A Guide to Navigating Career Transitions as an Empath

Catherine A. Wood 00:03
Uh, hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast. Cat here, if you’ve been tuning into the podcast recently, you’ve likely noticed that I’ve been doing things a little bit differently of late, I have been recently sharing some of my most favorite and powerful tools and frameworks and coaching distinctions that I use with my private clients and my clients and my mastermind and I’ve been doing this super intentionally, because I have been sitting with the despair and grief and fear of what’s going on in my own country and what’s happening in Gosh, many countries and cultures around the world, and I notice I’ve been feeling just this sense of hopelessness and power powerlessness, which I know many of you are, and for me, whenever I am present to that fear or sense of powerlessness, it’s always a sign for me to really take a look within, to sit with, first of all, that emotion and that fear and that grief. And you know, whatever emotion I’m present to, and really feel it on purpose, allow it to move through me and then connect with who I want to be in the matter. And I’ve been doing that process sometimes on a daily basis of late, because there feels like there’s so much to be with. And what’s been coming up for me is just this invitation to share what has made the biggest difference for me and the clients I work with. And what I really appreciate about my work as a coach is that coaching really supports people going through periods of transition, and it feels like as society, as culture, as a world, as a country, we are really going through a powerful transition right now, and it’s incredibly confronting, and I’ve been really just sitting with that resistance and that fear that I Know is very pervasive right now, and what’s come you. Yeah, and what I’ve realized is that one of the biggest contributions I can make right now is to support folks in changing the way we’re looking at things, so that the things we’re looking at change. So with that in today’s episode, I really want to share with you some of the distinctions and frameworks that I think have been the most impactful for my clients over well over the past decade, in supporting them in a changing and unpredictable job market and periods of transition in their careers, whether they’re at a Place of whether you are at a place of wanting to finally leave the nine to five and pursue your own entrepreneurial dream, whether you have been laid off in this current job market, whether you’ve been fired, or whether you’ve chosen to see yourself out Some of these tools and exercises that I’m going to share with you today have been just some of the most impactful for my clients in navigating those periods of transition in the job market with intentionality, with purposefulness and with integrity. I hope you find today’s episode useful as a way to kick off this conversation, I actually wanted to share some words that have been Gosh, filling me with peace and maybe just a fire as I read them. So these words come from the book, the answer to how is yes, acting on what matters. By Peter block. Now he is a consultant and change agent, and he talks about inviting change. And he wrote this. Let’s see. When did he publish this book? He first published this book in 2002 so well before what we’re experiencing now. But these words feel not only timeless, they also feel incredibly applicable to what we’re experiencing right now. Here’s what he says, the fear of capitalism is that. Desires and idealism are dangerous to the economy that we will be pleasure seeking, become artists, and worst of all, seek meaningful work. We control this dangerous impulse through the budget. What’s more, it leads to the situation in which money itself becomes a commodity to be sought after, money doing business on its own, detached from any relation to the Soul of the World, the psychic starvation brought about by removing soul from the world produces insatiable greed. For when the world is no longer surrounded with soul, a vast emptiness intervenes that must be filled. He goes on to add that we purchase progress at the expense of our own humanity and heartfelt desires. It just feels so apropos for what we’re going through right now, and I’m so present to the journey of becoming a prosperous Empath, and that for me and for so many of my clients, that journey often looks like embracing our own humanity and their own humanity includes our own heartfelt desires. It includes connecting with our soul. It it includes connecting with our own emotionality and humanity. And it can be really hard to embrace our own humanity in the face of gosh, the insatiable greed and power dynamics and world we’re living in right now, and that is so much of what there is to do, it’s to lean in, not to turn away. So with that, let’s shift into this conversation about, how do we lean in? Now I shared with you before that I think coaching can really support those in periods of transition, and a lot of that starts with being willing to welcome and say yes to the transition, just like Peter block’s title of his book, The answer to how is yes. Now there is a huge fundamental difference between inviting in welcoming and saying yes to change and trans in transition and growth and evolution and reinvention, versus feeling like it’s happening to you. