's coming to fruition, you know, every day. Unless I gain greater awareness of it and then do something, take action to change it. It's one thing to have insight, but it's not enough. Insight doesn't change your life, action does. So I am taking steps to reprioritize, say no, push back, et cetera. So in working with now thousands of professional women, I've seen literally countless examples of the types of trauma that occur regularly in the workplace. Here's just some of it. I'm going to list some. Being sexually harassed, abused or discriminated against. Being told you're not smart or capable enough to succeed and never will be. Being fired or laid off without notice or in a way that makes you feel kicked to the curb. I've had so many of these. Number four, working with narcissistic, backstabbing, toxic colleagues or bosses who literally want to do you in if you challenge them. Number five, reporting to a boss who you trusted and who you believe respected you, only to find out that they they betray you, either publicly or privately, and often in a vicious way. Number six, grinding so hard for years, giving all that you've got in your job, only to be passed over by someone inexperienced in 10 years your junior, who's a man. I mean, when you're a woman that can smack really hard, being lied to over and over and told that you're just paranoid about what you're experiencing. Which by the way, is called gaslighting. In the world of narcissism, you know what's happening, you see what's happening, but the person says, what? You're insane. Wow, you need therapy. Number eight, doing an amazing job on a Project only to have your ideas stolen by someone on the team so that he or she gets the credit and gets promoted. This can be traumatizing to you. Number nine, being told you're a terrible leader and communicator when in fact you're a great one, only you don't fit the dominant culture like I just mentioned. Or number 10, applying for job after job without moving forward or even getting a second interview and it leaves you feeling ignored, invisible. The list goes on and on. If you're experiencing any of this and it's crushing to your confidence, please know you're not alone. These things can leave us devastated and confused and they also make us rethink who we are. And that sometimes makes us unable to rebalance and recalibrate. We feel off sometimes and we just don't know how to handle it. And what happens then can be anxiety, depression, lack of motivation. We can isolate. I know when I was lazy off in that way, that was just so brutal to me and I didn't understand it and it didn't make sense that I was chosen because I had had such great reviews and stellar promotions. It can make you want to hide and not talk to people because you just don't understand. Okay, so what do we do about this? What are the internal and external actions, thoughts we can have? So I call this getting on the brave healing path, moving forward and ensuring the past doesn't hold you hostage. So here are some steps that I share in the book, but I think you can really embrace these right as you hear them. Five steps here. Number one, share the dirty little secret. So here's an example that I've. I think I've mentioned before, but I'll mention again. A young woman reached out to me a while ago and she said, I would just like to, to talk to you and get your take on this. And what she shared was she was young and was making tons of money, a lot of money, and was very successful early on in her career. That's where she was. But one thing plagued her and it was that she didn't finish her degree. She didn't have a bachelor's degree. And it really plagued her. It made her feel insecure even though she was rocking in her career. And she told me, my friends say, get over it. Who cares? You're doing amazing. But she said, I've tried and I can't get over it. So I told her, as a coach, I'm going to tell you something. I don't think you want to hear it. What? Finish the Degree. How far are you away? She was only just a few credits, just, I think, two courses away. So we talked about why she didn't finish. She didn't want to go back. But I said, listen, here's the deal. When you're unhappy or insecure or struggling with something, you either change your emotions and feelings about it, or you change the situation. You've tried to change your emotions about it and you can't so finish the degree. She didn't want to hear that. She wanted me to say, it's okay you don't have a degree. And I said, it is okay that you don't have a degree, but you don't care what I say. It doesn't matter what I say. It's what you think. And you are struggling. And I think it doesn't matter who tells you it's okay. That's a dirty little secret. And I've heard from thousands of people with dirty little secrets. I didn't finish my degree. I was fired for incompetence. A senior leader told other people I wasn't good enough to advance. I lied on my resume. Never lie on your resume, people. And I don't have the experience in training. I said I did. Never, never lie. Lying makes us weak, literally, physically. And I think I mentioned this before, there's something called muscle testing, and I've engaged in it. I've had it done to me where when you lie, literally physically, your muscles get weaker. You can do this muscle testing thing, but when you lie, you're weaving this web of lies that you have to keep up and it makes you weak. Never lie. Also, I believe that lying says to your psyche, I'm not good enough as I am. I have to fabricate the