A Rude Email Triggered Something Deep — Here’s What I Did

In this episode, Martina takes you inside a raw, personal story from her corporate life — from the moment her chest tightened as she read “Are you kidding me?” to the conscious decision not to escalate.

This conversation goes far beyond email etiquette. It’s about nervous system triggers, childhood wounds resurfacing at work, the myth of “radical authenticity,” and the difference between reacting from ego versus responding from alignment with your values.

In this episode, Martina explores:

• Why your nervous system reacts to a harsh email like it’s a saber-toothed tiger 
• The difference between setting boundaries and discharging your fight response
• Why calling someone out at work isn’t automatically courageous
• How to stay aligned with your values while navigating power dynamics, competing agendas, and corporate politics

If you’ve ever felt your body go hot and cold over a Teams message, email, or public criticism… this one is for you.

Because true power at work isn’t about reacting fast.
 It’s about responding consciously.

And that changes everything.

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Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.

Transcript

Shock Of The Rude Email

Martina 0:00

In today's episode, I'm taking you inside a very real moment from my corporate life. I received a very rude email with senior leadership on CC, and a childhood wound got so unexpectedly activated. We're going to unpack what really happens in your nervous system in moments like this, why your body doesn't distinguish between a sharp email and a real threat, and how quickly ego, fear, and old patterns can take the wheel. But more importantly, we're talking about the pause, the space between trigger and response, the difference between discharging an emotion and leading yourself all along. Because this isn't just about one email, it is about power, authority, boundaries in corporate life, and how to stay aligned with your values and your integrity, especially when it would feel so good to fire back. So another work week has started, and I want to tell you something. My last two work weeks in corporate America have been challenging beyond imaginations, and in my job, I have to deal with a lot of different people, a lot of different rules, and a lot of competing agendas. So it's extra challenging often to work in competing structures, in working with the resources available and all the bullshit, basically. But there are so many competing desires goals as I said initially, so it's it's really hard, and I'm me and my team are very often trapped between, and then I need to make decisions that are unpopular for some, and also to kind of protect my agency, my team's agency, and all the all those things basically. So and sometimes I have conflicts, I have people sending me rude emails, it doesn't happen often, fortunately, yet when it happens, it's absolutely bananas how my nervous system is reacting to them. So I was just meeting a friend last week, so it wasn't the day I received a specific email I was meeting her for coffee, and I told her, it's it's crazy how my nervous system knows, like my brain, logically, I know it's an email. It's just an email from someone who reacts very emotionally, yet my nervous system does not really like discern between an email and a saber-toothed tiger in the room. So that was first very fascinating. And I will do a whole podcast episode just around this because you know, this deserves to be a standalone podcast. What I want to look into today was, or is not was, is more about how do we react in the best way possible, in a way that aligns with our values, you know, kind of also preserves our authority, and then also asks answers the question: how do we deal with boundaries in the workplace? How do we do we call out people for their behavior? And I really now just talk about our work life. I'll talk about corporate America, which if you are working in a small company in a big corporation, it does not really matter. It's it's it's the same thing because I do believe that we are, you know, wrong to think that we have to be always 100% authentic in every aspect, in every role of our lives, and I genuinely don't believe it. That can totally backfire. So let's just set the context for this conversation and let me go into storytelling. So on this specific Thursday, I received an email, and the email started, Hi Martina. Sorry for the rude email, but are you kidding me? And then that person stated something that was absolutely untrue. I, you know, for you don't need to know everything because then I have to explain you everything, like my whole role and what really happened. It doesn't really matter. The email was so charged. So for non-native English speakers, if an email in a professional environment starts with, Are you kidding me? That is one of the most rude ways how you can convey a disagreement or something that you thought happened that never happened. So the person was claiming something that was entirely untrue. I had all the receipts because I did my research, I looked into what my team did. So it was absolutely 100% untrue what she was claiming and accusing me of. And it wasn't only not true, it conspired in a complete