013. Healing From A Toxic Job

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Transcript

0:00

Hello. Welcome. You are listening to the Latinas in Leadership podcast, where we empower Latinas with the guidance, knowledge they need to get promoted into leadership, increase their salary, and step into their purpose. I'm your host, Alejandra Thompson, leadership coach and first gen Latina on the mission to see more Latinas in leadership. Inside of my one on one coaching program, the confident Latina leader. I've helped Latinas increase their salary by 17, and even 40, 000. I've helped them get promoted into director level positions, quit toxic jobs, and change careers without taking a pay cut. In this podcast, you can count on me to share strategies, tools, and knowledge to help you break into the next level of your career. Let's go.

External Microphone-1: 0:53

Hey friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I wanted to add a little note here before the podcast starts because I recorded this and as I was going through it and editing it, there was one part where I talked about accountability that I felt like I could have done a better job at fleshing it out. So I added in some extra pointers in there. It's going to sound like it went from one volume to the other volume. when you hear it. You're going to know exactly what I'm talking about So just wanted to give you a heads up that when I did this podcast, I was relistening to it. And I just always want to make sure that the things that I'm sharing with you are helping you. And when I was talking about accountability, I think there was some nuance that I thought was super important for me to share with you. Especially as this topic is a sensitive one, healing from a toxic job. And I was talking about accountability, and I know that as Latinas, we can lean towards. Blaming ourselves, shaming ourselves. And so I wanted to add some nuance to there. So when you hear it, when you're like, oh, that sounds like it's a different microphone, or it sounds like the sound is a little bit different it's because it is a added in a note. Um, so just wanted to give you that heads up. All right. I hope you enjoy this and you'll be entering the official podcast after this.

Shure MV7 & Lumina Camera - Raw: 2:03

Hey friends. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we're discussing healing from a toxic job. This is going to be maybe a sensitive topic for some of you, especially if you are healing from a toxic job. If you recently left a toxic work environment where you had a toxic boss or peers, So I'm just want to say that upfront, this may be a sensitive topic for people. What I say may be difficult to hear or may seem like it's, maybe you're just not ready for it. However, I encourage you. If you are healing from a toxic job to listen to this full episode, to open your heart and open your mind to receive it. And. Take it from there. If you listen to the whole thing and you sit with it and you're like, islet is full of it, then fine. You can just ignore that you ever listened to anything. And I'm so sorry that you spent. 20 to 30 minutes listening to that. However, I think a lot of you who sit with an open heart and open mind, and we'll take this in, even though they may be some bitter pills to swallow or maybe things that you don't necessarily want to do to heal. That you can receive it and actually see what it can actually help you with. All right. So I'm going to talk a lot about healing from a toxic job. Before we go into that, I hope you had a beautiful, beautiful week that you had a great Valentine's day or Galentine's day. Whichever one, if you like to do both of them. And let's go ahead and go in. We're going to talk about healing from a toxic job. There are many parallels that I'll make throughout this episode when it comes to careers and relationships, because I actually do believe that there are many parallels in general when it comes to careers and relationships in our lives, but I don't think we tend to see them that way. And so I think we TA. I think we tend to miss very particular things that we would see as obvious in personal relationships that we aren't applying to our careers. And so I'm going to discuss the three major consequences of being in a toxic work environment and three key things that you can do to help you heal from a toxic workplace. I'm going to go through client stories and their journey of healing through toxic environments so that you can truly get what you need to help you do the much needing healing that you need in order to continue in your career. I unfortunately do have to help my clients through this. Like I wish I didn't. I wish it makes me sad. I wish I didn't have to help my clients navigate the type of healing from toxic jobs. But the reality is, is there are people that exist that are hurt, that are bitter, that don't know how to cope. And they