Anna Runkle - Trauma Is Driving Behavior at Work

Leadership is often described in terms of strategy, communication, and decision-making. But there’s another dimension that quietly shapes how leaders show up at work: emotional regulation.

In this episode of The Best Boss Whisperer Podcast, Danny talks with writer, educator, and coach Anna Runkle, known for her work helping people recover from childhood trauma and chronic dysregulation.

Anna shares how early life experiences can affect how adults respond to stress, conflict, authority, and pressure in the workplace. When leaders understand these patterns—both in themselves and others—they can respond with more clarity, steadiness, and compassion.

The conversation explores why emotional triggers appear so frequently in professional settings, how dysregulation can impact communication and decision-making, and how leaders can build habits that support steadier leadership.

Rather than turning workplaces into therapy sessions, Anna explains how simple daily practices and awareness can help people regulate their emotions, think more clearly, and respond more effectively under pressure.

This episode offers thoughtful insight for leaders who want to lead with greater calm, awareness, and emotional resilience.

Key Takeaways:

• How childhood trauma and stress patterns can show up in professional environments
• Why emotional triggers can affect communication and decision-making at work
• The role emotional regulation plays in effective leadership
• How leaders can respond more calmly during conflict and pressure
• Simple practices that support emotional steadiness and clearer thinking

Resources & Links:

Guest: Anna Runkle

• Website: https://crappychildhoodfairy.com/
• Connect with Anna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-runkle-baa9778/
• Free Tools: https://crappychildhoodfairy.com/free-tools/

Recommended Books:

Connectability: Heal the Hidden Ways You Isolate, Find Your People and Feel (At Last) Like You Belong by Anna Runkle

Re-Regulated: Set Your Life Free from Childhood PTSD and the Trauma-Driven Behaviors That Keep You Stuck by Anna Runkle

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker

Connect with host Danny Ceballos:

• Website: https://unleashedconsult.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannyceballos/

Please click the button to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes and leave a review if your favorite podcast app has that ability. Thank you!

The Best Boss Whisperer is a leadership podcast for individuals who want to lead effectively without burning out or becoming the bottleneck that stifles their team’s decisions, momentum, and productivity.

© 2026 Danny Ceballos / Unleashed Consulting

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Sometimes the problem at work isn't performance, it's dysregulation. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Best Boss Whisperer Podcast. I'm Danny Sarayos. Today I'm talking with Anna Runkel about trauma, regulation, and what leaders often misunderstand about workplace behavior. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Well, like everybody who was traumatized as a kid, there was always a lot of potential locked up and restrained in me from what I was able to bring to work. And I want to talk to you about ways that that complex trauma shows up, the symptoms show up at work and how people can cope with that, and how you can recognize it in other people. Huh.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

How fabulous. That they're so and you you help me out with this, but there there is there's almost trauma with a little T, maybe even a big T, that's built into the nature of the work that's going on. So can you tell us a little bit for those folks that feel like they have come through CPTSD of some level and now they're in this high stress position? What are some of the strategies that they could use? And maybe it's even the technique that you've alluded to.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Well, you know, I love you, I love you, I love you, or I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. So that would get misdiagnosed as maybe borderline personality. Now, those other things exist, but a lot of people, including Vander Koelk and Pete Walker and many people who have worked in this field for a long time, will tell you, you know, yeah, that's there's probably a great deal of misdiagnosis because people didn't know what it is. And even to this day, you know, they're trying to train uh clinical providers and mental health workers in trauma-informed care. But there's a pretty low bar for what you can call trauma-informed care. So I kind of lead a movement that's self-led. If you have CPTSD, here, we're gonna, we're gonna pioneer, we're gonna figure this out. What are your simp? What are you noticing? Are your symptoms? Here's a list of common symptoms, and then how do you learn to calm them? And everything good in life depends on having a little bit of re-regulation capability there. And that is what I want to talk about at work. Because you had trauma, it's very likely you get dysregulated at work. Somebody says something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