diff in a completely different way. I had again all the receipts for this because I talked to people. My chest tightened, my my jaw dropped to the floor, and you know, I had this like in the beginning, I was just like, I felt hot and cold. I was like, and this was a dicey situation, it was already a very difficult situation to navigate with that person on a completely different topic. And now I had to deal with something unrelated to what I was dealing with the person in the first place. So I I felt like I mean, now I'm I'm I'm truly fucked, you know, because that was the first reaction. I was like, oh my god. Because it wasn't just that person emailing me, there were other people and senior leadership on CC. So that made the matter worse. So that was my initial reaction. So I was like, oh my god, that's and you know, when something is unfair and you know that cannot be true, and then you do all your research and you have all the proof that what the person claims is not true. I get so angry because I hate this kind of game. But you know, that's corporate, that's work life. And so the way how that person framed it was so inaccurate. I I had such an urge to respond back in a way of like, you know, I wanted to put a boundary, like kind of like you know, the way how everything is framed and phrased. And I wanted to bring the receipts, screenshots from Teams exchanges, also on Teams, you know, these this kind of Microsoft software or app where you can chat with your whole organization, or you can make team calls. It's like the replacement of Skype, more or less. And you know, the tone that she used. It was everything, like everything kind of like fell on me. The the tone somehow this person used, and the whole context, and all these things. And obviously, you know, it's also kind of a childhood wound because in my childhood I was accused by my mom by so f for so many things. So I'm particularly hurt when someone accuses me of something that is absolutely not true or uses a tone that I feel like is just venting, it's just you know, it's it's venting in a way that's just also not. I mean, how I I'm not a doormat, you know, you cannot just come and vent. I mean, if you want to do that, why don't you just set up a call? Why don't we just talk it through? Okay. So, and of course, you know, I wanted to see how inaccurate that is. I wanted to prove blah blah blah. Every just reaction that you have in this moment, and obviously, I didn't. I mean, needless to say, that this would have been wrong. And I mean, there is so much gold in not reacting, not even in that moment, in that minute, not on that day. I responded the next day because obviously it took me some time to really calm down. And I have to be honest with you, I was even crying because I was like, I was deeply hurt, and I know that stronger reaction I had was due to something in my childhood that popped up in that moment that person, you know, wrote to me, and the way how they phrased it, just the tone itself, has been deeply shocking to me. So I took my time, you know. I'm like, okay, there's also no urgency to respond to those emails. Every time you get such an email that is not about facts, but it has such an emotionality behind or in it, you have no need to take that as an urgent email to respond. Because the more you take your time, the more distance you create. And I I am a person who I I really react very hurtful, hurt let's put it this way. I was really hurt. And I know my reaction was big, and I handled it quite well within myself. I, you know, I also like went away from my laptop for a while. I I took a break, I took my dogs out, I touched grass, like literally, I touched my dog's fur. So I did what I could just to get off this stupid screen, off this call context. I was like, okay, let's take a while. And I also like, you know, even the next day when I felt completely calm. A colleague of mine who was on CC, she reached out to me. She said, Hey, I'm listening to you. You can vent on me if you just wanna, you know, set, you know, kind of like get your frustration out. And the only thing I was telling that colleague was, you know, like that was definitely super hurtful. And I showed her all the receipts I had, and she was like very surprised by how different everything was than that person conveyed and portrayed, and that alone was just helpful. It was helpful to prove one person that I also truly value that these are the receipts, it's not sure what that person is saying, but at the same time, I just let her know that, and I wouldn't put that in an email. The reason I didn't put any receipts like screenshots and showing exactly that no one has done anything wrong, and this was completely different to what she was saying, was because there it would make a case, it would open a case that I feel like why? Why opening a case? First of all, I have nothing to defend for. I I truly believe that defending oneself is so often backfiring in that case, it would because I did not believe a second that I did something wrong, my team did anything wrong after the research I had that confront with facts. And that was that suffices, that was enough for me. So, you know, instead of just being blunt with her, matching her tone, saying her framing is inaccurate, making her wrong in