Why Trauma-Informed Career Development Matters | Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide Ep. 001

Welcome to Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide: Navigating Professional Success with a Trauma-Informed Approach

In the inaugural episode of 'Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide,' host Cyndi Bennett introduces the podcast's mission to reimagine career development for trauma survivors. Sharing her personal journey from burnout and trauma triggers to becoming a successful trauma-informed career coach, Cyndi discusses the inadequacies of conventional career advice for trauma survivors. She outlines the five-step success path offered by the Resilient Career Academy, designed to help trauma survivors thrive professionally while honoring their healing needs. The episode also promises future content focused on managing workplace triggers, trauma-informed career strategies, and creating supportive professional environments.

00:00 Introduction: The Struggle of Trauma Survivors in Careers
00:50 The Birth of the Resilient Career Academy
01:58 Welcome to Your Trauma Wise Career Guide
02:50 Cyndi's Personal Journey with Trauma and Career
04:52 The Turning Point: Embracing Trauma-Informed Career Strategies
06:28 The Need for Trauma-Informed Career Development
11:34 The Resilient Career Academy Success Path
13:24 Upcoming Episodes and Final Thoughts

When you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you grow your career journey:

1. Free trauma-informed career development resources from my website! Visit https://www.cyndibennettconsulting.com for always up-to-date tips.
2. Ready to build a fulfilling career with trauma-informed support? Join The Resilient Career Academy Learning Community, where trauma survivors support each other, share resources, and develop career resilience in a safe, understanding environment
3. Ready for personalized trauma-informed career coaching? Explore my range of virtual coaching packages designed for different stages of your career journey. Visit my website to find the right support for where you are now. [Visit my website: https://www.cyndibennettconsulting.com/1-on-1-coaching]

DISCLOSURE: Some links I share might contain resources that you might find helpful. Whenever possible I use referral links, which means if you click any of the links in this video or description and make a purchase we may receive a small commission or other compensation at no cost to you.

Transcript

Why Trauma-Informed Career Development Matters | Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide Ep. 001
Cyndi Bennett: [00:00:00] Welcome to Trauma Wise Career Guide, the podcast for re-imagining career development for trauma survivors. I'm your host, Cyndi Bennett, a trauma survivor turned trauma-informed career coach and founder of the Resilient Career Academy. If your navigating your career while honoring your healing journey, you are in the right place. 

In this first episode, I'm sharing why I created this podcast and the Resilient Career Academy and how we'll approach professional growth differently here. You'll discover why your healing journey isn't separate from your career journey. It's an essential part of it. Whether you're struggling with workplace triggers or feeling stuck in your professional growth, you found your community. Let's get started. 

Before I share the vision for this podcast, I want to take you back to where my journey began. Like many of you listening, I entered the professional [00:01:00] world carrying invisible wounds that I hadn't yet learned to recognize or heal. I started my career as an adolescent substance abuse counselor.

I chose that path because I wanted to help others, but what I didn't realize was that I hadn't done any of my own emotional work on my trauma. Every day at work, I found myself getting triggered by interactions and stories that resonated with my own unprocessed experiences. The burnout was intense and inevitable. 

So I made what seemed like a logical choice. I pivoted to business. I thought it wouldn't be so emotionally heavy. What a misconception that turned out to be. 
I entered the business world with something to prove that I was someone I wanted to be noticed, to be seen as a person with potential. I worked incredibly hard driven by this internal [00:02:00] need to contradict the messages I'd internalized that I was a nobody, that I didn't matter. I remember sitting at my desk after yet another day of pushing myself beyond my limits, heart racing, unable to focus, wondering what was wrong with me. The career advice I've been given, speak up more network aggressively. Just push through imposter syndrome not only didn't help. It made things worse. What I didn't understand then was how my trauma history was shaping my professional experience. The very skills that helped me survive trauma, hypervigilance, people pleasing, perfectionism were now sabotaging my career growth. My drive to prove myself worthy came at the cost of my well-being.

In 2019, everything changed for me. At age 51, repressed memories of childhood trauma suddenly surfaced, [00:03:00] overwhelming my nervous system and derailing my professional life. I went from being a high functioning overachiever to barely functioning at all. My workplace, once my happy place, became a source of fear and anxiety.

I isolated myself from everyone, including my own team. My mind was flooded with flashbacks and I was constantly triggered. The armor I built for protection was now keeping out support I desperately needed. 

Finding a trauma therapist was just the beginning. The pivotal moment came when I gathered the courage to speak with my manager, and instead of judgment, she offered four transformative words. How can I help? That single moment of being believed and supported changed everything. 

This experience taught me that we cannot heal alone when we experience relational trauma, we must heal in relationships. [00:04:00] Yet trauma survivors often turn away from the very support we need most. 

As I cautiously opened up, I discovered countless others silently struggling with workplace triggers and trauma responses without the language or framework to understand what was happening to them. 

The reality I faced was stark. There were no trauma-informed mentors because no one was talking about how trauma impacted us in our careers.

Traditional career development simply wasn't built for people like us. It assumes everyone starts from the same baseline of nervous system regulation, boundary capacity, and social safety. For trauma survivors, that's simply not true. 

Using myself as a Guinea pig, I started to apply a trauma-informed lens to traditional career development strategies. I experimented with different approaches that helped me master my [00:05:00] trauma responses in the workplace and progress in my career, despite the challenges I faced.

