3 Signs Your Trauma is Sabotaging Your Career | Your Trauma Wise Career Guide Ep 26

Are you talented and hardworking but still struggling to achieve the career success you deserve? If you're a trauma survivor, the barriers to your professional growth might be more invisible than you think.

In this episode of Your Trauma Wise Career Guide, I break down three common ways trauma can sabotage your career - and more importantly, how to transform these responses into professional superpowers.

What You'll Learn:
✨ Why trauma survivors often struggle with workplace visibility (and how to reframe it as service)
✨ How perfectionism becomes a career trap and what to do instead
✨ Why authority figures trigger your nervous system and strategies to heal that relationship
✨ How your trauma recovery has actually given you incredible professional strengths
✨ Practical tools to work WITH your nervous system rather than against it

Timestamps:
0:00 - Hook: Your biggest career obstacle isn't what you think
0:45 - Why your nervous system sabotages professional success
1:30 - Sign #1: You're invisible when you should be visible
4:00 - Sign #2: Perfectionism that never feels "ready"
6:30 - Sign #3: Struggling with authority and power dynamics
9:00 - The reframe: Your trauma recovery as career superpower
10:30 - How to get trauma-informed career support

Your healing journey has given you emotional intelligence, crisis management skills, and systems thinking that most people spend years trying to develop. The key is learning to leverage these trauma-informed strengths strategically.

Ready to Transform Your Career?
If these patterns sound familiar, you don't have to figure this out alone. I specialize in helping trauma survivors translate their recovery wisdom into career advancement.

Book a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/cyndibennettconsulting/30min

In our conversation, we'll explore where trauma might be creating barriers in your professional life, what unique strengths your healing journey has given you, and whether trauma-informed career development is right for you.
No pressure, no sales pitch - just a genuine conversation about your career vision.

About Your Trauma Wise Career Guide:
This podcast helps trauma survivors transform their healing journey into professional success. We explore trauma-informed career strategies, workplace mental health, and how to build authentic, sustainable careers that honor both your ambitions and your well-being.

Connect with me:
https://linktr.ee/resilient_career_academy

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

3 Signs Your Trauma is Sabotaging Your Career | Your Trauma Wise Career Guide Ep 26

Cyndi: [00:00:00] What if I told you that your biggest career obstacles aren't your skills, your experience, or even your office politics? What if the real barrier to your professional success is something much deeper, something your nervous system learned long before you ever stepped into the workplace?​

You're talented, you work incredibly hard, so why does career success feel so frustratingly elusive? If you're a trauma survivor, and that's most of us in some way, the answer might surprise you. While your healing journey has given you incredible strengths, deep empathy, crisis management skills, emotional intelligence that rivals any MBA program, trauma can also create invisible barriers that keep you from fully stepping into your professional power.

Here's [00:01:00] the thing, your nervous system doesn't know, there's a difference between a saber tooth tiger. And a difficult conversation with your boss. But when past experiences of harm intersect with workplace dynamics, they can trigger responses that feel protective, but actually limit your career growth.

Did you know that trauma impacts how we navigate our careers, but most career advice ignores this reality? Imagine feeling confident and safe at work while honoring your healing journey. Welcome to Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide, the podcast that reimagines 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 you're navigating your career while honoring your healing journey, you are in the right place.

Today we're [00:02:00] diving into three common ways. Trauma might be quietly undermining your professional success and more importantly. What can you do to transform these responses into career superpowers?

Sign number one. You are invisible when you should be visible. I see this pattern constantly in my work, and honestly, I've lived it myself. You know that feeling when you're doing incredible work, delivering results that genuinely make a difference, but somehow you remain invisible when promotion time comes around? I've worked with so many talented people who watch colleagues with less experience get recognized while they stay in the background.

Does that sound familiar?

Maybe you do excellent work, but rarely speak up about your contributions.

Avoid networking events or find them completely draining, [00:03:00] deflect compliments, or minimize your achievements.

Let others take credit for your ideas without advocating for yourself.

Feel physically uncomfortable when attention is focused on you.

Here's why trauma creates this pattern. For many trauma survivors, visibility once meant danger. Your nervous system learned that flying under the radar equals safety. And honestly, that response may have protected you in the past, but now it's preventing colleagues and supervisors from recognizing your valuable contributions.

So what do you do about it? The solution isn't to force yourself into uncomfortable visibility. That approach usually backfires and can actually retraumatize your system. Instead, try this reframe visibility as a service. When you share your insights and achievements, you're contributing to your team's success and modeling possibilities for [00:04:00] others.

Start with written communication. Emailing updates about your projects or thoughtful contributions to team discussions can help you gradually build your visibility comfort.

Connect with your why ground your visibility efforts in your deep purpose. How does your work serve something meaningful to you?

And build regulation practices, develop nervous system tools that help you stay present and grounded when receiving attention and recognition.