are in the workplace. And sometimes they are in leadership positions and they hurt other people that is the reality of the world that we live in. And so the reality is, is that I have clients who. I've had a boss or have had a peer or are in a workplace environment where the culture is toxic. And this episode is going to help you with navigating that. I'm going to primarily focus on the people that have left or are leaving a toxic workplace. If you are still in a toxic job and you have not taken any action to leave, my encouragement to you is to set boundaries in your current role and document everything that's happening. And for you to start looking for a new job ASAP, get the support you need to make that change happen. Please. I am begging you. Please stop. Just talking about how horrible your job is and start taking action to change this because in my personal experience and what I've witnessed with my clients, Toxic workplaces tend to usually only get worse and they could lead you to getting fired, or it could lead you to quitting your job with no backup plan, which leaves you unemployed. And for most of my clients, that's like worst case scenario. So take action now. The title of this podcast is healing from a toxic job, not dealing with a toxic job, which both are important. And I will go over dealing with a toxic job, but I just want to make that distinction. If you haven't taken any action to heal from a toxic job that you've already left, this is for you. If you're currently in a job that's toss toxic right now, then this is going to be more so on how you can cope once you do leave. And I encourage you to please speak up for yourself, go to HR or any trusted leaders, set boundaries, and start taking action to get out of there. And when you do get out of there, God bless you and you will need some healing. You will have some healing that you need to do once you get out of that. Because it's so critical for our growth. One of the biggest problems I see when people go through a toxic work environment is that they don't take the time to heal from it. And so imagine this is where I'm going to parallel with relationships. Imagine in relationships, it's the girl that goes from one bad relationship to another bad relationship, to another bad relationship. Even though she's like a really sweet kind girl. And you're like, I don't know why she keeps winding up with these dudes. We wind up repeating the same mistakes. And we wind up in another toxic work environment when we don't actually heal from the Turk, the toxic work environment that we came out of. And so we would never look at our friend that goes from one toxic environment to another, from one toxic relationship to another, without saying something without being like, Hey, you deserve better. Like, why are you doing this? How are you winding up with someone else? Like this. We need to do that same type of thinking for ourselves and for our friends and peers that are doing when you're seeing that pattern in other people. So not healing from a toxic workplace. It takes a real toll on your career advancement. It takes a toll on your salary. It takes a toll on you getting promoted. And so I really want to emphasize this episode is not just an optional thing that maybe you should do. No. If you want to continue to advance in your career, if you want to increase your salary, if you want to get promoted, if you want to live a healthy life. You have to prioritize healing from a toxic work environment, because there are three major consequences of being in a toxic work environment. Number one, it has a negative impact on your mental health. It toxic work environment can lead to you being, feeling increased stress, increased anxiety and depression. You'll see an overall decline in your mental wellbeing. This is a negative impact on your mental health. The other thing as well is that it will decrease your productivity and performance. So think about it. When you are feeling down mentally, you don't tend to perform your best. So toxic work environments. When you have a toxic manager, they usually instill a fearful mindset. You're usually feeling resentful. You wake up and you're like, I don't want to go to work. So of course, if you don't want to go to work, you're not going to perform. Perform your best. I work. There's low morale. All of these things impair your productivity and performance. So if you don't feel supported, if you feel undervalued, if you'll feel like you're constantly being undermined or you're being manipulated or you're being gas lit. You will become disengaged and less motivated to perform your best. The other thing is that it destroys your confidence. Oh, my gosh. I could go on this for an entire episode. Toxic workplaces, toxic people. Destroy your confidence. And this goes back to then your performance and your mental health. Constant exposure to hostility, to bullying, to people