In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about trauma in the workplace. While we tend to think of trauma as the effects of violence, death or injury, there are more subtle forms of trauma happening around us in the workplace at all times. My guest this week, Rosie Yeung, an “un-executive” coach for Asian and racialized women, shares her perspective on trauma in the workplace and how we can begin to address it.
About My Guest
Rosie Yeung is the Un-Executive Coach™ for racialized women professionals. She specializes in 1-on-1 and small group coaching with “model minority” women who are constrained by conflict between professional success, family/cultural values, and personal identity. Through her trauma-informed programs, she helps them tame their
triggers, calm their stress, and use their power.
Rosie is also a nonviolent JEDI Warrior (JEDI = Justice, Equity, Decolonization and
Inclusion) focused on anti-racism, anti-misogyny, and wealth redistribution. Her
life’s mission is to help decolonize corporate Canada and heal our workplaces from
the insidious inequity embedded in corporate systems.
As a Certified HR Leader, Positive Intelligence Coach™, and Chartered Professional
Accountant with 20+ years of corporate and not-for-profit experience, Rosie
leverages all her skills and experiences – her whole self – to help women rise higher,
recover faster, and work healthier.
Based in what we now call Toronto, Canada, Rosie enjoys travel (except during
global pandemics), and has served communities in Guatemala, Ghana, Nigeria,
Rwanda, and Uganda. To de-stress, Rosie devours popcorn, movies, and ice cream –
often simultaneously!
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Connect with Rosie:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosieyeung/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosieyeung_jedi/
Website: https://www.changinglenses.ca/
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Connect with Kim and The Impostor Syndrome Files:
Join the free Impostor Syndrome Challenge.
Learn more about the Leading Humans discussion group
Join the Slack channel to learn from, connect with and support other professionals.
Schedule time to speak with Kim Meninger directly about your questions/challenges.
Websites: https://kimmeninger.com
Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome, Rosie, I cannot wait to have this conversation. I've been looking forward to it since you and I met and so excited to jump in, I'd love to start by inviting you to introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit more about you and your story.
Rosie Yeung
Oh, gosh, yeah. What is my who am I? What's my story? Well, let's see if I pause with that, because, I mean, we're gonna get into it. But especially in this day and age, when we're talking about how we show up at work, who, which parts of a show up at work. So it's not as simple anymore, right to say, who am I? So I guess before I even introduce myself, we're kind of getting into the conversation. But the things that are important to me is that I am a Chinese Canadian immigrant cisgendered woman, still living in Canada, I've lived pretty much my whole life here. I'm an only child, two loving parents. We emigrated to Canada when I was a baby. And I am kind of a model minority person. I say that in air quotes, because it is also important as we get later on into the conversation about how that impacts us psychologically. So I'm a good girl, I did all the right things. And I am now a coach. I'm the unexecutive coach for Asian and racialized women who want to, you know, escape, or get rid of the blame, shame and games, that they've had to deal with their whole lives. So I'm really here to help other Asian women professionals who want to take their triggers calmness, stress, and use their power in the workplace.
Kim Meninger
Thank you so much for sharing that. And are you comfortable sharing a little bit more about how you got to this point, like what did your work life look like before you decided I'm going to become a resource to other women who maybe have had similar experiences?