truth. Don't lie. Another dirty little secret. I don't have the experience or training I need to, and I don't want to tell anyone or I'm older than I ever let on. I don't want anyone to know how old I am. That is such a dirty little secret for women. I'm not a fan of that, as you know. I just told you how old I am. I believe in talking about it. I don't want to lie or hide who I am in the world. What an awful way to feel. Other dirty little secrets. I never felt good enough in any job I've ever had or wherever I go. Others seem to do things better than I do, or I don't have the skills I need to just succeed in this job. Or people think I know more than I really do. One woman said to me, you know, I was promoted from kind of doer to strategic leader. I don't know how to be a leader, and I certainly don't know how to have a strategic vision. What a dirty little secret for her. And of course, she did know how to have a strategic vision. She just didn't have the confidence to say it out loud. So the problems with these secrets are if you do not address them with your eyes wide open, they grow bigger and more destructive. They send you underground, they eat away at you, and they make you feel increasingly ashamed and unworthy unless you stop that in your tracks. I think I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again. I've had numbers of dirty little secrets at work. But for eight years, I was doing market research at a job that I really did like. It was in the book club world. I loved it, but I never had. I was an English major in college. I never studied statistics, and I wasn't really comfortable with numbers. That comfortable. And I never studied research methodology. But I was really great at market research to the point where the company that acquired us, you know, I did research for them to see if our company should acquire companies like Weekly Reader, which was a great children's educational newspaper in the day. I was great at it. But I always felt like, oh, I'm an imposter here. I never really studied how to do research. What should I have done? I should have gone and asked, could you pay for an NYU course in statistics and research methodology? But no, I hid it. Don't hide it. Oh, what a mistake. What a mistake. I wish I had told them I need a little more training, and I wish I'd had that under my belt. I don't believe in regret. It is what it is, and I am who I am. But that's what I should have done. So tell someone. Find someone safe and neutral to share this dirty little secret with. Find a career coach or a therapist if it's really a traumatic issue in the realm of, you know, therapeutic help that you need. Or find a mentor or accountability buddy who isn't going to judge you. And I always say this. Who sees the shining vision of you before it's hatched. That's who you want to tell, right? Tell someone. Because inevitably, when you shine the light on the dirty secret, somehow it loses its power. It can't exist in the bright light. It's going to wither and die, and you're going to take hold and you're going to do something and this is step number three. Take empowering action to deal with it. These secrets take a hold of you and control you. Even. You know, I think I might have shared this. I'll never forget, years ago, a woman came to me for coaching, career coaching, and she seemed to be hiding in her work. And I read her career path assessment, which is this assessment that I think all of you should take. If you want my help, we have a session and I can review it with you and tell you what I see and we can take steps from there. But she was hiding in her work. And I do ask in that career path assessment, has there been a pivotal moment in your life, either you perceive as negative or positive, that change things? And she wrote something. But I was reading her assessment and I knew something much deeper had happened. I didn't know what it was, but I knew it. So in our first call, I said, I know you didn't expect to probably talk about this, but I sensed something has sent you underground. Is that right? And she was pretty wowed that we were going to have to talk about that. And it was that she had been raped by the entire sports team of her high school. And when we talked about that a little and you know, she had had therapy about it, but I did suggest that more therapy was in order to. Because I do not do therapy and coaching. But what happens is if you're still struggling from something like that, even though it happened when you're 18, it's going to show up. It's going to be very active in your professional life. That's the thing. It's going to affect every aspect of your life. So if you've had something like that, it's time to see a therapist. You can write me. I have a therapist I recommend for a lot of people who does remote work, who's amazing. Janetta Bolander. Lynn Carroll, again, is an amazing counselor and is an energy worker. And you do not have to see a therapist in person any longer. The pandemic changed that for good. But, you know, it never really was the case. We can do online work. A lot of the work that I do in my courses is very and on zoom with my clients is very deep work. It can be done remotely online. You can also check out the app aamft.org the American association of Marriage and Family therapy.org, aamft.org they have a therapist locator and you can find a therapist near you. But again, you can find great therapy help that isn't local. You don't need it to be local, do something about it. Don't make excuses. Now