saying nasty comments about you or speaking ill of you or gaslighting you all of that erodes your self esteem, and it destroys your confidence when you don't perform well because of low morale that hurts your confidence. I've had clients who then really start to think. Am I even good at this? Should I even be here? I don't even belong here. Like this was a fluke. I should have never even taken this job. So you start to really question yourself your abilities because you start thinking you're not good at what you do. You start thinking you're not actually smart or capable. So three major consequences, negative impact on your mental health decrease productivity and performance, and it destroys your confidence. So of course, if those three things are going on, of course your career advancement is going to take a toll. Your ability to get promoted is going to take. Uh, toll your ability to increase your salary is going to take a toll. Of course that's makes total sense when you see it that way. But I think that healing from a toxic job, sometimes we don't make it a priority because it seems like something that's more on the backend. Like what we really need to do is we really need to just find another job, which yes, find another job and heal from that place because it's finding another job itself. Isn't going to do the work, the healing that is needed in your heart in order for you to move forward from that, you're going to move forward with still resentment and bitterness and. Having trust issues and all these different things. And so going back to relationships, it's like the girl who maybe goes from one. Awful person to another awful person and then finds this great man. And she can't seem to keep the relationship. She keeps feeling like she has these trust issues towards that person. She doesn't think that they're actually doing what they said they're going to do. And she can kind of see that she's being crazy, but she can't really help it. It's like that. Like you want to make sure that you actually heal from these previous toxic workplaces so that when you do find a good workplace, you can actually enjoy it and not be in that fearful state of maybe this isn't real. Maybe this is actually going to just fall apart. At any point or fearful, anytime a new manager comes on because you're like, what if that person is going to be toxic? So we want to make sure that you release those things so that you can enjoy not only your life, but also advancing your career. And so here are three. Key things to help you heal from a toxic job. Number one for give forgiveness is critical for healing from toxic relationships and work environments. And forgiveness is so hard. So before I even go into this, I just want to acknowledge. It's freaking hard to forgive people who have done you dirty, who have done you wrong, who have hurt you. It's not easy and it's okay that it's not easy. However forgiveness is critical. And it's critical for healing from toxic relationships and work environments. And this is both true spiritually and scientifically. There's an article I was reading in the NIH. It's called indirect effects of forgiveness on psychological health. I love when I see scientific articles that are in line with things that we're taught to do in the Bible. Here in this article, it says empirical studies have shown that forgiveness decreases anger, anxiety, and depression. So remember I said that toxic workplaces tend to increase these. It increases anger, it increases anxiety, increases, depression. It increases that sense of hopelessness. Forgiveness. Helps decrease all of those things. And forgiveness is also found to be linked with physical health in the areas that include, but it's not limited to cholesterol, heart health, hypertension, physical pain, sleep quality. I was like, oh my gosh, this is so cool to see science showing how forgiveness is directly linked to physical health. And that is so important to remember is all of this is interconnected, our mental health, our physical health, our spiritual health or emotional health. All of these things are interconnected. If you are doing poorly and one, it will impact the other areas. Forgiveness is also associated with increased hope for the future. this was across diverse populations, healing from horrible situations, awful, awful situations. Forgiveness can provide opportunities for reconciliation or just finding new meaning. You don't need to reconcile with someone, but you can find meaning in your past difficulties in your past challenges and you can reconcile for yourself and create closure for yourself. And remember, hope is crucial for overcoming despair and seeking out new risks, new possibilities for the future. I talked about hope in the last episode where I went over the quote from the hunger games and talked about how hope is such a powerful emotion to be able to get you through dark things. And