Women’s Empowerment Movement in 2024: The Most Obvious Choice for creating a Healing Relationship with Corporate America
Dedication: This is for the parts of us that are craving to tell our stories but don’t because of the fear of judgment and criticism by the ways corporate America puts you in a box of shame and criticism. This is for the women who are constantly looking for safety and stability in their lives, and never really feel it. This is for the women who don’t feel seen or heard and wonder if it’s their fault. This is for the women who put in the work to heal their deepest wounds, and who courageously alchemize them into purpose-based work offered in service of others.
Today, the women’s empowerment movement has made history: women can vote, have bank accounts, generate their own credit, which means they can buy a car or a house under their name without a co-signatory male partner. And yet, women are receiving less than 2% of VC funding, we are still not considered equal in the US constitution, the pay equity gap is still disappointing, and somehow we’ve lost the right to have agency over our womb.
This article isn’t about any of that.
This article is about the parts of the Women’s Empowerment Movement that’s happening behind closed-door conversations in the most elite crowds of executive women in corporate America.
And, while this article is not going to break the confidentiality of that sisterhood, this is going to bring parts of those conversations out of the shadows, into the light. The parts that need to be talked about so that we can demonstrate what it looks like when you bring the power of women together to light a path to liberation, led by those of us who are saying “there has to be a better way”.
For this exploration, we shine a spotlight on:
The individual and collective power of women is not only the right thing to do, but also the most obvious choice for taking a root cause approach to healing the toxic parts of corporate America.
How I’ve come to this conclusion:
The cost of corporate trauma (resulting in expensive treatments without a diagnosis or clear root cause).
It was 2006 and I felt like I hit the career-lottery! I found an industry I believed in, and a role that I was sure I could make an impact with: digital media sales. The formula for career satisfaction was obvious to me:
[OPPORTUNITY + POTENTIAL = CAREER SATISFACTION]
The opportunity: transforming the way brands could connect more meaningfully with consumers through precision targeting, supported by flashy creative executions that had never been done before
The potential: I was valued for being a young person whose opinion mattered because I was in the rare air of someone who “gets the internet” and could analyze data in a way that helped clients understand how to steward their investments towards consistent growth.
After 10 years, the rose colored glasses I had about the industry and my impact in it started to fade. By then, the industry had grown exponentially and had become so steeped in corporate politics that it had transformed from being refreshingly innovative to being another space for deals to pad the pockets of the “old boys club”. I felt disconnected from this career path in a profoundly heart-breaking way. I also felt intimidated by the thought of switching careers at this point, because I was already so invested in this professional-identity. My career-capital was so intertwined with my identity and self-worth that it was hard to detangle it enough to see a new path.
Simultaneously, and separately, my health had taken a surprising turn.
I started to experience health complications that I couldn’t get to the root cause of. It started with cystic acne on my face. This resulted in numerous inconclusive dermatology appointments followed by expensive facials, laser therapy treatments easily amounting to more than $20k over a few years.
Then, I started having chronic neck and shoulder pain to the point where I couldn’t turn my head on a swivel because my neck had locked up. This landed me in a 2–3x/week visit to the chiropractor, where I also learned about the benefits of acupuncture. Then, the worst of the symptoms started: chronic and uncontrollable vomiting that landed me in the ER on a regular basis because I couldn’t hold anything down. These symptoms unfolded over 5–6 years and all of the western medicine specialists ran every possible test (e.g. allergy tests, blood test for autoimmune conditions, fecal tests for bacteria infections, etc) –all of them were inconclusive. No diagnosis.
Then, I moved onto the homeopathic and holistic doctors who helped me through an elimination diet to identify food triggers while experimenting with a range of natural supplements that meant that my travel suitcases now had a separate section just for my supplements to help me keep these flare ups at bay. At this point, I did not have a root cause diagnosis, but I at least acquired the tools to manage the physical symptoms.
So here I am, physically ill, burnt out in a career that I’m disconnected to, but by all external optics, I’m “successful”. I’m earning more money than most of my peers, I’m being praised by all of my family for “making it”, buying my first home in Los Angeles, traveling on a corporate expense account to attend the best conferences and music festivals with all the VIP add-ons. How could I be unhappy or unfulfilled? Was I so ungrateful for all the opportunities that this career has afforded me?