Rosie Yeung
Completely, and I paused there, there's a lot. See, that's the thing, there's a lot we could say about our identities, right? Because we are whole people and complicated. And so I definitely, I deliberately pause there because I didn't want to overload individuals. But the reason why I am now the executive coach for Asian women is because my background initially is in as a CPA, Chartered Professional Accountant and a certified HR leader. So I was your classic, you know, work hard rise up the ranks, professional executive, I worked in for-profit organizations I worked at not-for-profit organizations. And I'll tell you that in capitalism, it's all the same. Doesn't matter if the organization is out to try to make money or out to be a charity and fundraise money. The system of capitalism works the same. And I say that specifically because it still impacts people and it causes workplace trauma, which I know we're gonna get into as well. So when I was laid off at the beginning of 2020, it was after a 20-plus year career, doing all those things, right, like rising up the ranks doing everything, I thought, doing everything, right, performing, constantly worried and trying to outperform my last high performance, which is impossible. And so there's a whole, there's a lot of layers there, too, that we can also discuss when we talk about trauma, and the workplace. So why we can be so driven and what it does to us. But when the opportunity came to not do that anymore, and 2020 That was when I decided to take my a different path, a path to follow my passion versus trying to make my passion fit my professional career, the career that I was educated for, and kind of trained for in in the workplace. But I was never satisfied and never happy. So I never wanted to be a coach actually, also, because I saw the way executive coaches were in the workplace. And to me executive coaching. It is meant to help people and it does. So I'm not trying to say all executive coaching is bad. But ultimately, when it's about so-called helping people be better leaders, really what I saw was that I was grooming people to be more like what we see are the majority executives today, which are white males and white males that present a certain way like the present executive. So hence, I'm trying to break that status quo by being an un-executive coach. And I went to, to me that means being true to your identity to deciding what is right for you doesn't mean being more this culture or this race or this gender is about what is actually inherent in you what's already in your inner knowing the knowledge that you bring without having to dress a certain way or sound a certain way or look a certain way. And I, yeah, we can talk about authenticity and what that really is as well. It's going beyond that is about not having to follow all the leadership books that are written by white men and all the trait professional training and corporate trading that is taught by white men and white women, which is then upholding whiteness. And that's what I did for 20 years as a professional trying to be more white. So it was really, it was a turning point for me that I didn't even know I needed. And now I am coaching.
Kim Meninger
I love everything that you said, and I'm particularly really struck by the on executive term that you use because that has been an identity crisis for me throughout my entire journey as a coach because it does not feel authentic to me to call myself an executive coach. And unfortunately, I feel like I've been reluctant to be creative without how I defined myself because it's so much easier as a shortcut to just say, this is what everyone knows, generally speaking, that there are coaches out there. And rather than having to get into a lengthy explanation about what I do, I just kind of use that, that term, right? But the way that you describe that resonates with me so much, because it's just I've always resisted feeling like the person who helps white men get more successful or helps other people conform to that very narrow model, which just doesn't work for most people, including a lot of white men. Right? So I think that that's a really important part of this conversation, too. And I want to get into the conversation around trauma, which, you know, is really what drew me to you and your work. And I'd love to have a sense or an opportunity to hear a little bit more about what, what does trauma mean to you in the workplace. Because I think we all have our own sort of individual definitions of what trauma means. But how do you define it for the purposes of your work?
Rosie Yeung
Yes, and just so that your listeners for you who's listening right now, you some a little bit of explanation. So I've shared that my background is not as a medical professional, or even as a trauma researcher, or any kind of a trauma expert, I'm very new to this myself, I have been learning a lot. Because I've experienced trauma, I've experienced trauma from getting fired. And I'll get into that, because I think a lot of people have been getting fired, especially in the last few years, and want to address that. And I've experienced trauma just from day-to-day work. I've experienced trauma in my family life, in my friend's life. I think we've all experienced some degree of trauma through COVID and the pandemic so, so it's important for me to yes, let's, let's explain how I see trauma and some maybe some definitions, because I've also, I'm in the process right now of getting certified as a trauma recovery coach. So I am learning and there's a certain amount of professional technical knowledge I am bringing to this now. And so, I do also want to just say that none of this is like medical advice. The certification is helping me to be a mental health professional or a mental health practitioner. But this is, this is something for people to help better understand and particularly understand through a lens of their own identity. I come with a lens of being a racialized woman, an Asian Canadian immigrant woman, like I said, the model minority idea, we will talk about what trauma looks like for that as well as the trauma impacts. And a professional who worked in a white-collar environment