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t want this. This is unfair. How could this happen? Now I want to normalize that it’s incredibly normal, and to be expected that that would be your first instinctual response, that you would instinctually respond from a place of fear, defensiveness, defiance, overwhelm, worry, it’s it’s really completely natural and human, right. When we’re confronted with fear, we often fall into one of four buckets. We either take fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Now these are all ways of being that come from that to me, consciousness when we which we talked about on the podcast a couple episodes ago, when we talked about the four states of consciousness, we’ll link to that episode, if you haven’t yet tuned in. Now, when we’re in Toomey consciousness, it’s because there’s something at risk. There’s something that we’re afraid of. Makes sense. Our nervous system is activated. We’re confronted, we’re afraid. We’re responding from that anxious energy. Now, the opportunity and the invitation is to not stay there. It’s to notice when we’re coming from that place and to look at what there is to take responsibility for about our own emotional state, so that we can shift to a place of ownership and responsibility for our own experience. So if we take a look at what’s happening in the world right now, we do not need to accept what’s happening in the world. In fact, please don’t That being said, we do need to accept that we are afraid and fearful. We do need to take ownership for that fear so that we can move to a place of choice and becoming the soul. Force and taking back agency for who we choose to be in the matter and for how we choose to respond. Now, if I didn’t do that internal reflection for myself, I likely wouldn’t even be here recording this episode with you today. I might still be showing up from this place of anger and resentment and defiance, how could he, and how could they, and how could they defund USAID, and how could they withdraw these grants and international aid? That’s some of the most meaningful work I’ve done in my career. And how could they, and there’s no growth. There’s no reinvention. There’s no transformation available when we’re showing up from a place of how could they. Because when we’re showing up from a place of how could they, we are placing power outside of ourselves and in the hands and pockets of other people. So it starts there. It starts with really sitting with the fear, the hopelessness, your your your your own instinctive response, whether you fight, take flight, freeze or fawn, and then looking at what there is to accept and acknowledge about that fear that you are feeling so that you can shift to a place of becoming the creator and the source of your own experience and connecting with who you want to be in the matter i Oh, so as you do that own, as you do your own internal work, and really can shift to that place of creation and source and agency, that’s where you can really sit with this unpredictable job market, and perhaps You can navigate the layoffs and this season of change that we are in all right now. So if, if you’re falling in one of those places, right, if you have recently been laid off or fired, or you’ve quit, and you’re in this important period of transition. You might be sitting with the question of what next and how do you want to pursue the current job market. You might feel like you are one of 1000s who are navigating this season of layoffs and this turbulent job market, and you might feel a little bit hopeless. Now here’s something I’m really present to as empaths, our emotional intelligence, our ability to connect the integrity and hard work ethics that we bring to the job market are some of our greatest assets. There’s some of our there’s some of our comparative advantages in this job markets. There’s some of our comparative advantage in this job market. And we really need to be able to connect with our own no your values, your high integrity, your ambition, your hyper functioning nature as an empath, these are All some of your comparative advantage in the job market, and you need to be able to articulate them and really own your comparative advantage in this in this current job market. So how do you do that? So I want to share some of my frame. Wait, I want to delete that sentence. Haley, you one of my most favorite frameworks to talk about our work and purpose comes from the work of one of my teachers, Nicholas Yani, so I want you to imagine two circles and one circle, you’ll name your purpose, and one circle, you’ll name your work. Now consider that as empaths, many of us want our work. Work and our purpose to be one in the same we Want our wait. I’m going to start that over. I one of the qualities that I most appreciate about in empaths is that we are so committed to our work, being in integrity with our values and our purpose and how we want to contribute and the difference that we want to make, we are extremely mission driven and values oriented. Now I think this is beautiful. This can also be challenging, because sometimes we want our purpose and our work to be one in the same thing, and when they’re not, that can lead to a feeling of being out of integrity, or a feeling of breakdown, or like there’s something wrong. Now, some of my favorite teachings about purpose and work come from Nicholas Yani, who’s one of my favorite teachers. So this is one of his distinctions. I want you to envision two circles, and in one circle you’re gonna name that circle your purpose, and the other circle you’re gonna name that circle your work. So let’s define each of these so your purpose is the contribution that you want to make in this lifetime. The values that you live by and uphold. Your purpose are what you genuinely love and what lights you up. Your purpose is what inspires you and the gifts that you have that you want to share. Your purpose is how your essence is expressed externally. Your purpose is also a representation of what you stand for and what you stand against. Now this is very aspirational and deeply connecting for so many of us as empaths, right? Okay, so that’s your purpose. Now your work, if we look at the bottom line of what your work is, is your work is simply an allocation of how you spend your time and how you earn a living, to some degree. Now, if you think about these circles. What is the experience, your current experience of the relationship between these two circles? Are they touching? Are they