that's why president's Snow, from the hunger games said hope is a dangerous thing to have because he knew that if people had too much hope or a lot of hope they would rebel and they would actually do something about the terrible situation that they were in. And so hope is so crucial and you gain hope from the process of forgiving. So scientifically it is supported over and over again. The Bible also talks about forgiveness in many different places. In Luke 11 for the prayer is forgive us for our sins. For, we also forgive everyone who sins against us and lead us not into temptation. So we are shown that we are to forgive other people as we are forgiven as well. Mark 1125 says, and when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone for give them so that your father in heaven may forgive you your sins again for giving people the moment you realize you're holding that bitterness. The moment you realize you're holding onto something, go into action of forgiving. Matthew 5 43. Through 44. Jesus says this himself. He says, but I say unto, you love your enemies. Bless them. That curse. You do good to them that hate you and pray for them, which despitefully use you and persecute you. So this means, and this is like the bitter pill to swallow here. This means you get to forgive the toxic boss. They yelled at you, the peer that took credit for your work or spoke badly behind your back for give your boss that fired you and then spread rumors about you. After you left the boss that kept making comments about your parenting and questioned your pursuit of a promotion, because you're a mom, the manager that kept keeping you out of meetings and presented your work. I'm talking about real examples. I've heard from clients and other. Other stories. Of people in the workplace. Because forgiveness is key for hope for the future. Key for healing the past and finding meaning in your life and creating closure. Forgiveness is hard and it's going to require three things. Number one, it's going to require that you trust in a just God. It's going to require that you believe who God says he is, that he is just in that he will bring justice forth. That means that even if you don't see it, even if you don't see it yourself, that may be that person that did wrong to you. You see visibly that they got fired or visibly that they got reprimanded or whatever that may be. Even if you don't see that you believe in a God that will bring justice. And you believe that you do not have to make that happen yourself because in our bitterness and hurt, we want to see vengeance most of the time, that is the natural human reaction to something, but that's not your position. That is not your position because that only bruise more bitterness, it only bruise more hate. And so in forgiveness, you have to trust in adjust God that because you forgive, doesn't take away from the fact that they did something wrong. It creates closure for you, compassion for yourself and a release of a bitterness that you're holding onto. So it requires you to trust and adjust God. Number one, because if you don't do that, it's going to be so hard because we feel like it's not fair and something should happen to that person. And this is what justice looks like. And that's not our position that also does not mean by the way that you should not hold people accountable or set boundaries. So I, I'm not going to talk about dealing with a toxic job, but just because I brought that up, I want to clarify like, Go to HR, go to a trusted leader. If you are in this position right now, and you need to speak up for yourself. So I'm not saying don't hold people accountable.

External Microphone: 17:53

Sometimes people confuse forgiveness with letting people get away with things or being passive and toxic situations. That's not true. You can forgive someone and hold them accountable. So what I'm saying here is not that you don't get to hold people accountable that you don't get to set boundaries. If you already left the job and you're struggling to forgive. This is where forgiveness comes in. If you're thinking constantly back about how they're still in that position and that's not fair, or it shouldn't be this way. If you're just harboring over what is going on and how justice wasn't served. Forgiveness must come in. It's my belief that you can hold someone accountable and it can even be more effective when you are in the process of forgiving versus coming from that place of bitterness and hate where that accountability can actually be tainted by the high emotions that you're experiencing. So this is not about not holding people accountable. It's about understanding that forgiveness always must happen for cardless of that. And you can hold people accountable, even when you are. Are forgiving someone, you can hold someone accountable for their actions and still forgive them in their situation to support you in your healing.