for very long. So that looks different also in different workplaces. Right. So getting to your original question about that what trauma is or what it looks like, from the many highly respected trauma experts I've been learning from including Dr. Gabor Mate. Who I will be quoting a lot. At the heart of it trauma is not what happens to you. I think let's, let's do a little bit of myth-busting about what trauma is and what trauma isn't. So the trauma probably people tend to think of, and it is trauma is the like, natural disasters, earthquake, floods war in Ukraine. And absolutely, these are traumatic events, whether people end up being traumatized by them or not. It's different for each person. So they it's not to say that, Oh, some people are going to be fine coming out of a massive earthquake that killed their whole family and destroyed their house. More than likely they will be traumatized. But the nature of what trauma is it's like an injury, right? So it's a, it's a psychic or an emotional injury. And depending on the person and how, how physically like some people can deal with a broken arm, they heal from it faster than other people might heal from a broken arm, the injuries the same, how it ends up impacting the person, particularly long term is different. So Dr. Mate says, trauma isn't what happens to you. It's what happens inside you. And how it hits is going to be different for each person. Trauma is also not the event itself. So it's not what happens to you happening inside you meaning if somebody has a broken arm. And if that broken arm is properly dealt with by a doctor, it's you know treated, it's x-rayed, it's set in a cast, it's given the right time to heal and rest, right, they don't have to go back to work and keep re-injuring the arm, then it's going to heal properly well, and they're going to regain full use of that arm. Right? That's, that's great, I will be full recovery from the traumatic incident. And from that trauma they suffered, if it isn't diagnosed properly, if it's not treated properly. Again, I'm not a medical doctor. But I've seen lots of medical shows, right? So I'm talking out of my TV, medical knowledge. But if the broken arm isn't treated properly, right, and it's so it's never set in a cast, it maybe gets infected, it gets gangrenous, like gets gangrene. So then all these other problems can come out of it, right, that maybe gets okay gross, right? It could get pus** it, you know, the bone might be sticking out. Like there's, there's a lot of other medical problems that they come from what was originally just a broken arm. And so that's what happens when the trauma injury is not recognized, diagnosed and given time, to be treated to be cared for to be healed. And so that trauma never gets better. Or sometimes, it could be like if you get a cut on your arm, and maybe it's sort of heals on its own, but it doesn't heal very well, like broken bones can also heal on their own. But if they're not healed properly, like not set properly, then it never feels back to formed, right, or heals back with a really sick, horrible scar that it's not so much that it's ugly, but it's very tight, it's uncomfortable. Again, it's not a healthy healing. It's not a whole healing of the original wound. And so I think most of us, myself included, are walking around with these improperly healed or never healed wounds that because they're not properly healed the slightest, the triggers, right? Like, it's like, oh, you brush up your, your unhealed broken arm again, something that's gonna hurt a heck of a lot more, right than someone who's broken arm is fully healed, and it's doesn't hurt anymore. So this is, you know, then this gets into some of the longer term impacts and how trauma can get rescinded or reach traumatized by sometimes this so-called smallest of things. And then people get called too sensitive and all sorts of stuff, which, yeah, there's a whole, there's a whole lot more that we hit into. But ultimately, it's about what happened to us and how we responded to it, or reacted to it. And then how we were cared for, or how we care for ourselves out of that.
Kim Meninger
I love the way you're describing the more holistic experience, because there's so many different layers to what you're saying. But essentially, it's not just about our healing as an individual, but around the sort of support system that provides the care, right, because we're not most of the time, when you break your arm, you're not the one that setting in any cast, right? You're not the one who's, who's responsible for or, you know, sort of taking care of you as you're recovering from that. And I think a lot of times when we think about the kind of trauma, perhaps that you're, you're referencing, and I'm looking forward to getting more into what workplace trauma means. We often think of that as the individuals responsibility, right? And so it's like, it's not just about me, and whether or not I am a fast healer, but am I in an environment that is more likely to reinjure? That right? And am I going Am I in a space where I have more narrow room to avoid the kinds of triggers that are likely to continue to perpetuate this, this wound, right? So I'd love to hear more about your perspective on that too. And really, when it makes sense to do so to bring in the workplace because I think that's not and then you and I sort of talked offline about this, too, is like sometimes I hesitate to use the word trauma because although I believe that that's what's happening. Because we tend to associate trauma with the big T traumas that you're talking about, like being in a war or, you know, having these major disastrous events. I don't want to minimize what those unfortunate victims are going through, but at the same time to be able to recognize them very real pain that people are subjected to, often on a regular basis that then gets compounded by this, you're too sensitive, you know, not even recognizing that there is an injury there like you know, somebody breaks their arm, you're, you're more sympathetic, right? Like, you can see it but there's a lot of invisible trauma in around us that we don't recognize or we don't necessarily see as legitimate.