I’ve been taught that grit and resilience creates success and so I doubled down on white knuckling through it all while nursing a deep curiosity about what creates long lasting fulfillment in your work: how do you find the work that’s meant for you, and that you are meant for? Said differently, how do you definitively know what your purpose is in your work? They didn’t teach finding-your-purpose in any of the schools I went to. Business books extoll the benefits of not being afraid of rejection, relentless work ethic, and a reminder that you should be disrupting something to have a successful business. But none of these principles get me closer to understanding what this has to do with purpose or fulfillment. Lost but still committed, I keep searching for answers — and then I hear it.
While on a road trip, I hear a podcast episode that finally answers my long-awaited question: how you will find fulfillment in your work is through finding your Purpose. And, your Purpose is rooted in your childhood experiences because you have become the expert at the things that you needed to do to survive from a young age.
The study of this work is known as the field of Trauma-Informed Psychology.
FINALLY!!! Direction for what I can research, fueled by science and evidence-based work that I can use to uncover my own purpose and pave a new path to career planning. I go down a deep rabbit hole of reading, research, and taking courses in trauma-informed psychology models including: Attachment Theory, Polyvagal Theory, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems.
And, to my surprise, after a year of studying this work, not only did I get clarity about my Purpose, but also, all my physical symptoms went away. Could it be that I wasn’t getting a clear diagnosis because the tests were screening for biological markers of a root cause issue, when the root cause issue was more about a disconnection to Self and my Purpose? Could that truly be the answer?
And, I am NOT Alone
As I connected with my Purpose, I also healed my relationship with my career, I started sharing my story with others in an executive women’s network I joined called Chief. And, to my surprise 97% of the executive women that I’ve met with have their own version of this story: physical symptoms mysteriously timed with a craving to deepen their relationship with themselves, their definition of success, and a courageous reclamation of their identity as separate from their resume through clarifying their purpose and what work truly fulfills them. Could we all be experiencing a collective trauma-response to the triggers in corporate America that mirror the painful experiences we survived in our childhood? Well, let’s look at the facts:
Environmental Triggers:
- Classic advice you hear in your career about what it takes to be successful: Hustle hard/No days off/Work like hell/Work to death/No pain no gain/Work your ass off/Make it at all costs/Sleep when your dead/Fake it until you make it/It’ll all be worth it at the end.
- Classic warnings you hear when you try to step outside of the box of your corporate expectations: “you can’t do that because of the optics” “you can’t say that because you’ll step on someone’s toes” “you can’t do that because it’ll seem like you’re not dedicated” “you can’t ask for that because you’ll seem ungrateful”.
Wellness Impact:
Data about the mental health condition of the workforce today:
- Around 1 in 6 people (14.7%) experience mental health problems in the workplace. [1]
- Globally, around 12 billion working days — or 50 million years of work — are lost every year to depression and anxiety. [1]
- About one-third (32%) said they do not have enough flexibility at work to be able to keep their work life and personal life in balance [2]
- Just over one-quarter (26%) said their employer does not respect their personal boundaries. [2]
What can be done to heal from the toxicity that’s weaved throughout the entire capitalist ecosystem we’ve built our economy on? And, what does this have to do with the Women’s Empowerment Movement?
Step 1: the first step is awareness.
- I’m not suggesting that there’s a low level of awareness about toxic corporate culture (scroll through 1 page of LinkedIn, and you’ll see posts about it along with the next leadership framework to “fix” toxic companies). Instead, I’m suggesting that we have a huge awareness gap between the symptoms of toxic culture (high awareness) and the root cause (low awareness). And, if we’re looking to heal from these toxic cultures of burnout we’re going to need to take a root cause approach on at least 2 levels: 1) the organizational level (what are the root causes of toxic culture in an organization and what are the systems that perpetuate them?), and 2) the individual level (what are the root causes of an individual’s response to triggers in their organization?).
Step 2: Invest in Healing from Corporate Trauma
- From this awareness, each of these stakeholder groups can invest in their healing from corporate trauma. For organizations, there is a massive range of resources including coaches, corporate consultants, and leadership training courses. But, for individuals, where are your communities of care? Where can you go to find support, because you were never meant to carry these burdens alone?