Shure MV7 & Lumina Camera - Raw: 19:04

Let go, what you can not control and hold onto the things that you can, you can control whether or not you forgive someone and start to release that bitterness, that anger that you're holding onto. Because of what you went through in a toxic workplace. So that's number one, what's going to be required for you to forgive number two, it's going to require for you to have compassion for yourself and for other people. A lot of times when we, when we get out of a toxic work environment or a relationship, we look back and we can be so hard on ourselves. I was in a toxic work environment once where it was awful and I wind up getting fired. So this is like, I am also dogging from my own personal experience, by the way, I wound up getting fired because I. I mean, I'm not even going to go into that T just know I wound up being fired. And then I was in such a horrible situation because now I'm unemployed. And I was in Miami and I was living in a studio. I had no business pain, that type of rent. And so I was in that position and I was so angry with myself. I was like, how could I let this happen? Why did I even stay at that job? I should have started looking for jobs earlier. I should have never accepted that role. All there were red flags in the beginning. Like I was so hard on myself. And I had to have compassion for myself and where I was and that I was doing everything I could to get by living in a new city. And so we can tend to really be hard on ourselves, hate ourselves for allowing that to happen. We can blame ourselves. And this happens again too. When people come out of toxic. Relationships. Sometimes they don't have that compassion for themselves, and sometimes they don't have that compassion for other people. So yes. Be compassionate towards yourself wherever you are. Maybe being hard on yourself, criticizing yourself, hating yourself, blaming yourself, have compassion for yourself, and then also have compassion for other people. And this goes back to the part where it can be hard. To have compassion for someone who was so mean to you, who was rude to you, who hurt you? It's so important for us to access that compassion for other people. Knowing that they are going through their own thing. They had something happen in their lives that created them to be the type of person that they are now have compassion over them. In the Bible verse that I shared with you, matthew 5 43 through 44 when Jesus says, but I say unto you love your enemies. Bless them. That curse. You do good to them that hate you and pray for them. Which despitefully use you and persecute you. This part right here is where we get to radically act in compassion, where we get to be radical about the way that we react to not in the normal human way, but in a way that is connected to God and more the way that God is and the way that we are capable of being through God. We get to then in that moment, have compassion, say a blessing over them. Pray over them. Prey good things over them. And if that is so hard, it's normal for that to be hard. And do it anyway. And you'll see that God will soften your heart over time, even when it feels so hard to pray over them. One of the things that I'll do is I will pray over people that I feel very judgemental about. So I'll catch myself judging someone and kind of giving them the side-eye or kind of thinking, just thoughts about them that are not nice, that are not helpful, that are not actually uplifting. And when I catch myself doing that, I will pray over them and I will pray blessings over them. And I will pray that they actually Excel in that they thrive in that they flourish in all these different things, and I will feel my heart gets soften. And also those thoughts, lesson and lesson about that individual, whoever I was judging at that moment. And so compassion for yourself and others is about. Having compassion for yourself for being in that situation. And also having compassion for other people, knowing that they have their own lives, they have their own things that have created them to do and be the way that they are, have compassion over them. Say a blessing, pray a blessing over them, pray over them because that's what we're called to do. That's the second thing that's going to be required for forgiveness. And then the third thing that's going to be required for forgiveness is a conscious and continuous decision. So the deeper, the hurt, the more that you're likely going to have to do this. The more, the deeper that someone hurt you, the more that you're going to have to consciously make the decision to forgive them. And it will be continuous. You will have to do it over and over and over again because you may heal one layer and then something else will happen. And that will feel again, angry, sad, disappointed, hurt, shame, all the different things. And then you get to make another decision again, consciously to forgive someone else to forgive yourself. Remember, this is where you get to meet yourself with compassion. So you don't have to be angry with yourself. This is something that I've seen. With some of my clients where they can get frustrated with themselves because they've already forgiven. A toxic manager, but then they find themselves upset again and they find themselves being petty, or they find themselves thinking negatively or just getting irritated again, over something that happened a while ago. And then they'll get frustrated. There'll be like, I just don't know why I keep getting upset about this. Like it happened so long ago. I just need to get over it. Hey, remember the deeper, the. The deeper, the hurt. The more that you're going to consciously and continuously have to make the decision to forgive them. It's okay. If that comes up again, it's your