The transformation wasn't overnight, but it was profound. As I applied these integrated strategies, I found myself not just surviving, but thriving professionally without compromising my healing.

Soon other trauma survivors began noticing the change. How are you managing to advance your career without burning out? They'd ask. 

That's when I realized something crucial. I wasn't alone. Trauma impacts people globally and millions of survivors everywhere are struggling with the same workplace challenges. Traditional career development was failing not just me, but trauma survivors worldwide. 

This realization became my calling. If I could develop strategies that worked for me and the clients I was beginning to work with, I could potentially help trauma [00:06:00] survivors across the globe reclaim their professional power while honoring their healing journeys.

The problem is clear. Traditional career development fails trauma survivors in fundamental ways. What's missing is an understanding of how trauma disrupts our normal childhood development cycle. Traditional career advice doesn't account for how developmental trauma impacts our executive functioning, affecting our ability to plan and prioritize and regulate our emotions in professional settings, it overlooks how trauma disrupts our identity formation, leaving many of us with an unstable sense of self that makes career decisions and professional relationships challenging. And it completely ignores how trauma alters the way we see the world around us, often through a lens of perceived danger and mistrust.

First, it fails to address the unique challenges [00:07:00] trauma survivors face, managing trauma triggers in professional environments, navigating authority dynamics when they activate past wounds, building authentic relationships despite trust challenges, and setting boundaries without endangering job security.

Second, it's built on assumptions that don't apply to us. It assumes you can network effortlessly without social anxiety, advocate for yourself without fear of conflict, take risks without overwhelming your nervous system, and handle workplace triggers without becoming dysregulated. 

Third, it promotes toxic approaches like no pain, no gain mentality that can re-traumatize, hustle culture that ignores healing needs, one size fits all strategies that don't account for trigger management, binary definitions of success that don't value well-being. [00:08:00] If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. 

According to research, up to 70% of people have experienced some form of trauma, yet career development remains largely trauma uninformed.

This is why I created the Resilient Career Academy and this podcast. Our mission is clear. We exist to empower trauma survivors to transform their experiences into gifts that heal and strengthen the world. We believe that the insights, resilience and compassion born from healing are precisely what humanity needs to create more connected and compassionate communities.

I envision a world where trauma survivors don't have to choose between professional success and their healing journey, where both can happen simultaneously, each supporting the other. More than that, I envision a world where trauma [00:09:00] survivors are recognized as essential leaders, innovators, and healers where their unique perspectives transform our communities, institutions, and cultural narratives.

In this future, the wisdom born from healing is valued as one of humanity's greatest resources for creating a more resilient, compassionate, and connected society. 

The Resilient Career Academy Success Path is specifically designed to address the areas where trauma survivors typically struggle in their careers.

Number one, regulation. Most trauma survivors face, workplace triggers that send their nervous system into overdrive. Our first priority is helping you manage these triggers and establish the regulation you need to function effectively. 

Number two, self-discovery trauma often disconnects us from our authentic selves. We help you rediscover your unique strengths, [00:10:00] values, and passions that may have been overshadowed by survival mode. 

Number three, career alignment. Many trauma survivors feel like they don't have a choice or settle for less than they deserve. We guide you in creating a career vision that honors both your professional potential and healing needs.

Number four, relationship building. Trauma impacts how we connect with others at work, whether it's boundary issues, challenges with authority, or difficulty self advocating. We build these crucial skills in a safe environment. 

And number five, expansion. Finally, we focus on helping you grow beyond the limitations trauma once placed on your career, allowing you to navigate transitions, embrace new challenges, and transform how you show up professionally.

This isn't just another career development program with a few trauma concepts added on. [00:11:00] It's built from the ground up to address the specific challenges I've witnessed in hundreds of trauma survivors trying to build meaningful careers. 

In the coming episodes of Trauma Wise Career Guide, we'll explore specific workplace triggers and how to manage them, trauma informed approaches to interviews, negotiations, and advancement, stories from other trauma survivors who've built successful careers, practical tools for managing trauma, responses in professional settings and strategies for finding workplaces that support your healing journey. 

Each episode will identify a common challenge trauma survivors face professionally, and provide trauma informed strategies for addressing it. We'll also acknowledge the systemic barriers that make implementation difficult, and provide community supported approaches to overcome those barriers. 

And make no mistake, we will [00:12:00] strongly, passionately, and tirelessly advocate for more trauma-informed workplaces and management practices because we believe that creating environments where trauma survivors can thrive benefits everyone.

I want to close our first episode by acknowledging something important. If you've been struggling to make traditional career advice work for you, it's not because you're broken or incapable. It's because you needed an approach that honors your full experience. Your trauma does not disqualify you from professional success.

In fact, the resilience, empathy, and insight you've developed can become your greatest professional assets when channeled properly. 

If today's episode resonated with you, I invite you to take two simple actions. First, subscribe to Trauma wise career guide wherever you get your [00:13:00] podcasts. Next week, we'll dive deeper into our first specific workplace trigger micromanagement and how it uniquely impacts trauma survivors. 
Second, I'd like to invite you to join our wonderful community of trauma survivors who are healing together to make the world a better place. Visit Cyndi Bennett Consulting.com to connect with others on similar journeys and access resources designed specifically for trauma survivors in the workplace. 

Remember, you deserve a career that honors your healing journey. Your wisdom matters in the workplace and beyond.