overlapping? Is there a space in the middle that overlaps, or are they on complete separate ends of the paper? Or your own perspective. Now, at different periods in your career, the relationship between these two circles and the physical proximity to these two circles shifts, and that’s okay, I think for many, many of the clients in my own life who are providers or financially responsible for their own families, they often go through a period in their own careers where the proximity between their purpose and their work feels far off. Their work might feel very disconnected from their purpose. They might find value or be a contribution or express their passion in ways that are completely disconnected from their work, and that is completely okay. Now, as an empath, it might really not feel okay. It might feel like your purpose and your work have to be intertwined, but I want to invite you to consider that at different periods of your career and your journey in this lifetime, those circles shift, and the proximity or the distance between them, becomes closer, becomes intertwined, perhaps they overlap one another, and they might be completely separate, and that is okay. Now here’s the kicker. It’s when we can really acknowledge the relationship between those two circles. Goals and allow it to be okay, that we can make that choice from an empowered place. So consider that if you’re not being on purpose, you’re being off purpose. So if you can be purposeful about the relationship between your work and your purpose, that is where you can find peace and acceptance. That’s also where you can shift from a place of to me, to buy me consciousness. And I think that that peace and acceptance might really support you right now as you navigate this period of turbulence or uncertainty or transition in the job market because you might be required, or you might need to, or you might choose to accept a job right now or apply for jobs right now that don’t feel deeply intertwined with your purpose or your mission. And what if that was okay? What if that wasn’t a problem? What if you allowed your work to simply be an allocation of your time and how you’re currently earning a living, and you choose to pursue your passion and pursue what you stand for and what you stand against in a completely separate bucket or allocation of your time and energy. I think that coming to peace and coming to a place of acceptance with how you hold your purpose and your work right now is a huge gift of generosity and way to embrace your own humanity that is incredibly supportive for empaths, as we currently navigate or as you navigate this current job market, you Okay, great. So with that, I want to leave you with three so sure. Okay, so as you’re considering your job market and what’s next, I want to invite you to take on that work first before continuing to some of these next practices. So again, draw two circles on a piece of paper. No, hold on, I want to delete that. Okay, great. So now that we’ve really distinguished the relationship between your purpose and your work, let’s shift gears and look at some practices that might support you as you apply for new positions and really consider, as you consider applying for new positions and also who you want to be in this Navid like great. So now that we’ve distinguished the relationship between your purpose and work, let’s apply that and look at some tools that can support you as you navigate the job market. So here’s the first invitation you need to be able to leverage your strengths now as an empath, it can be really challenging getting comfortable taking up more space and talking open heartedly about your expertise and your strengths. As empaths, we’re so much more practiced and comfortable in asking questions, in selling other people and talking up other people, in being enrolled in what other people have to offer or share because of how deeply we value relationship and generosity and being of service. So I just want to normalize that this might feel really uncomfortable. It is hard to it can be hard for empaths to talk about ourselves in reality. This is one of the hugest in reality. This is one of the main reasons I launched the prosperous Empath podcast two years ago, because I realized that there was a huge opportunity for me to take on this practice for myself in order to be able to share some of my expertise with more empaths and really contribute in a way that felt meaningful and aligned with my own purpose. So how do we do this? How can we get more comfortable talking about ourselves, talking open heart and lead up talk? Open heartedly about our expertise and our strengths. So here’s the kicker, it doesn’t have to be about you. I think when we talk about ourselves, we oftentimes think that it feels really selfish, or that, um, music. Here’s the kicker for many of us, that resistance to talking open heartedly about our expertise and strength lies in this idea that we’re talking about ourself and that can feel really selfish. As and as empaths, we really struggle with that notion of being selfish or feeling like we’re being selfish. But the truth of the mallet, the truth of the matter is, is that you don’t need to talk about yourself, and you don’t need to come from that place that you are talking about yourself. You can talk about the people you serve, or the people you’ve served in the past, or the impact your efforts have created, the difference your work has made. And in reality, when you can connect your storytelling and your work with its impact and its contribution and its results, it’s so much more enrolling. It’s so much more powerful. And people can feel that open heartedness. People can feel how deeply you care. So again, this doesn’t have to be an i conversation. It can be a we and us conversation. That shift from I and me to us and we is one of the most important frameworks that can help you get more comfortable in taking up more space and talking more