opportunity to practice forgiveness again, it's your opportunity to practice compassion. So this is where you meet yourself with compassion. Those are three key things that you're going to need. For forgiveness. Forgiveness. I know I've just spent probably most of this episode talking about forgiveness alone. Because I believe in the power of it. I see, not only scientifically, but also spiritually how important forgiveness is for us to live a healthy life. For us to be able to progress and to continue into the purpose that God has for us, we cannot do it. If we're not willing to forgive the hurt that we experienced and we're going to experience her in our life. That is number one, forgiveness. Number two, in terms of you healing from a toxic job accountability. You're going to need to hold yourself accountable. And there's a difference between blaming yourself and taking accountability for your actions. Blame is when emotions lead. It's when you have blanket statements, it's when you have no solutions or very poor solutions. And it leads to self criticizing and shame. Accountability on the other hand is where logic leads. You have specific statements. You have solutions provided that are real and actually helpful. And it leads to healing and empowerment. Here's some ways that you could potentially take accountability for your actions. These are some common areas that I have seen with previous clients and myself. Number one, take accountability for where you ignored your gut on red flags, where you ignored red flags, same thing with relationships. A lot of times, if you talk to a woman who came out of a toxic relationship with a man, she'll be like, I sh I saw things in the beginning, but I didn't take them serious. I ignored my gut. And that's the same thing that can happen with a job with a manager. So reflect on where there were warning signs or red flags in the toxic work environment that you overlooked or dismissed. You can take accountability for that. That's one area. Number two, your response to Ms. Treatment. So consider how you responded to the way that you were being treated in the workplace. And I want to be very careful when I say this, because in no way, do I want to victim blame at all? This is meant to be an empowering process for you to take accountability for your actions and then create a path forward. That's going to help you heal and help you prevent something like this happening again. So when I talk about response to Ms treatment, I'll give you an example of a client of mine who started a role. And then a new manager was onboarded. And this manager very early on, started to treat her poorly. She would make comments about her work. She would make. Make comments to other people about her time management, she would make comments about her parenting. She would make inappropriate comments regularly about what she was doing, both in the office and outside the office. This was early on. She said something to a leader. Four years later. Four years later. And what that person said was I had no idea. Start off with having an informal conversation. And then we can go from there. So one, the leader actually said, okay, we definitely want to address this, start with this and let me know how it goes. And that was only four years later. So I want you to also think about what has been your reaction, your response to this treatment. Have you silenced yourself? Did you keep this a secret? Were you passive and just accepted it? Did you set boundaries or not? I want you to really focus on that. And some of you may be listening to this and be like, I went to HR, I did all the things that great. Just I just, these are just points that I've seen again and that I want you to reflect on for yourself. So that's one, that's another area's response to the mistreatment. The other areas, contribution to culture to this toxic culture. So evaluate even your personal contributions to the toxic culture. Did you participate in gossip? Did you fail to speak up against any type of injustice or any type of behavior that you saw that wasn't right. Did you neglect to support your colleagues? Did you make it about you? You, you. The. The thing about toxic workplace. We're toxic cultures, and this is true. Really of any environment is. It said that we're a product of our environment. When we go into a place, the most dangerous things about toxic workplaces is that they can then. Bleed into us. And we start being a reflection of the toxic work environment versus being a reflection of our values and who we truly are. And so I want you to think about this as well. Where did you contribute to the culture? I know for me personally, One of the things I really struggled with is gossip. If there was a toxic workplace environment where there was a lot of gossip, I tended to really participate in that. And so it was great when I was the one gossiping with other people, but then when it came down to people, gossiping about me, of course, I doesn't feel great. So I had to take accountability for how was I contributing to a toxic culture? How did I get reeled into toxic activities that weren't actually reflective of? Who I desire to be, who God says I am and my values. So that's another area right there, contribution to culture and the last area. And this is not an exhaustive list at all. These are just main things that I see again with most of the clients that I work with. The last thing is boundaries. And self-care so reflect on your own personal boundaries. Did you have any boundaries? Did you have anything in your life that you were insuring that you were doing in order to take care of yourself? How are you nourishing yourself? Were there instances where you placed boundaries, but you compromise them? Or were there areas or seasons of your