the way how she was writing, I responded with clean facts. I addressed the substance without touching the tone that she used. I also clarified next steps and I removed every ounce of emotional charge. And I could do that really well the next day because you know I was already really, really over this in a way of I processed this well. But afterwards I asked myself this rather uncomfortable question. You know, I teach women to drop the good girl conditioning, and then it's like in that email there was disrespect too. Like I you know, there it was like boundaries overstepped, like you know, like this person has no right to send such an email to me. So why didn't I name that disrespect or put a boundary? Was that composure on my end, or was it you know professionalism dressed up as conditioning? So, and that moment really forced me to ask the question what does authenticity really look like in work? And isn't my authenticity in my private life different than it is in my in my work life? So I was really reflecting on this, and I was like, it nothing is life is clean cut, nothing is really, how do you say? So everything in life is nuanced, every exchange is nuanced, every every statement is nuanced, and it it needs context, and context can change the nuance, it can change even the um the statement. And there's a lie about authenticity in professional environment because somewhere along the way we were sold the idea that authenticity means saying exactly what you feel, exactly how you feel it, and in basically every room that you are part of. And that sounds super brave, it sounds powerful, but it ignores exactly what I just said, the context. Because corporate spaces are they are not intimacy containers, they are power containers. There everything here operates on hierarchy, optics, consequences, results, performance. No one gives a shit about how you feel. And if I look at the corpor corporate structure, there's nothing really ever how do you call it? Yeah, there are competing forces, lack of resources, and you have to fulfill often a role that's very difficult to fulfill with the means that you have. So every reaction, like every word, in every visible emotion that's turns into data, and escalating a tone or matching someone's tone in the email. You know, some emails are written so snappy, or in a way that I feel like could you just say hi, could you just write it at an ounce more friendly, you know? But escalating does not prove anything, it doesn't prove your integrity, it kind of shifts how other people perceive your emotional stability. And uh in corporate life, perceived stability, so the way how you compose yourself, the way how you get perceived by others outweighs perceived accuracy. So you are not just you at work, you have a role, you have a job description within a system. And I claim here that every corporate or every corporation I've worked in had and is a broken system. It just does not work. And certain roles, or every role basically, exists to achieve outcome, and those outcomes are in your job description. So and that does not mean because you're acting within a role that you are fake. It makes you strategically intelligent and it helps you stay in alignment with your values, with your integrity. And calling someone out, especially in at work, that is not really automatically courage. Because, you know, there is this empowerment narrative out there that equates confrontation with you being a brave soul, with being a hero. And the faster you correct someone publicly, the more self-respect you have, or the more you know, of a leader you are, the more authority you have, or will gain the more of a leader you are. But confrontation and courage are not really synonyms. In many cases, an immediate confrontation, so me immediately replying back to my colleague and calling her out is not courage. It's nervous system discharge, as I call it. It is your fight response seeking relief, right? Because if you get triggered, there is energy in your body, and we want to discharge it. So obviously, we are not physically fighting, so we are fighting back with writing an email that matches the tone, that maybe uses hurtful words, or just well, you know, that the that what you're writing is kind of like gacha or you know, touche, you know, this kind of emails. I think I I think you know really well what I'm talking about because maybe you had such such emails or messages in your private life. Maybe it was not work-related. But I don't know how many emails I got in my life and I have reacted to towards them, maybe not immediately because I know don't reply back immediately, but then still match the tone in a way, or still kind of like mirrored back something in them, you know, or whatever. It was just it's just not helpful. So because if you to fight so if I write back to that person that the way how she handled things was very poorly, I am correcting, responding immediately with correcting the tone, right? If I would write back to her and say, the way how you just handled this or the way how you wrote this email was really poorly, I'm correcting her. And that is the escalation of this already hot temperature in this social environment. And at that point, that issue is no longer operational, it's more relational and hierarchical. And