​Sign number two, you're a perfectionist who never feels ready. Here's another pattern I see constantly, and this one really hits home for me personally. You spend way too much time perfecting work that's already excellent.

I've watched brilliant people spend weeks on presentations that should take hours, then still feel anxious about sharing them. The feedback [00:05:00] is always positive, but inside there's this nagging voice that's saying it's not good enough. This pattern of the endless preparation keeps people from pursuing the leadership roles they really want.

Maybe you recognize this pattern in yourself. You spend excessive time perfecting work that's already good enough. You avoid applying for promotions because you don't meet a hundred percent of requirements. You ruminate over minor mistakes for days or weeks. You say "yes" to everything to avoid disappointing others, then burn out. You have incredible standards, but struggle to recognize when you've met them.

Here's the trauma connection. Perfectionism often develops as a survival strategy. If you could just be flawless, maybe you could avoid criticism, rejection, or abandonment. Your nervous system [00:06:00] learned that good enough wasn't safe. Only perfect was acceptable. 

But here's what I want you to know. Moving beyond trauma driven perfectionism requires rewiring your relationship with excellence. Excellence serves your goals and values. Perfectionism serves fear and shame.

Start practicing good enough in low stake situations. Send that email without editing it for the fifth time. Submit that report when it meets the requirements, not when it's flawless. Reframe mistakes as data. Each failure provides information about what works and what doesn't. That's incredibly valuable career currency.

Set boundaries based on your values. Say no to requests that don't align with your priorities, even if disappointing others feels scary.

Sign number three. You struggle with authority figures and [00:07:00] power dynamics. This third pattern is something I hear about in almost every intake call I do. Heart racing when your supervisor walks by simple one-on-one meetings, become anxiety provoking events, finding yourself either completely shutting down or becoming overly agreeable in ways that don't serve your goals.

If you've experienced this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This might show up for you as feeling anxious or triggered around supervisors or senior leadership, either rebelling against authority or becoming overly compliant, having difficulty advocating for raises, promotions, or better working conditions, reading danger into normal workplace conflicts or disagreements, either avoiding powerful people entirely or exhausting yourself, trying to please them.

Why does trauma create this pattern? If your trauma [00:08:00] involved abuse of power, whether by parents, partners, institutions, or others, your nervous system may perceive all authority figures as potential threats.

This can show up as fight responses like rebellion, flight responses like avoidance, freeze responses, like shutting down or fawn responses like people pleasing.

Healing your relationship with power and authority is essential for career advancement. Start by separating past from present. Practice distinguishing between current workplace dynamics and past harmful experiences.

Develop your own sense of authority. Recognize that you have expertise, wisdom, and value to contribute. You are not powerless.

Find safe authority figures. Seek out mentors and supervisors who demonstrate trustworthy leadership and learn from their modeling.

Practice small [00:09:00] acts of professional courage. Gradually build your capacity to speak up, disagree respectfully, and advocate for yourself in low risk situations.

Here's what most career advice misses, and I really want you to hear this. You're not broken and you don't need to fix yourself to succeed professionally.

Your trauma recovery has actually given you skills that most people spend years trying to develop, emotional intelligence, systems thinking, crisis management abilities, and a deep understanding of human resilience.

The key is learning to transform your protective responses into strategic advantages. When you understand how your nervous system operates in professional settings, you can work with it rather than against it.

What if instead of hiding your sensitivity, you leverage your emotional intelligence to become an [00:10:00] exceptional leader?

What if instead of seeing your careful nature as limiting, you recognized it as sophisticated risk assessment skills? What if your healing journey became the foundation for authentic, sustainable career success?

If you recognize yourself in these patterns, first, you're not alone. And second, you're definitely not stuck. Thousands of trauma survivors have learned to transform their protective responses into professional strengths, creating careers that honor both their ambitions and their healing journey.

The difference between those who stay stuck and those who thrive? They get trauma-informed support that addresses the intersection of healing and career development. You don't have to figure this out alone. If what we talked about today resonated with you, I'd [00:11:00] love to explore how trauma-informed career development could transform your relationship with work. I offer free discovery calls where we can talk about where trauma might be creating invisible barriers in your professional life, what unique strengths your healing journey has given you, and whether my programs might be the right fit for your goals.

There's no pressure, there's no sales pitch. Just a genuine conversation about your career vision and how to make it reality. You can find the link to schedule in the show notes. Your trauma story doesn't have to limit your career story. In fact, it might just be the foundation for the most meaningful professional chapter of your life.

You're not walking this path alone. Every step you take toward a trauma wise career is an act of courage, and I'm here cheering you on. If today's episode resonated with you, share it with another survivor who [00:12:00] needs to hear this message. Together we're rewriting the rules of career success. Keep rising, keep healing, keep building.