open heartedly about what you have to bring to the table, and as you’re able to talk more open heartedly about what you bring to the table, the size of your table is going to expand. It’s going to get bigger because you’re going to be able to lead more people and make a bigger contribution. You here’s the second invitation, prioritize meaningful work in this job market. Now that might feel incredibly confronting, because you might not feel like you have a choice in this job market, you might feel the pressure to accept the first offer that comes your way, or accept a job that doesn’t fully align with Your values and purpose, and If that’s the case, you if that’s the case, I invite you to choose that job on purpose. Again, if you’re not being on purpose, you’re being off purpose. Your work does not have to be one in the same with your purpose, but you do need to choose your work purposefully and with purpose, because if you choose it, if you say, I’m taking this job because of a commitment to provide for My family, to provide financial stability, to provide financial security, then that frees you up

Speaker 1 29:05
to pursue your purpose

Catherine A. Wood 29:09
in a separate environment or a separate manner. Now that being said, if you don’t have to jump at any job offer, if you have the capacity to be selective about what you job, what job you say yes to, then I really believe it’s important now more than ever to stand firm in your values and to choose a job, to choose a next position that aligns with your core values, one of my most, one of my favorite exercises to pursue with clients as they navigate job transitions is to help them get really clear on their core values. Now I get it. Core values feels like such a hot button. Name. Core values feels like such a hot button. Word, right? Like we all say, oh, yeah, what are your values? Blah, blah, blah. Now I get it core values feels like such a hot button term. It can feel now I get it the frequency with which the word values is used, I think it can really take away some of the potency and some of the powerful decision making that having your values distinguished can allow and provide for You. I for prosperous empaths in particular, who struggle with decision making, who struggle with connecting with our own intuition or gut, or have a tendency to people please, getting into deep relationship with your core values provides a framework for decision Making, and can serve as a compass for living. Oh, I can consider that your core values provide a framework for decision making. They can serve as a compass for living one that’s assigned with your beliefs, commitments, thoughts, words and action. Living in alignment with your values provides a pathway for living Free and for living more peacefully now. Now consider that for now, consider that standing firm in your values, it sets you apart in the job market, it allows your authenticity and your integrity to shine through, rather than your fear shining through. So there are so many frameworks for distinguishing your core values. I’m going to invite you. I’m going to share with you a couple that are two of my favorites. So one comes from Brene Brown’s dare to lead program. Now you can search for this online, and essentially you’ll find an exhaustive list of hundreds of core values. So the first practice is to just go through that list and select or circle, just circle all the core values that resonate for you, avoid overthinking at this point. And then as you read through the list, I want you to group those values so you’re again, you’re going to go through an exhaustive list of core values, circle all the ones that speak to you, and then you’re going to group those values in a way that makes sense to you. You might consider choosing four to six groupings. If you have more, you can drop the least important ones, and then choose a word within each grouping that reflects that group or a common theme within that group. Again, I invite you not to overthink it. And then lastly, if this is helpful, you can add a verb before each value. So for instance, if mindfulness is one of your grouping categories and you want to add a verb before it, it might sound like acting with mindfulness. Or if joy is one of your core values, it might sound like multiply joy. One of my core values is togetherness. It’s so important for me. So if I were to add a verb before togetherness, I might say, choose togetherness.

Yes. Okay, great. So that’s the first path to uncover your core values. And then the second one is a little bit more personal. So this one I’ve really appreciated over the years. So I invite you to consider, this is a writing prompt. Consider four people you admire. These might be people close to you like for me, it was always my great aunt, or it may be people who are more aspirational, someone you don’t know, someone someone from history. So again, choose four people you admire, and then for each, I invite you to journal on what are the qualities you admire and in what experiences or memories you have of them, did they display these qualities? And then you can revisit what you wrote and look for common themes. And again, with those common themes, you’re going to create a list of four to six core values that you hold. And then this goes for both exercises. You want to rank that list of four to six core values in terms of importance.

Now, something I appreciate about our core values is that they get to evolve with us as we do, and yet they are a constant decision making tool that we have in our box back in our back pocket, because once you have distinguished your core values for yourself. Whenever you’re approaching a decision or accepting a job or choosing whether to even apply for a job, consider what is the decision aligned with your core values, or what does your or what does living your core values look like here it is, an incredibly liberating and empowering tool for decision making.

