When Kathy left corporate America to become an energy worker, her Salvadoran mom didn't understand her choice, or why Kathy felt so drawn to it. And Cynthia Pong, a career coach, helps us break down corporate trauma and speak with our parents about finding purpose in our work.
Featured Expert:
Cynthia Pong is a nationally recognized, award-winning, NYU-trained lawyer turned career coach whose passion is helping women of color realize their ambitious career goals. She also loves partnering with organizations that are truly invested in seeing their employees of color succeed, excel, and thrive. Cynthia’s career advice is frequently cited in press pieces on platforms including The Atlantic, CBS News, Good Morning America, NPR, Refinery29, Fast Company, and HuffPost. In 2019, she was selected as a LinkedIn Top Voice in Job Search and Career. She has received recognition and awards from the Unfinished Business Initiative and IFundWomen Of Color.In 2021, Cynthia created and launched the Embrace Change Leadership Accelerator, a program for women of color across industries. It was fully funded after 22 days of crowdfunding and 134% funded after one month through a campaign that raised 59 times the average amount raised through crowdfunding. In 2022, Cynthia created and launched the Embrace Change Speakers Bureau, the only speakers bureau dedicated to centering and amplifying the voices of women of color speakers on stages everywhere. Learn more about her book Don't Stay In Your Lane: The Career Change Guide for Women of Color and her work here.
If you liked this show listen to She Loves Her Work, Her Parents Don't Get it and She Had to Choose Her Career Over Her Parents
We’d love to hear your stories of triumph and frustration so send us a detailed voice memo to virginia@lwcstudios.com. You might be on a future episode! Let’s connect on Twitter and Instagram at @TalkToMamiPapi and email us at hello@talktomamipapi.com. And follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi, everybody. Today, we welcome Kathy. When the pandemic hit, Kathy decided to flee her toxic job in corporate America and become a trauma informed energy worker. But her Salvadorian mom is skeptical of the whole career change. And that puzzles Kathy, because she feels that it was her mom's roots that inspired her all along. Let's get into it.
Kathy: My name is Kathy and I'm originally from Texas, but I was raised in Virginia, or the DC area. My nationality is Salvadorian, so Central American, and growing up, I called my parents, Mom and Papi.
My career started in healthcare, so I have a background in healthcare and wellness and did it through private practices and then ended up in healthcare in the corporate healthcare system.
Things happen in corporate. I experienced microaggression, exclusivity, and a lot of discrimination. And after a lot of burnout and one life changing mental health breakdown, I left corporate America in March 2020. That is the big anniversary for me.
I always knew that I wanted to be a yoga teacher, always. I always thought of it as like, "That'll be the job that I do when I retire." But obviously the universe different plans and it's just like, "But I don't have to retire to do that. I can actually do it now."
I put my notice in because there was an incident at my job that really just took me out. And not having any support from my leader just really told me I don't need to be here. And of course, my last day, the world shut down.
First and foremost, I needed to really reconnect with myself because corporate trauma is real. Yoga really was a catalyst for everything in my life, my healing journey. And that catapulted me to being a breath work guide, a Reiki practitioner now. And also my own trauma and lived experiences really interest me on how I can support and guide people to have tools and practices that support them in that process of healing from corporate trauma. I just decided this is my time. This is an opportunity for me to start doing online or livestream classes, and I started building my website.
Kathy: How I came out to my parents. I think I did tell them like, "You know what? I quit my job. I'm quitting my job. I want to pursue my wellness business." I started teaching in person here in the area and my mom didn't understand my side of my work. It still didn't register for her like, "Oh, but what else are you going to do?" And I'm like, "But this is what I'm going to do." It's not that I just teach yoga. It's really helping people reconnect to their body. Understanding that don't wait until you end up in the hospital to take care of you. They get to learn not to feel guilty for taking care of themselves. This is what I really do. I make an impact in their lives and emotional, physical, and mental health, their overall wellbeing.
I'm also really perplexed also as to why my mom doesn't connect with it anymore because I learned about these things through her. sobadores and body workers, energy workers, she would go to them when she had issues with her shoulders, issues with her arm. I remember going with my mom and she being seen by curanderos, healers. Even now she doesn't realize.
And I think it's just assimilation too. Some things like I have a niece and my when the baby is born, warming your hands, el aceite, putting it over the fire of a candle and just putting it on the belly, putting it on the top of the head, the body. My sister goes, "Well, what do we do it for?" And my mom tells her, she's like, "Well, you're exchanging, connecting and exchanging energy with your daughter." And I'm like, see! And my brother-in-law, they were like, "She sounds like Kathy." Yeah, I got it from her. Okay. Yeah.
If my mom was on the line right now, I would say everything that you, and I'm actually getting emotional. I'd want her to know that my generation and generations forward for us to break those cycles and live better and do better, I had to learn a different way. Her sacrifices were not in vain. And I wake up every day doing something that I love. I'm not miserable like I used to be. I'm not lost.
Lantigua: I bet some of you can relate to Kathy's story. Talking about a career change often means contending with the different views our parents have about what work is and what it isn't. And how our ideas defer when it comes to the American Dream. How can we first gens speak with our parents about stuff like corporate trauma and finding purpose in our work, not just paying the bills? How can we explain our need to redefine success for ourselves?