life, where you had things that you wanted to do for self care, but then you neglected them in favor of doing whatever you needed to do in the workplace. So recognize that too. These are four areas that you can start with in terms of taking accountability for your actions. And remember. To distinguish between blame and accountability. If you find yourself making blanket statements, like, okay, I suck, I should have never done that. It's all my fault. Or it's all there. All those are examples of blanket statements. I always do this. I should have known better. Those are blanket statements. And if you find yourself leading with your emotions and you don't have really any actual solutions or they're poor solutions and you're self criticizing and you're being ashamed of yourself, those are all signs that you're in blame, not accountability. Accountability is going through. Okay. Yes. In the beginning, actually, during the interview process, there were some red flags on this. There was maybe high turnover and I ignored that. Or the first time that this manager was onboarded, they made a few comments. It's in the beginning. I should've seen that as red flags and started to maybe document things from that moment. You see how that's just so much more specific and then you can actually create solutions from that, which we're going to talk about in the last step of this, of this episode here is actual solutions and that will lead you to healing and empowerment versus blame. So just know the difference between those two, as you do that process here. That's number two is accountability. And then number three. Uh, plan for moving forward. This is where you reflect on, what did you learn? What did you learn from this experience? What actions will you take because of this lesson? Those are the two key questions I want you to have for yourself in step three, a plan for moving forward. What lessons did you learn and what actions will you take because of this lesson? So you can think about certain things as examples, again, not an exhaustive list, but examples of things you could, you could take. So number one, maybe importance of boundaries. So the lesson could be recognizing the importance of establishing and maintaining personal boundaries in the workplace. And you may have learned that allowing work demands to consistently go over the line on your personal time, your personal wellbeing, that that will lead to burnout and resentment. So maybe you learn that lesson and what's the action that you're going to take. What are the tangible things you're going to take? You're going to do in order to support you in that lesson that you've learned so that you're not repeating the same mistakes over and over again. And action, maybe setting clear boundaries. What are those boundaries? And actually write those down. They can be regarding work hours, workload, maybe some things that you will write down about what's acceptable behavior. What's not acceptable. What are the red flags that you want to watch out for? And what boundary do you want to set for that red flag? You can begin to really go into the importance of boundaries and set forth a plan on how you're going to address that in the future or a plan that's going to help you identify whether something is toxic or not. Number two could be communicating through conflict. So a big thing. With the work that I do with my clients is they don't speak up for themselves. Like I told you, this one client who was in this workplace for four years without ever saying anything. And I worked with another client who had a manager that was explosive, that would just start yelling sometimes. And sometimes he would do it for her benefit. For example, he may be explosive on someone else that wasn't delivering on something my client needed. And so in that case, she would be like, okay, well, at least it's helping me. And so that actually goes back to contribution to a toxic. Oxic work culture. She was being accepting of that behavior when it benefited her, but then it, that behavior is rooted in something that is going on in this person's life. So it's not just limited to other people. He would then explode on her. He would yell at her and he would say inappropriate things to her. And she wouldn't say anything back when it would happen. And one time when we were coaching together, we decided we're going to work through this. We're going to communicate through conflict. And this is. A thing that I find very difficult for many of us, myself included is communicating through conflict, addressing something that needs to get addressed, but it's a leadership skill that is absolutely critical. Things are not going to be rosy people. Aren't always going to get along. You have to know how to communicate through conflict. You can not be a strong leader. If you can not communicate through conflict period. So the lesson here could be understanding the significance of effective communication in navigating workplace dynamics, addressing conflict. Discovering that you avoiding difficult conversations or a feeling to speak up for yourself can exacerbate misunderstandings and it can actually escalate tensions and it can really take a toll on your health. So the action you may take is developed communication skills, such as active listening, or I teach a framework to my clients on how they can address conflict. I walk them through a four-step framework to help them do that when they are actually going to go in and have the conversation with their boss. So we've literally had a coaching. Session together. And then the next day they have their meeting with their boss to go through the things, the grievances that they have and making sure that they actually. Document everything and are protecting themselves. So you would want