Rosie Yeung
I love that you named invisible trauma. There's a lot of things that are like I learned a couple years ago about invisible disabilities, right? So if we're talking also about workplaces that want to be more equitable and inclusive and accommodating. Which that sounds, that can be a triggering word because it implies you're different. And I need to somehow make my normalcy work around your abnormalcy, right? But the idea that most trauma cannot be seen. And I think that's also where, you know, workplace setting, which is all about objective data and evidence. And it's, it's just it's not personal. It's business. Right. So this artificial separation, which is true of every, again, in a capitalist corporate system, which most of, most of North America and Europe is, it is very damaging, because in the same way that definitely in this in this conversation, and in general, you and I were very clear, we don't want to minimize the quote-unquote, big T trauma, right, the earthquakes and the wars, deaths, and violence, and rape, and all sorts of stuff that happens is absolutely horrible things and can cause very deep trauma. Those can those because they are more accepted as trauma, then there's a whole bunch of the other so-called small t, or little T trauma, which is it happens, it can happen day to day. And it happens, I think, particularly at work because there's this false idea of your personal needs are not business, therefore, I don't have to take care of them. And in fact, if I am speaking from my HR and people, leader, like people management experience, if I am so good as to accommodate your personal needs because you happen to like to, you know, take a lunch hour and go do yoga, wow, Aren't I a great employer that I create a yoga room for you or give you a whole hour or even an hour and a half to do your yoga and then eat something and then come back to a meeting. It's these are human needs human needs is not just food and shelter, and even relationship like there's certain recognition of what has been known as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right and say, Oh, those are legitimate needs, but the need for acceptance and affirmation. And whatever form that takes, it can be verbal, it could be literally a pat on the back, it could be like a physical affirmation, right, it could be recognition of somebody's work more than just once a year and their annual performance review. These are also deep human needs. And the constant tension between the need also a deep human need to be authentic. And by authentic I don't just mean to a gender or race or a culture, but to who they are as an individual right to my, my personality, my gut instinct, my, my sense of right or wrong, and my personal integrity. There's been many, many times at work, where not that the company is illegal or unethical, but I don't agree with their belief system are their philosophy. And I have to sacrifice my personal belief and value in order to not lose my job, or in order to fit in socially at work. And, again, Dr. Mate describes that as a traumatic tension, the tension between being accepted by whatever community is it's at work, it's socially, it's in your family, to have to hide away parts of ourselves, or even deny, like, do the opposite of what we believe in what we want feels good for us, in order to fit in, in order to be accepted. And that again, those are two fundamental human needs that are true of any race, or any culture of any gender. But so often, in a work context, because the employer holds the power, there's actually this idea of, well, because I pay you, I have the right to tell you what to think, how to behave, what to do. And if I don't like it, then you can't do it, period. And if you, if you don't like it, then you have to go find another job. So it's this constant battle, like I have found, yeah, I found myself every day only now that I'm working for myself. Can I almost I still can't because it's still capitalist on any money. But I can choose to, oh, I suddenly had to go get my prescription filled at the drugstore that happened yesterday. I don't have to ask anybody's permission. I don't have to say, Oh, I will make it up by spending an extra hour after work after work to do stuff. I just go do it. And so often now, when I talk about flexibility, like what do you mean? It's just, it's just life, the idea that my time is not my own. That I am not my own person. I'm owned by someone else. That can be traumatizing, depending on how supportive again speaking to your point about what's the community in the social setting around them, depending on how much support they have outside of work, and constantly having to be owned by I your employer can be traumatizing.
Kim Meninger
And what you're making me think about too, when you talk about this power imbalance, right, and I think about this a lot, because so many of the people that I've worked with over the years or that I've come to know, over the years, the way that I've described it is that it almost feels like there's this sense that I'm hanging by a thread at work, right? Like, I'm just this one misstep away from being fired or from, you know, losing out on opportunities or doing it wrong in some way that's going to negatively affect my career. And so you, you talk about the ways in which we have to deny our own authenticity, our values, what we stand for, in order to follow these rules, and conform to the expectations of others. And on top of that, there's this added energy, this added layer of being so fearful of what might happen, if we don't, right and then, and also, not even always knowing what is the quote, unquote, right way to do something. And so I'm leaving in this state of anxiety of this person. And I'm, we're not necessarily thinking about this consciously, right? But there's this sort of feeling that this person, this entity, whether it's my boss, whether it's my organization, has power over my life, right? Because my whether or not I can feed my family depends on my ability to hold a job. And, and so I have to not only do these things that are counter to how I would naturally do things, but if I don't, you might be homeless, I might be, you know, unemployable in the future, like, then, you know, all the stories that we sort of tell each other. So the power of this experience gets magnified so much. And so can you talk a little bit about that aspect of it as well?