What I'm getting from this is, I mean, this explains, this doesn't necessarily excuse behavior. I mean, it helps us for me. Whether I for myself, I'm asking explain. So, so awesome. And and I'm, you know, I'm I guess I'm stunned into silence as I'm absorbing all this. Um, because it feels so relevant for for all of us. So and my listeners especially. So once people start to identify I I almost want to be ginger with the, you know, treat the term CPTSD gingerly, thinking again, everybody's got some of this. I know I, you know, I don't want to minimize, and I really don't want to, but it seems to me just realizing it is one thing, but what does one do? What does one do? So tell us a little bit about your practices and your YouTube channel, all the stuff that you're doing as the crappy childhood fairy, which again, I'm just gonna say that.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Yeah. And they're not following the thread and no one's facilitating. And I started to, I gradually was turning into somebody who had certain skills. It turns out I had a really good ability to kind of see the big picture and hear where the conversation was going. And I could, I could pay attention to every single thing that was said in a meeting, whereas I used to be kind of like, I don't know, checked out or thinking about what was I gonna say for 70% of the time. It's pretty hard to be effective when your mind is hijacked like that. So you can begin to now own your own mind and decide what you'll think about more of the time. More of the time.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Wow. Okay. Yeah. What a great. So, okay. So what I'm getting from this is this is something anybody can do. It feels like it's a guided, it's a guided practice. So to make sure to check out the the three yeah, yeah, that you got it. Um, and that it's it's not the end result, but it's to gain new insights, new awareness, and new appreciation, hopefully, maybe unblock some things.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

That's that's the secondary benefit. The primary benefit is it calms dysregulation.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Ah.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

And I mean, that's a broad claim.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Hey, Anna, you and I talked a little bit before we we got on the air with this about so listeners recognizing this, the this in themselves, you know, some tools and strategies and connections with you, perhaps to to start to work through it and understand it. But we also talked about the importance of maybe even identifying it in colleagues, yeah, own bosses. And our you can you talk a little bit about that and how that works and why it's even important?

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Yeah. I I think so many of the interpersonal problems of the world arise out of arise between good people where at least one of them is getting dysregulated. And and for our generation, uh see, I actually think in previous millennia, people have known about this because other things that regulate, that help people re-regulate are things like marching, singing together, anything that calls out left, right, left, right. Yeah, you're bringing your parts of your brain kind of back into harmony so that you can begin to make choices and have conversations and listen and all those good things that are necessary for for success.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Love it. Yeah. That's awesome. Awesome. So, okay, so all so many questions. And and now I'm thinking about LGBTQ folks and my own experience, right? I mean, that has trauma just built into it. Uh-huh. Um, but if you remember the question I had, so what does it mean? So what what what do I do with this insight when I'm dealing? Is it important for me to know if my boss is dealing with this?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Or I dare not speak up. I could lose my job, but I try to help people like think about those decisions rationally. Like, but yes, getting another job is hard, but mightn't it be better like a year from now, where would you like to be? You know, this person who's making every day miserable in your life.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

We're totally on the same page with that. Yeah. Regardless of whether it's CPTSD or or whatever. Yeah, at some point it's I've got my own.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Yeah. Yeah, there's this fear of um there's an abandonment fear and a fear, you know, a lot of us like we grew up without adequate food. We were afraid we were gonna end up homeless. You know, that kind of stuff. It it it gets very loud in those headphones sometimes. So that comes out on paper, and it's so important to have a group of uh people in your life, whether it's a therapist or friends or a coach who are being real with you and who understand the principles that you're following. Because sometimes people who don't know about this, they don't get it. They're just like, well, just get another job, or you know, just get another boyfriend, or you know, why would you do this? Or yeah, they don't under it makes no sense to them what we're doing, but people who understand make great friends and reality checks.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

So, Anna, would you would you say I'm thinking that the the even the exercise that you just described, that I know folks can get some more in depth around that, it feels like and help me out out with this, but it's something that any that so my managers, the folks that are listening to this, could actually bring this exercise to their teams.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