Great okay. Now the last distinction I want to invite you to consider is the invitation to network with intention, one of my most favorite books that I’ve read that I think truly speaks to empaths and how empaths thrive and can be successful. Is the book give or take by Adam Grant, and he has this beautiful distinction between the givers who thrive and the givers who don’t make so essentially, what sets a giver up to succeed in life, in business and in their work, and essentially it is their willingness to ask for help. As givers, we’re so practiced in giving that it can oftentimes result in us occurring as needless. Now this is something that I have worked through through much of my adult life, like it’s this idea that I’m over functioning and really practiced in being efficient and in getting life done. And the consequence of that is that it can often have me show up as not having needs, like I’ve got everything handled, nothing to see here. What do you need? How can I help now? This is something I’ve really been dismantling in motherhood, because it’s really hard to occur and be needless as a mom, because there’s so many needs constantly placed on you, the ones that are seen and the ones that aren’t. So this has been such an empowering practice for me, just breaking up with this idea of going it alone, even if it’s not true, because for many of us it’s not true, it’s just in our head. So getting practiced in being self revealing, in allowing others to see the messy middle and making open hearted and non strategic requests for help is one of the key characteristics that we can apply in order to thrive as givers. So how can this be helpful when we’re networking.

So how might this apply to you when you’re considering what jobs to apply for or how to identify your next position. So for me, networking with intention starts with just this, knowing that typically, other people are more present to our strengths and our gifts than we are for ourselves, because we are pre conditioned to relate to ourself from a perspective of what’s familiar or what’s comfortable for us, right? Like it’s that whole realm of what lies in your comfort zone. What lies in your comfort zone are things that you’ve already done, things that you’re practiced in, that are you’re comfortable with, that you’re familiar with. So if you’re really looking to evolve, or you’re wanting to shift out of your current field, it’s going to require you to get uncomfortable. Essentially, it’s going to require you to do something you’ve never done before. And for most of us, we’re often just not familiar or not practiced in making that decision, or in even knowing what that decision is, so, requesting feedback and letting people in to support us or to provide inspiration or input for our decision making process can be really helpful as we look to grow beyond the confines of our current comfort zone, the thing I always like to say about our comfort zone is that for many of us, we think that it’s inelastic. We think that it’s defined and that it’s fixed, when in reality, our comfort zones are very much elastic. They expand and retract, along with our own willingness to act outside of them and knowing that others believe in us and believe that things are possible for us that are currently outside of the confines of our comfort zone are incredibly empowering as we look to grow and stretch and move beyond the current realm of what we believe is possible for ourselves.

So in closing, today, I want to leave you with a practice that is the practice from the first chapter of my book, belonging overcome your inner critic and reclaim your joy. And it is a practice that I often leave my clients with at the very beginning of our work, as they are working on really getting clear on what’s next for them and what they want to leverage the coaching container to create and bring to life for them. And it’s truly a practice in expanding our own realm of what’s possible for us.
Here’s the practice, taking action, looking to the future. Gandhi truly understood the power of our mindset when he said, your thought, when he said, your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Just like working out a new muscle group at the gym takes practice, repetition and patience to see results, so too does honing our beliefs, becoming consciously aware of our thoughts and acting on them. You may think you don’t know what you want, or you may know what you want and fear taking action, but either way, you’re in the right place. One of my favorite exercises to do with clients, to practice strengthening this muscle is to begin by welcoming feedback and input from others, others, like our loved ones, are typically more reliable for reflecting what is possible for us than we are for ourselves. When beginning this journey to wholeness and whole heartedness today, you will begin by choosing 10 people who know and love you. These are your supporters and champions. Consider people across different areas of your life, including family, friends, colleagues, social groups, college, church groups, etc, and all you’re going to do is send these 10 people the following question. In and request a reply. Here’s the question, if there were no limits or boundaries to what I could accomplish or be doing differently with my life, where would you see me next? Or what do you think my achievements would be? Feel free to send this question as a text message or via email, but I invite you to take this practice on. I hope you found today’s episode helpful. I hope that you found it applicable. I hope that you found empowerment and direction and the normalization that you are not alone in this job market. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for tuning in, for spending this time with me and I will see you next time you.