Rosie Yeung
Yes. Oh, gosh, there. Yes, there's so much there to talk about, because what you're reminding me of also is just the what's, what's also inherent in every human being, which is our, our response to trauma system, right? So, the whole the classic Fight, Flight, Freeze. If we are feeling under threat, which a power imbalance, there's always and implicit threat. And I think that's part of the invisibility, and the lack of recognition around how at any moment, somebody could get triggered, right? Because, like, I had a well, actually, I will talk a little bit about my experience at work, just to give some practical and this to it, and also to maybe people can relate. I've been on both sides of the firing table. Right. So as an HR person, and as a people manager, I have fired many people. And I always justified it. I mean, I never felt well, I hope that I never fired anybody without cause, right with Edison without in any unethical or an unreasonable way. I saw many, many times where no matter how well documented or how justify i n, the employer felt that that was because the person wasn't performing. They were not keeping up their end of the employer, employee contract et cetera. Sometimes individual got if, if the employer took enough time to really explain ahead of, ahead of the firing incident, to say, to give proper performance feedback to have a communication and not just say, I'm the boss and what I say goes, but an actual, okay, how can we work this out? Right? Like, here's what you're you're not doing or here's what we expect of you bet, you're not able to achieve that. Here's how we're, trying to support you. I can tell you that no matter what, the employee pretty much, pretty much never feels like that really happened for that. And that goes into whole thing about HR stuff, which I won't get into. But then the trauma happens or can happen when they're at the firing table. And they're like, what are what on earth? Right and inherent lack of power. So in a, you know, in the old days, like Neanderthal days, we which we still carry with us in our fight and flight and freeze system, the trauma or the potential traumatization of that individual would happen around well, what how do they end up responding if they feel first of all, that it was completely out of the blue for them? That could be a huge shock, right? And for individuals, especially these days in our economy, a lot of people are getting fired in that way. They're getting laid off it was complete and a complete shock because they know the economy's not great, but still they never expected it in their company or not at this time on out to them. Incident Number one, and then how, you know, how have they been supported? To your point? Kim about, you know, what is their support system? Like if they don't even have other support systems like if they've never add support to let them feel like no, they're just because they got fired doesn't mean they're not worthy doesn't mean they're never gonna find another job doesn't mean that it was personal against them even when it was personal against them. It doesn't define their identity, it doesn't mean that they are wrong and employers, right? How much do they feel that and that comes from themselves as a person as well as how much they were nurtured how much they're nurtured by their friends how much they're nurtured by their family, right. And then, and certainly how the message is coming from the employer as well. Again, I don't think anything really sinks in because we're all in shock. Like we're traumatized in the moment. So, so then, then it gets into a whole bunch of stuff, which I, we don't have time for here, but the biological response. And this is also I think a bit of a myth-busting. There is a nap there is an actual biological, many biological responses in our body or our nervous system, how our brain reacts like the chemistry, things that present as depression and anxiety or ADHD. It's not that they're not those things, but they are not necessarily the independent of the trauma that we've suffered right. Many times. Those are actually the long term impacts kind of like what we said earlier about the injuries, right, like the what is a scar could be then ADHD or depression. It's how we ended up coping with a traumatic incident. So. So yeah, there's many ways I talked about one event. And this is another way to think about trauma, it can present in many different ways, most of them invisible. So a firing is a more visible event. And that also helps us deal with the trauma that we're suffering because at least we can attach it to something. Oftentimes, the more insidious stuff is when we don't get something that we need. Right. So trauma is also not just what happens to you. It's what happens inside you. But it's also not necessarily something bad that happens to you. It's good things that should have happened but didn't. Yeah. Wow. Right. And it could also be you, you know, something happened too much too soon. So you got fired all at once, unexpectedly, too much too soon. It's like a flash incident. That could be that you're going through something for too much for too long. Maybe your boss is constantly giving little insidious, nasty comments. Like, Oh, Kim. Well, thanks for showing up again, at this meeting, right? Like, finally you walk in the door, and maybe you're dealing with so it just depends how well you're treated. It could also be too little, for too long. Right? That's the you deserve something or you need something but you don't get it. Right. So if you're just constantly your boss only comes and talks to you when you need something from you, or she needs something from you. And meanwhile, you're not getting any affirmation or any recognition. You're, you're the giver. Right? You're like, okay, yes, I can do that. No problem. Yes. Oh, you need me to stay late. Well, I have this thing. But if you really be me, okay, I guess I will. And then the work like you said, Kim, it tends to be a blame the employee, well, the employee should have said no, or the employee needs to set boundaries, right, or the employee needs to or should have, or could have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's, there's very little accountability on the employer side. And it's not just a business relationship, if we're all humans, we all have our human needs and not having your basic human needs met, which includes the, the need for, the need for emotional connection. If those are not met for a long time, then that can also lead to trauma.