in corporate environments, visible power struggles are really evaluated on objective accuracy. They are more evaluated evaluated on perceived stability. So it's not just about the facts and the figures, it's also about you know how stable you are. And there is research in leadership perception that shows that your emotional regulation under stress is one of the strongest predicators of a perceived executive presence. So if you appear least stable destabilized, so if you appear the least destabilized under criticism, is obviously subconsciously read by others as higher status and more leadership already. So well, when you escalate the tone, even if you are factually correct, you are entering something you don't want to enter, and that is the dominance contest. You are in a playroom for showing who has the bigger balls, and that is something not good long term. And then of course, hmm, let's bring in the gender. This was between me and another female. But I had email exchanges with guys, so if I bring in now the layer of gender, that also uh makes this even more special. Because a lot of workplace studies have shown that women are more punished than men. Not surprising if you ask me, especially and mostly if they have assertive behaviors. So assertiveness is in men is is seen as okay, it's seen as like, yeah, of course, and great and alpha and amazing. So a decisive man is read as, yeah, great, right? Assertive in a man means he's decisive. But if a woman is assertive or shows assertive behaviors, then she is more interpreted as abrasive. And that is not an opinion d that is a documented and studied bias. So again, when you choose composure, you are not shrinking. You just make a more calculated assessment if it's worth going down this rabbit hole of power struggle or dominance. And I definitely did not want to go into any of those power struggles. I didn't want to escalate it. And you know what I always think when I get such a nasty email? I asked I really tell myself, because I know it. If someone writes such an email, they are so desperate, so hurt, so drained of all their emotional maturity and capacity. Because to write such an email, you are not a that is not a bad person. I know that person has a heart in her left part of her body and not to excuse bad behavior. This is not me saying, oh yeah, I'll, you know, I'll excuse this. No. But I also know I'm sorry for this person. Because if you need to write such an email, again, to discharge your emotional overwhelm. Oh my god, I really feel sorry. And I also want to be real with you. The impulse, you know, to correct, to call out a tone, to set something straight, feels damn satisfying in the moment. I mean, you know, your cortisol and adrenaline are surging, your body feels ready, your ego feels defended, and you get this short hit of relief, the little surge of like I showed them. And for a second, it feels like this justice, this power, and it's just a good release. And even me, like, you know, I like to have justice. I am such a person for justice, and at the same time, I know in this world there is no justice. There is no good and bad. I mean, obviously there is, but like between the two of us, right? If if you say something hurtful to me, you know, is it justice for me to set the record straight and like match your reaction or fire back a message that matches kind of the way how you put it out there? Like to hurt you, to set you straight? No, it's not. It's it's just not it's not helpful. So at the same time, I'm not saying, you know, be a doormat and just excuse people's behavior because they're hurting. But again, in corporate environments at work, it's it it's never smart. It's also not smart, obviously, to do that in private life, but I discern between those two. Because honestly, sometimes if my husband and I have a TIFF, I am not as composed as I am in my workplace. I am having sometimes an emotional discharge here with him because I'm not perfect, and I get sometimes so triggered, and yeah. But in corporate, you will not get an email. We'll ever see an email where I'm writing back in in a way where I am matching someone's bad behavior. So the ego discharge is super rewarding for your body. It's rewarding also your fight response. It feels good because, you know, obviously, evolutionary defending your status mattered for your survival, for your kids' survival. But then obviously, in modern workspaces, they are not really survival zones per se. They are more like systems of influence and it's all about perception. And it's just where composure really outweighs correctedness, correctness. So while you know, a quick callout might feel so good, and you feel like, ah yeah, long-term is just not super helpful, and it's you know, it doesn't give you any sustained power respect. And is it in alignment to react to, you know, is it, you know, if you write an email or answer back that you wouldn't sign on your deathbed, it's definitely not good to send it. And the true radical move here is to honor that search, acknowledge the fight, flight, or foreign response, and then you can decide. Do I want this momentary relief? The thing that gives me short term, the pleasure, this like, yeah, good. Or do I want to align with my integrity, with my values? Is this something