to, from there, what's the action you want to take. What's the communication skills. What's the meeting you want to set up or what's the thing you need to do in the future to ensure that you can have. An exchange of communication, that will be much healthier in the future. Another thing you can think about is going back to ignoring red flags and ignoring the warning signs. So you could have a lesson like learning to recognize red flags and warning signs is a toxic that a place is a toxic workplace is really important. And realizing that those subtle cues, maybe like high turnover rates or lack of transparency, or the patterns of micromanagement, those comments that you kind of keep letting go that the indicator underlying issue within this person within the organization. And so not ignoring those. Things that can be a lesson that you take and what's your path moving forward from that. So maybe some action you want to take is being more vigilant, honoring your gut, more honoring that intuition, whatever you call that and evaluating potential employers during the interview process. Uh, ask questions, ask questions about their leadership, ask questions about how they handle certain things. Are you more inclined now to maybe reach out to former employees to see how their experience was in the workplace? Be more willing to go that extra step, because if you've gone through a toxic workplace, you know how detrimental it is to you. So what is an extra few hours on the front end and interviewing and making sure that an, that a place is a good place for you. What is that in comparison to the hurt and the pain and the hours and the, the years and all the time you're going to take to heal from. An unfortunate situation where it's a toxic workplace. So take the time on the extra time on the front end, you can ask questions in the interviews in terms of your path moving forward. So what questions do you want to ask in an interview to get a better understanding of what the workplace is like? What the hiring manager is like, These are some questions that I have. You know, thought about in the past for certain clients. So you can think about a question, like, can you provide a time where you had to give constructive feedback to a team member? How do you approach it? Or can you share a time when you made a mistake as a leader? How did you address it and what did you learn from that experience? Or how do you foster open communication and collaboration within your team? If company named work environment was a friend, what are three words you would use to describe their personality? So let's say you go and you interview in the company. Name is. Empowerment coaching. I'm just going to make it up. If empowerment coaching, if their work environment was a friend of yours, what are three words you would use to describe their personality? And see what they say. That's a more quirky one that can kind of catch them off guard so you can see what they say. I really want you to take away this, all these pieces, but make sure you actually put a plan to move forward. Because what we've talked about so far is how you heal from a toxic workplace. I paralleled how that can be similar to healing from toxic work environments. We explored three major consequences of toxic work environments. Like it's detrimental impact on your mental health. Decreased productivity and performance, the destruction that it has on your confidence, all of these things are going to hinder your career advancement and to heal from this type of experience that you have. I offered you three key strategies. Number one forgiveness. I know this is hard and it's a transformative process that not only reduces the negative emotions, but also fosters hope for you. Foster's hope for the future and empowers you to find meaning in your experiences, it's going to require that you trust God that he is a just God that you have compassion for yourself and others, and that you make that a continuous decision. Number two accountability, distinguished routine, blaming yourself and taking accountability for your own actions and the number three, create a plan for moving forward. Reflect on the lessons that you learned, maybe around boundaries, effective communication, recognizing warning signs. And actually put together a path for how you're going to address that moving forward. This is going to be so important for you as you navigate future career endeavors. And that you can feel empowered as you move forward from such a difficult situation. Healing from toxic workplaces is not only vital for your wellbeing, but it also paves the way for career growth and fulfillment. By embracing forgiveness, accountability, and proactive strategies for moving forward, you can go on a journey of healing and empowerment and ensuring that you don't let pass people rob you of the joy of the fulfillment that is available to you for the future. I hope this was helpful for you. I know this is not an easy episode at all. My heart goes out to you in this moment. I will be praying for you if you are currently healing from a toxic workplace, because I know how difficult it is. How painful it is. And these three key strategies can be a way to really support you through that process. So I hope this was helpful and I will talk to y'all next week. Ciao.

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If you are ready to get promoted into leadership and get the salary you deserve, I invite you to book a sales call with me. This is a one hour call where I will assess your career, your obstacles, your goals. I will tell you exactly the way that I can help you. And we can talk about whether the confident Latina leader program is the best fit for you. The link to book your sales call is in the show notes. Talk to you soon. Ciao.