Kim Meninger
So oh, gosh, there's so much gold there. And, you know, you're making me think about a couple of things. First of all, like you said, Oh, this, the employee should set the boundaries, at the same time that the employee is terrified that if they do, they're going to be fired. Right. So that goes back to that implicit threat that you described. The other thing that I have observed within myself as a high-anxiety, individual, somebody has been suffering with anxiety my entire life, as well as just having had the privilege of working with so many people over the years, is that when you describe that need that's not being met, there's the need that's not being met. And oftentimes, the doubt that it's a legitimate need that should be met in the first place, right? So it's like, we're, you know, we're all egocentric beings by nature. We only see the world through our own eyes, and we don't share. We don't have access to other people's behind-the-scenes stories within our workplaces the vast majority of the time and so all we have to go on is the visual cues that are available to us and we look around and we think everyone else seems happy. Everyone else seems calm and everyone else seems like they're doing it right. And I have this tension or this sort of friction that maybe I can't even name, but I feel wrong in some way. Must be me, right? It's not because there's this legitimate human need that I have that's not being met, it's, I'm too needy, or, you know, maybe I should just let go of that expectation. If only I change this part of myself, then I can be more like these people. And then I can keep up and do all the things that are expected of me.
Rosie Yeung
Yeah, yes. There, there are so many things that have become normalized, that are at best myths, social myths. And also, I want to say they're lies, but they're actually they're, their lies that we've all told ourselves. It's the idea that we just don't know if there's something better if we've never ever had it. Right. Like, let's Okay, pay equity, I can take that as a little bit more concrete of an example. If women had no idea that what they're getting paid, let's say they're getting paid $10 an hour, if they think that that's the norm. And they're happy with that. It's like, oh, that's normal. That's what everybody gets like, Okay, I don't even know to ask, I don't even know that there is something better out there. Then all of a sudden, stuff starts coming up. Oh, wait a minute, how come that man is getting paid $15 an hour? Or somebody who was hired after Jimmy's game? Why, why are there these differences, then we can start having the conversation about? Well, who should be getting well, maybe I should be getting more. It doesn't change what you brought up very rightly, the, the self-doubt which cautious so parts of the thing around trauma is the shame. And the not believing in like the idea that well, you just need to be more confident. That's how you're going to be an executive. That's how can be a leader. How do people learn to be confident? Where does their confidence come from? If they've never received the messages, the nurturing, that tells them, their confidence comes from the fact that they're unconditionally loved and unconditionally accepted? Why on earth would they believe that they're worth anything more? Why on earth? Would they think that they could lead a team or an organization or whatever it is, right? So it also kills me that companies are so separate from what happens in the home. As if the, like, oh, well, moms, if moms or dads or parents, right? If you want to spend time with your family, that's for us for after work that's outside of work time. What happens long term to the kids who don't see their parents don't get enough nurturing, and this the things that bring forth confidence and self-worth and, and self-belief, and then the ability to be like, Oh, no, I do deserve this for myself, I can set boundaries, right? I can self-advocate, or I can bring up ideas in a meeting and initiate projects, because I'm not terrified, I'm gonna get shut down or rejected. If that nurturing and that care doesn't happen in the home, how does that not impact companies down the road? You're so right, like, we are a, we're a social worker society, we are all together in this, it is not? Well, parents, it's the parents responsibility to bring up good kids. And then, then it's the school's responsibility to teach them what they need to know. And then as an employer, I actually have no responsibility because I pay them, therefore, they owe me their work. And it's the school's fault, or it's the parents' fault, or it's the medical system's fault, or it's anybody else's fault. That's where I think we need to start changing the narrative and holding all parts of society including employers accountable for how are we relationally. And how are we building healthy individuals within a healthy society?