that I would write even in 10 years? And I also ask myself, you know, alignment with my values and self-abandonment. Where am I, where is the discernment, where I'm where am I like self-abandoning and where I'm actually aligning with who I am? Because a calm behavior can come obviously from two different places. First, it can come from fear because conflict feels unsafe. I have a lot of clients who cannot really say the things in their private life because they fear conflict. Disapproval obviously can trigger your attachment system. And often we regulate from anxiety more than from power, and that is fawning. And then there is alignment with your values. You feel the tension, you notice the impulse to react because I had it all, I had the tension, I had this impulse to react and to just say that this is so untrue. And consciously I chose my response based on what aligns with who I am, my principles, my integrity, and also my long-term goals. So escalating might have felt satisfying in a moment, but then it would have harmed also my credibility. So from the outside, both look the same, right? A calm email, a neutral tone, no visible no visible heat. But then inside, they feel different because fear-based regulation feels still tight. You replay the scene in your head, you imagine what you should have said. So there's always this residue, and you are still thinking about it email months from the time it was sent. But values-driven regulation feels more deliberate. You may still disagree, but you know why you chose the response. I disagree because I, in my private life, I would have responded differently. And would have packed in different words, I would have drawn a boundary. But you know, I have chosen a response that is very clear, it's coherent, and it puts me in charge and in power. And after I sent that email the next day, I checked in with myself and I didn't feel swallowed, I didn't feel I erased myself, I felt precise. I protected something bigger than my ego because it was kind of like I was more credible, I positioned myself well, and I felt really calm and pro and I felt like I processed and I digested this well. So the question that really determines your power is not to call things out, it goes way deeper. It goes into who was in control when I responded? Was it my ego? Was it my my fear that drove me? Or was it I aligned with my integrity, my values? Uh it aligned so well with the person who I am and who I also wanna be. So when you leave a conflict at work or private, feeling resentful, diminished, or chronically silenced, be careful because that is such important data, because that indicates self-abandonment. Somewhere along the line, you haven't been really, you know, looking after you. But if you feel composed, you feel very intentional, you feel very clear about this long term, you have aligned with your values and integrity. And you know what? You are allowed to be multifaceted because authenticity doesn't require behavioral consistency across all environments. Because again, if a client would have sent such an email, like, are you kidding me? Sorry for the rude email, are you kidding me? I mean, that client was my client because I would have a conversation with her and would have made sure that there is a clear boundary that I would not accept such such ever responses. But you know, psychological maturity is not about being the same person in you in your different roles that you have, it's more about the integration. Because human beings, we all are context sensitive, just by our biology. So we change behavior based on the environment because different environments have different reward structures. So in private relationships, it's about intimacy. It's about, you know, the currency there is about vulnerability, emotional expression, and relational repair. But then when you look into the corporate environments, this is all optimized for performance and hierarchy. And the currency there is reliability, your stability in terms of your regulation, and strategic clarity in a way. So when you bring the wrong currency into the wrong environments, well the result that what you get out of is rather poor, it's a because if you bring corporate detachment into your marriage, your intimacy will suffer. If you bring unfiltered emotional processing into a meeting, well your authority in a way will suffer. So this is not being hypocritical of modulating your behavior based on environment. It's what it's more about calibration. And it's you knowing about in which role what role requires certain behaviors. Also not to say that I'm not me when I'm working in corporate environments. It's just that I always say, is that worth it? It's just work. Again, it's not about me, it's not about intimacy, it's not the context for it. It's not about me talking about my feelings, being vulnerable. I have a role, and in that role, certain behaviors are okay, and certain behaviors are not okay. And if I agree with this, great, if not, that's the wrong job, the wrong company, I'd say. So adjusting your behavior is not being inauthentic. It is adaptive intelligence, and some systems will punish you for being unfiltered, for being emotional, for being, you know, I don't know, for just, you know, being unfiltered in your emotional processing