Meandering Mind - Eva Dillner [3]
My new boss made it crystal clear he could care less what I had been up to in France. He refused to even look at the promotion recommendation. He just put it aside, with no interest whatsoever. I was stunned. I was speechless. At the time there were so many things to deal with that I glossed over it emotionally. That's what happens when you get a shock. Your system shuts down and with it the emotions get buried. Complicating the problem was my wish to continue with international work and our company was closing the international division. I was also getting strong signals from my body that I needed to take a break.
I had been going non-stop at a fairly intense pace since I started university, where I carried a heavy course load. I went straight to work when I finished my Master's degree. I had wanted to take time out during my studies, but my practical parents convinced me to wait until I graduated. Turned out it was practically impossible then, you might as well throw your degree away if you took a time out.
So there I was twenty years later, feeling like I needed a break, my new boss didn't want me and there were no exciting projects on the horizon.
I had been toying with the idea of writing. In my mind I saw myself writing books. I was terrified to just quit outright. I asked for a leave of absence for three months. At the end of those three months, my boss, the one who didn't want me in the first place, called to tell me I had been laid off.
But back to the stunned into silence. It's now fifteen years later and I have finally uncorked the emotional trauma at not being seen or acknowledged by my new boss. I know I'm not alone. The damage done to people in organizations that downsize, restructure and reshuffle is enormous. There is a whole army of emotionally crippled people out there trying to hold their lives together. Can you imagine what a different world it would be if we could take our issues into therapy and resolve them as we go?
Had I been emotionally whole at the time, I could have stood up for myself, said how I felt and dealt with the emotional pain of being ignored. My accomplishments are very important to me. Obviously, the whole European management team thought I had done a very good job. It was beyond my comprehension that you could just ignore such a glowing recommendation. Perhaps he was jealous or it reminded him of a sister who got all the attention, who knows? Point is, it hurt me tremendously. I experienced excruciating low back pain, my root chakra locked up and I developed uterine fibroids. My whole sense of self had been invalidated. This end-of-career incident wasn't the only one that contributed to my difficulties, but it was a major one.
Unfortunately there are few therapists who understand how to work with work and organizational trauma. Their training and experience tends to focus on traditional relationship issues and physical traumas. For more information on how to work therapeutically with life's difficulties, see my other books. In these books you will also find many useful exercises for personal and spiritual growth.
I took a long rest after being let go from my corporate job. Then I started writing. I titled my book Managing to Mediocrity. After all, that was my experience. So much garbage went on that had nothing to do with doing a good job or making profits for the company. With all the reorganizations it was every man (or woman) for himself with lots of petty politics and behind the scenes manipulations. However, I didn't get very far with my writing, at that time...
Managing to mediocrity
In many countries there's been a reality show on TV called Survivor. The competitors go to an island and are pitted against each other individually and in teams, in survival and other games. Each week a loser has to leave the island until there is only the winner left. You would think that the strongest or most capable