Kim Meninger
What can we do in that realm? Right? And you know, obviously, you don't have the, the and all the answers to this right? Or we wouldn't be in this situation…
Rosie Yeung
Oh, I would be I bottle it and sell it…
Kim Meninger
If only, right, but, but I'm curious what your thoughts are on because I struggle with this too. But I tend to be an optimist by nature, I feel fairly mission driven in the work that I do and then there days when I'm writing high and thinking like yes, I'm making a difference and then there are days when I want to curl up in the fetal position and say this problem is just too big, right? Like this is it feel we, we feel so powerless sometimes against this system that's so hard to even bite into. So what, what do you think? Is a reasonable or even just the first step like what do we do? What, how do we think differently? How do we kind of either challenge the system or what, what do we do?
Rosie Yeung
Yes, um, let me share my secret formula with us all society's problems. Yeah. So I do have, I do have some thoughts and sort of like how we don't like talking about trauma, or we have a bit of blinders on maybe around trauma, I think we don't like talking about what the solutions are. Or we I think we have some blinders on about really how simple some of these, what we can do use could be, because it's such a big problem, often, we think we need big solutions to big problems. But just like trauma can be too little for too long. The solution could also be little things for a long time. And the impact of little things could be very big. I think this is also a capitalist corporate idea of oh, well, to have a big impact, something has to be really super inspirational, or like a massive thing. And then we need a strategic implementation plan, right to make that happen. So I've, I've, you know, my three C's, I have three C's on this, and this is true for anybody on either side of the, you know, the privilege fence or the trauma fence. It starts with curiosity. But instead of a accusatory, or a, but it's not my fault, or who's to blame, it's what's happening here. And, and of take a CEO, or, you know, people in leadership positions, which I was in for a long time, rather than looking for ways to say, but we already we do accommodate employees, we have a healthcare plan, we have this like, what more do they want from us? I think that's a lot of the, the messaging the narrative that comes up. And I'm assuming at this point, good intentions, right? Like, and I do, I think most employers are not going out intentionally trying to make employees lives miserable. But the fact is, employees lives are pretty miserable. And I include leadership in that because they are employees, too. So getting curious about what's behind your reaction, your response to whatever it is, right? Like, if you're the one getting triggered, and anybody can get triggered, if you're getting triggered? What's coming up for you? Like, what is the feeling behind that we also don't talk about feelings at work, but it's really feelings and tends to be fear that drives especially strong responses strong on either side, right? So Rob, before starting with, you know, initial defensive reaction or, you know, kind of attacking or investigative questions on the other person, just getting curious within. And then through that curiosity, also having compassion, and the compassion for others actually starts from compassion with yourself, compassion for yourself. If you've been traumatized, it's actually very hard to have that compassion for yourself. Because the self-critic coming out of the shame is such a deep part of trauma, it's an impact of trauma, right? So on, again, on either side of a trauma fence, having the deep compassion for Yeah, you know, me CEO, it is really hard, it is hard to meet the needs of the greater good of the organization and the board. And there's demands from all sides that I have to meet. And they're often conflicting. And I've got my own stuff going on, and my family and my personal life and all this sort of stuff. It's hard. It's really hard right now. And maybe I feel attacked, right? I, as a leader, I can feel attacked, I don't know how to do things, most of the stuff we don't have answers for, because we've never done it. So why would we be able to like just because we have a total of leader? Why would we somehow be able to magically figure out what to do? And maybe the demands? Or the what's asking what's coming up from an employee, it's not something I can actually do. And maybe we really don't have the money for it. Right? So having compassion for all of these things, and then care, care is so this is what I think also comes up as accommodation. Right? Like, oh, what does self-care look like? Or what is we don't we have care? Because we have an employee assistance program, or we have flex time? Or like, yeah, what, but care isn't just programs or cares, it just money? Here can be something as simple as, what do you need right now? Like, can you know, let's talk further? We haven't talked for a bit and I see that you