or saying things exactly the way you want to say it. So yeah, that's basically all I wanted to discuss with you. I hope. I mean, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that, because you know, I was always struggling with adapting behavior depending on the context, and I'm like, yeah, but in theory, not in theory, but I was like, no, but you know, bring this into your workplace, be honest, be vulnerable. But then I'm like, no, it doesn't work like this. So in theory, it's nice to say be authentic by all means at all costs and everywhere. But then, no, no, it's not working like this because different systems reward different behaviors. That's just what it is. Yeah. And it is so crucial to ask yourself the deeper question when you send messages, or even before you send it. Before you send, ask yourself who is in control when I'm about to respond? Is it my ego, my fear, or is it me being in alignment with my role, my integrity, my values? Yeah, so that's what I wanted to talk to you about. And I hope you took something away from it. And you have had such emails in the past and you handled it in a way that you're still very proud of, or maybe you know now better. In the end, you know, we all humans react how we react, and every as long as you take lessons away when things backfire, or when you noticed, oh, I should have maybe thought this over. Yeah, happens, happens to the best of us, yet I can just tell you this email really had it in itself. Like, how this isn't this is actually not English. I want not to say this email really triggered so much in me, and now it's how many days? One, two, three. So it's the fourth day after this email, and I'm feeling so complete with this. I feel so like it's done, it's it's done in the best way. I feel not triggered at all anymore. I I'm proud of what I wrote on Friday, like what was my response? I, you know, had funny enough, on Friday afternoon a call with that person. So we were on a call with someone else and with her, and we even talked it over, right? So, and you know, not that I needed this because my email with my email I was already complete, but it was nice, you know, like just to to chat over this. There was obviously no apology for this per from this person, and I don't know, maybe the person still thinks this was just to write that was completely okay to write. No, it was not. It's not. Even if I have all the context, how hard she's working and how desperate she is because she has not the resources to live or her projects, it's still not okay. But you know what? Do I need to tell her that? Is this something that I really need to tell her? No, I don't. My ego would like to, but I don't need to tell someone that this person is wrong. It's obvious. It's obvious. If I'm going and show you or show 10,000 people this email, a lot of people will say that's not okay how to respond this way. And I'm fine, you know. I am glad. I am not such a person who writes emails like that, and not to put myself above her or above people or to make me now the better person, because you know, I'm not a better person. Yet I have learned that this is just not okay. It's not okay to emotionally vent on someone, especially if there's leadership on the C on CC. And well, you know, that email shows a lot about her and how she's reacting under stress. And I have a lot of stress and a lot of pressure in my role. Yet I know that reacting this way and letting people feel this doesn't make anything better at a short-term release, and in the end, I would feel just ashamed of myself. I would go and apologize, I would repair because that's me, that's my values. I also know a lot of people don't repair, especially not in workplace, they don't own things, they they maybe not even at that level to understand that they did something not okay. But having that all said, I don't need an apology, I don't need to make her wrong, and I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I am also internally so okay with that person that I can feel genuine love. I couldn't on Thursday, I was completely devastated, and I regulated myself, I held myself, I made myself okay for crying, I'm okay telling you that I was crying, that I can that I tell you that yes, an email can make me cry. Does that make me weak? Does that look make me look like I'm a loser? Well, if you think so, that's on you. I don't think someone crying over an email makes them person that person a loser or weak or whatever. It's not at all. It's it's okay. And that is all I think I had to share with you today. So thank you for listening. I'm curious to hear if you had such exchanges in your workplace. It doesn't need to be corporate America. It can be corporate anywhere, it can be a small yoga studio that you're working for, or in a school that you're teaching. We all have colleagues, we all have different nervous systems, and we all have pressure and people who are hurting. And sometimes we are the perpetrator. Sometimes we send such messages and emails. Happens, happens to the best of us. Yet I have learned after so many years that this is not how I chose to show up. But any game, but again, happens to some of us or the best of us. So thank you for tuning in. I appreciate you taking the time, and I'll talk to you very soon. Bye, my loves.