let's bring that to the light of day. A few other ways to address what has traumatized you. If you've been fired or feel shame about it and it's still upsetting you, brainstorm all the ways that this was the right thing to be ejected from the job. Probably because you hated it and you didn't fit in there. Ecosystems are going to eject organisms that aren't a fit. Or if you hated the job like I hated my last job, people sense that you're not a fit. Why am I going to be retained? And often the universe is doing you a favor, kicking you out of a horrible job in a toxic ecosystem. If you feel you aren't skilled enough to do your job, talk to your boss, if your boss is safe. Or talk to your mentor or your sponsor and do something like I should have done. If you feel you have to lie about your age to keep working, I really ask you to rethink that. Yes, there's age bias in our workplaces, but there are also some amazing cultures and wonderful employers and organizations that honor mature professionals. I did an interview with Chip Conley about this very thing in my Forbes block. It was amazing. We'll link to it. He's an inspirational thought leader for sure. And I want to leave you with this. You are not your past. You're all of it. Past, present and future. So do the work to release the shame and the humiliation and the negative judgments you have about yourself. You are not just your past. I mean, I wish you could see you the way I see you, which is brilliant and talented and so capable and so important in the world. Another way to make use of the pain and trauma you've had is turn your mess into a message. I wish I coined that term. It's not my term. But you can help others transform. You know, I would love to believe that that's what people perceive me as doing. I had a mess of a time for a lot of years. And thankfully, therapy, training and being a therapist and being a coach and interviewing so many hundreds of people, I have been able to turn that mess into a message. And sometimes I'm one step out of the mess. Not a hundred steps. One step. And I say, wow, what am I to learn here? What is this teaching me and how can I help others? That helps me turn my mess into a message. And Cheryl Hunter has done the same. She's an incredible light in the world. And now teaching people how to tell a different story about their life. So check her out. We'll certainly link to her below. And she's been on the podcast too, I think once, maybe twice. So we'll link to that. Realize that while you've made some decisions that led to painful or traumatic situations, that doesn't mean you deserved it. A lot of people get hung up and stuck in the territory. I deserve this misery. I just. I don't believe that. Let's reframe that. That's a misguided notion. You didn't deserve it. Yes, you had it. And perhaps something that you did co created it. But let's not get into the realm of you deserve it, okay? That's just not a helpful way to look at it and accept that tremendous success and joy and reward aren't meted out only to a handful of people. Everyone is worthy of it, of an amazing, joyful life and career. It's not just for a few people, it's for everyone. But first, you have to accept with every cell of your being that you are worthy of it, that you're a valuable soul in the world. So I'm going to leave you with a few questions to think about, but there's a full list in the book. What story am I telling myself about who I am and what's happened to me that keeps me stuck as a victim, who I don't like? Number two, to whom have I handed over all my power? Number three, what makes me continue to believe I'm not good enough or as good as others? And four, how can I change these stories about myself that I'm telling myself? And how can I tell a new story? How can I reframe it so there's a more positive, uplifting and compassionate story? I hope that's helpful to you, my friends. I really do. I think that if we're honest with ourselves, we've all had many more than one painful experience that made us go underground. And for so many people, you are not alone. If this is you, we're still carrying the pain of it. I mean, we're still remembering. I still remember some things that happened when I was 18 or 22 or, you know, way back when. And I think of it, I'll leave you with this. I talk about it as it's almost like there's a groove in your brain that keeps going back that kind of like a river runs through rock because it's been millions of years where that water's run through. It's like a groove in your brain where you keep going back to that. Yeah. When mom said this. Or when I was humiliated in a chorus of 200 people in Allstate in New York. Oh, my goodness. Our mind goes to it. You have to pick that up and move it physically, as if you're grabbing that memory and you're moving it and you're healing it and you're releasing it and you're letting it go. It's time. I hope this has been helpful to you, everyone. I would love to hear what you think. You know, I post these everywhere on social media. Instagram. Follow me on Instagram, would you? Athycapino. I'd love to hear from you. And I posted on LinkedIn and on my Facebook. Paige Elliot, Communications, Please share. What's your dirty little secret that you've overcome or that you're working on? I would love to hear. And if you have questions and you need help, feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear from you. Okay, people, I will see you next time. Thank you so much. Bye.

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