Enter: Women’s Circle
Right now, there is a powerful undercurrent of executive women gathering on a regular basis to share what they’re doing to heal from burnout and recover from corporate trauma. What’s even more exciting are the wellness rituals and modalities that are being shared! Everything from microdosing, to biweekly sound bath experiences, to tarot cards and intuitive readings for clarity in finding your purpose, to using astrological and human design charts to connect better with yourself and your healing. The result? A wave of compassion and self-worth that nourishes the entire community in the Circle, that then reverberates throughout the personal and professional lives of the members.
Here is what members are saying:
- “I need more moments with connected ladies and for inner reflection and peace. This was extremely valuable.”
- “There is actual, relevant programming instead of just listening to one person speak or being put in a room and magic just being expected to happen. There are facilitated exercises, share-outs, and experiences. There is a true sense of community. We are getting to know each other beyond LinkedIn and titles. Because we are asked to be vulnerable and share, the bonds are deep! I love the regularity of it.”
- “I love that is is ongoing support and that it’s in person. It feels much more nurturing versus networking, even though we are meeting new people.”
- [I feel] “A stronger connection to my intuition. A focus on the things I need to do to challenge old thought patterns.”
Together, women are healing from the inside out — and transmuting that healed energy into their professional spaces. For some members it’s meant finding a new job or leaving a toxic one, and for so many members there’s been a powerful explosion of converting their expertise into coaching, consulting, and fractional work — fueled by a shared belief that when it comes to career growth, that there MUST be a better way than how we’ve been operating so far. To be in these private conversations is to hear an empowered war cry to stop operating from a traumatic attachment to the scraps that corporate America asks you to tolerate and say you’re grateful for. No longer will we trade our self-worth for money, and squander our dignity with the awareness that I’m a cog in a wheel or a line item on a P&L sheet for someone to decide whether or not I’m worth the expense. We remind each other to stop accepting offers that are an “8 out of 10” to keep space open only for the 9’s and 10’s that are coming our way because at this point, why would we accept “good enough” when we can hold out for something truly amazing? We can bet on ourselves because we’ve put in the 10,000 hours to feel safe knowing that we’ll be successful anywhere we go.
Is burnout and toxic corporate culture exclusively a ‘Women’s Empowerment’ mountain to climb?
No, absolutely not. Toxic corporate cultures impact all staff in an organization, though the detrimental effects disproportionately affect women and people of color. However, what’s become clear as our Women’s Circle has continued to meet is that healing toxic cultures is a problem that women are uniquely predisposed to solving. We’ve explored themes of non-gendered, energetic archetypes of feminine (yin) and masculine (yang) energy. We have been at an inflection point in corporate America for some time, having over invested in values like: competition at all costs, profit over people, and depleting Earth and human resources in the name of productivity and winning (aka toxic masculinity). Thankfully what you’re seeing now is call for balance, and this means bringing in principles of collaboration over competition, communities of care over glorified individualism, nourishment/rest/recovery over burning the candle at both ends, and a renewed focus on attunement and validation over gaslighting and narcissistic leadership styles (aka divine feminine energy).
All together these points highlight the next chapter of Women’s Empowerment:
The opportunity to create a healing relationship with Corporate America, rooted in the ways we collectively and individually invest in our holistic wellness (mind, body, and soul medicine, aka a bio/psycho/social/spiritual model of wellbeing). And, this opportunity is available to all genders to participate in, yet stewardship is best led by following the ways these executive Women are setting the blueprint for the practice of communities of care and recovering from corporate trauma.
To summarize:
Find your community of care:
- If you’re reading this and my story of burnout is your story — please take this as the sign you were waiting for to create your own Women’s Circle. Root the community in a shared “why”, or borrow ours: we believe that wellness is foundational to corporate success.
Invest in your Healing:
- Trauma-informed psychology modalities offer root cause healing that can unlock your purpose and heal your relationship with toxic corporate cultures. Find a practitioner you trust, and if you need referrals,
A call to action: the women’s empowerment movement is the most critical thing that we can invest in right now as a collective.
- It is the best technology we have as a human race to heal from the ways that toxic corporate cultures have stripped our human resource capital of fulfillment, purpose, and joy. Toxic masculinity is non-gendered and its pursuit to conquer and win at all costs have resulted in the overall depletion of our natural, environmental resources. So, to balance the scales, we must invest in women’s empowerment in radical ways, right now, in order to collectively reverse the unsustainability of the business practices we’ve normalized to date.
This article is a part of the collaboration between HLWF ™ Alliance and Women’s Circle. Women’s Circle is a collective of executive leaders who believe that wellness is foundational to corporate success.
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