seem kind of down. I really, okay. I don't, I don't know that I can solve anything. It's not my job to solve anything. But I'm here to listen. If you just want to talk and let's figure something out together, like we're in this together, it's not just you have to fill out a business case for something and then I have to approve it. So bringing these things that are typically not business, things that are more personal into the conversation. And well, I'll add when there's not a see but just the recognition, right, that one of my mantras is you can't hear what you haven't diagnosed. So I think we really have to get rid of the idea of it's not, it's not personal, it's business. It's no, it's not. It's, if that's the idea, then it's not business, it's abuse. We're actually abusing people by how we're denying their legitimate feelings, their needs. Denying, “Oh, that's not traumatic. Oh, but I didn't mean anything by that.” Like, denying that can be traumatic, like if you constantly talk about the self-doubt, if you're feeling like I'm mistreating you, or you're just feeling like something's a bad situation, and I'm constantly telling you, no, it's not. That's all in your head, everything's fine, or just see it's normal, this is fine. Everybody else is dealing with it, you're the problem? What does that do to a person? Right? So we have to stop that narrative as well.
Kim Meninger
That's really powerful to just what you said, That's abuse. Right? And, and I think one of the challenges is that, like you said, I see this as both a challenge and an opportunity. Business is just a collection of humans, right? And so what we're talking about is this pressure, or this service, societal mold that people have fallen into. And you talked about in terms of myths and lies and things, things that stories we tell ourselves, right as like, as I move up the food chain, or, you know, whatever it is that my I'm trying to achieve by conforming within my organization, that I've told myself that feelings should be checked at the door, or that I need a thicker skin or, you know, just kind of all of these things. And so if I'm not, to your point, being compassionate towards myself, where's the empathy going to come from for other people? Because I'm just saying, like, if I'm not taking the time to take care of myself, why should you be able to take care of yourself, right? Or if I don't understand that, I have my own untended wounds, I'm not gonna be thinking about yours. And so I think that there's this opportunity, if we can set aside these beliefs that that's somehow, like, too much vulnerability, or it's too squishy, or it doesn't belong in the business world, right, like, going back to your earlier point about capitalism. It is actually in alignment and not that I, you know, not that I'm trying to promote capitalism here. But if that's the system we all belong to, it is in greater alignment with capitalism to take care of the needs of your employees, because you will get more out of them. Right, you will actually achieve more of your capitalistic goals if you're tending to people in the ways that you described. So if you're not going to do it for the right reasons, if you're not going to do it, because it's the right thing to do for humans, do it because it's the right thing for your business. And I think that's where we still haven't been able to bridge that gap.
Rosie Yeung
100%. I mean, we just have to look at perform high performance, professional athletes, part of their job is to sleep and to get massages, and to take care of their bodies and to eat the right foods. And to have fun, because the team bosses know, if athletes do that they will perform better in the arena that their, their sport is taking place. Right. So why on earth would work be that? Yeah, it's one of the many ways that we silo the portions of our society thinking, performance, or productivity comes from doing more, or even worse, doing more with less or working smarter, not harder. Like there's all these myths, I think we need to be working easier. Working Smarter or harder. We need to be working easier.
Kim Meninger
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And oh my gosh, Rosie, I could go on and on with you. And maybe we can do a part two of this sometimes as well because I feel like we just barely scratched the surface. But I would love for you to share where people can find you and more of your work for anyone who's interested in connecting with you.
Rosie Yeung
Thank you for asking that. I would love to connect with people actually. This is also my passion and mission. So I want to help people see and heal from their pain. And I'm most active on LinkedIn. So if you just search for me, Rosie Yeung, and my last name Yeung is spelled y e u n g. It should hopefully come up. I'm also on Instagram, but the best way to reach me is on LinkedIn. And my website is also changing. lenses.ca
Kim Meninger
Wonderful. Thank you so much, Rosie. This has been just a wonderful conversation and a really important one.
Rosie Yeung
Thank you so much, Kim. I've it's been a pleasure.