Yes, they could. I would encourage them to really like come in and get trained how to do it, though. It's easy to kind of make it useless if it's got some pretty core principles to it. And I just want to point out like everybody gets dysregulated sometimes. Think of a newborn baby. They turn red, their body's all rigid, and you pick them up and they're just like a little electric wire or what we have. Right. And then you hold them and you feed them and you comfort them and they that's re-regulation. Dysregulation, re-regulation. We all come this way, we're human. But with PTSD, we we get dysregulated more easily and we have a harder time bringing ourselves back from it. Now, with very few exceptions in the human race, everybody eventually re-regulates. And we're just training ourselves to notice it so that we can come back to regulation faster and to master re-regulation. And most people in mental health know the term emotional regulation. That's important, but there's also this neurological regul dysregulation that literally when I'm it's happening, my nose gets numb and my hands get numb. And that's really helpful because if I start going numb in the nose, I'm like, oh, I'm dysregulating. That's my what's that word? A uh canary in a coal mine is all that before I even know it, I'd get a sign and I go, I better not say anything right now about how I'm feeling. Or another thing is if you think it's very urgent, wait even longer. Usually most things that need to be said can be said later. But when you think somebody's dysregulated, it's a terrible time to try to take up a difficult topic with them.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

And sometimes they will try to pick a fight. And um, you know, when I always I talk about the uncle at Thanksgiving, sort of that's an archetype that people in no way. It could be anybody in your life. So I why would you try to debate anything with somebody who's dysregulated?

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Well, I'm thinking your dysregulation would invite my dysregulation. Yeah. Yours would say, Let's dance. Come on, where's yours? Let's come together. I don't yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah. And you see this with parents and children, like little kids. Little kids get dysregulated and the parent just starts getting more and more right, right. And uh, and then that's called co-regulation. So the parent can learn how to regulate for the sake of the child, but I don't think you have to be a child to benefit from somebody bringing regulation. And if you think about it, there may have been people in your early life who helped you with this without that there being a word for it. And I um one of the people I talk about is Mr. Rogers. That was one of my re-regulating people, just watching him tie his shoes and talk slowly. I would calm back down. I love him for that.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Wonderful. Yeah, wonderful. Well, listen, Anna, we're we're we're this is awesome. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be able to put resources for how people can best connect with you and take advantage of your expertise and all the wisdom that you're sharing. Um, before we get to some of those things, tell is there what's the first thing that you would recommend if people, if this is resonating for my listeners, what's the first thing they should do as soon as they finish this podcast?

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Well, the a couple of books I mentioned uh that were important to me. There are many books out there, but the ones that are important to me is The Body Keeps the Score. It's been a bestseller for years now, and it's very good. And it's for anybody who is touched by CPTSD and themselves or others to start having a new lens on what's really going on. Um, and if you think you have it and you want some practical tools, Pete Walker's book, CPTSD From Surviving to Thriving, is a good book. Awesome. Um, and there are many others. I don't mean to diss any of the others, but I want to keep this simple. Those have been the profound influence on me that really cracked open my understanding. And then for the tools that I use that are that are easily accessible to begin using right away, I have courses, I have my free course, and I have a number of quizzes you can take that list the symptoms that you can sort of check them off and just go, do I relate to these symptoms? And if so, my tools could be helpful to you. And those are at my website, crappy childhoodfairy.com. And the page is called Free Tools.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Okay, perfect, perfect. So, folks, yeah, so uh listeners, I hope you heard that. And we'll also be putting it in the podcast notes where you can reach Anna, take advantage of those tools. And Anna, is there anything else that you want to leave our folks with? Maybe a a a highlight, a piece of research, something, something to to kind of put a cherry on the top of this great interview.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

I want everybody to know that that feeling that you have inside that you were meant for more and you have felt stuck or trapped somehow, that that feeling is correct. You are meant for more. And this feeling of being trapped is is impossible to heal and that the world is only waiting for you to become who you really are and all that you are.