To help us out, I did what I always do. I called in an expert.
Cynthia Pong: I am Cynthia Pong. I am a career coach for women of color and also the founder of Embrace Change, which is a coaching and consulting firm. We specialize in getting people of color, the money, power, and respect that we deserve in the workplace.
Lantigua: Same question always to get us going. You listened to Kathy's story. What did you hear?
Pong: Oh, I heard a very common and resonant journey. I mean, the starting in healthcare. So many of us first gen, second gen folks in immigrant households, that whole thing, we want to go into the helping professions. And that's the first thing that struck me. Classic move there because we are so community oriented and focused a lot of the time.
And then the migration if you will, into corporate. "Corporate America," and then the racial trauma and the workplace corporate trauma that happened there. I mean, I hear about that literally every day of every week, Juleyka. Every week. Then that catalyzing moment of when the pandemic hit to be like, "This is not what I want to be doing. This is not where I want to be," and making that move. That's what I heard.
Lantigua: Let's get the vocabulary portion of the program out of the way. Can you help us understand corporate trauma?
Pong: The way I think about it is when we work in a corporate environment which is very heavily steeped in white supremacy culture and capitalistic culture, Western Eurocentric norms, that's traumatic. And not only for people of color and immigrants and first gen folks in that environment, it's really traumatic for everybody, including white folks in that environment. It just looks different ways. And I think it feels different ways.
But there's harmful effects of that. When we're in day to day 24/7, you got to grind for the bottom line. Where's the ROI? How do I make my money? How is this going to help shareholders? All of that stuff is very harmful and not a natural way of being for any of us, for any human beings. I think about that a lot. And frankly, I think of my work as harm reduction. This is a little bit of a tangent, but I don't see the capitalistic white supremacy working world falling away anytime soon in my lifetime.
Lantigua: It's an empire.
Pong: It's absolutely. And there's so many intertwined systems simply designed to uphold it from all directions. And so for people of color and women of color specifically, I don't want to see us losing out in that world. It's this weird position that I'm in, where I try to help support people in their careers and help them negotiate more money and things like that. At the same time, recognizing that I don't actually even believe in any of this that we're all doing. I want to dismantle the system too.
Lantigua: Right. Are there specific ways in which corporate trauma impacts women of color like Kathy?
Pong: It's hard to say without having a longer conversation with Kathy, but if I could take a guess at it, I think one is exhaustion and fatigue because we always have to deliver and deliver and deliver and over deliver and do more and more and bigger is better. All of that, so the grind aspect of it is very harmful for our psyche, our mental and physical health. We're probably losing years on our life grinding away for the man because we are not prioritizing our wellbeing. We're not prioritizing being outside, drinking water, taking enough bio breaks. I mean, it's as mundane as that. But I know I got clients that just work and work and work and work. Then they go home and they do the home work, the housework, and then they sleep for as few hours as humanly possible and they get up and they do it again. That would be the main ways that I think that manifests and impacts us negatively.
Lantigua: Okay. Here's a riddle for you because a lot of first gens, like Kathy are coming from immigrant parents who idealized and to some extent idolized the corporate American ladder as the way to the American Dream. How do you even begin to talk to your parents about all of that, which you just explained to us as they are experiencing it?
Pong: I know. It's so true because that is the symbol of like, "making it." You land, you climb that ladder, you keep your head down, you work hard, you keep climbing that ladder. And how do you talk to your parents? I mean, it's so difficult and so fraught. Because the piece of what Kathy shared that also really sat with me was when she was like, "And it's the assimilation and that piece of it."
And I was like, yes, because our folks who have come here as immigrants, there's so much of this rhetoric that we all buy into about the American Dream and what success means. And these very defined in the box definitions of success. And our parents have to buy into that in order to do I think some of the harder things that it takes and the sacrifice to help set us up. I think like explaining it in a way that demonstrates that you hear and you understand, and you can empathize with your parents, literally reflecting back words that they say. It's a negotiation strategy, but can help in this scenario. You're literally saying to your parents, like, "I hear what you're saying. I hear word that you just used to me and I understand. And also this is where I'm at."
Lantigua: Part of what getting off the corporate track does is it lessens the prestige of the work that our parents have put in because you are no longer the trophy that they were molding you to be as a successful first gen-American child. It's much harder for them to explain how it is that you are successful and therefore how it is that they've succeeded in making you successful.
Pong: That is so deep that thinking about children as an extension of oneself. I mean, that I would argue is a problematic way to think of it as well. But yeah.
Lantigua: But it's intrinsic though, to many of our cultures, especially in the US.
Pong: Yes. It requires the parents to, in a way be actively rejecting and them going against the grain of, no, this is also success. Kathy is also success. And that requires having to undo a lot of those beliefs that we have bought into literally and figuratively. And that's hard.
In this way, I think that the children become the catalyst for the parents to either grow or not grow. To either expand or not expand their idea of what is a "good life," what is a right life. And for them to also stand proudly in that in the face of a community that may not think that way.
Lantigua: All right. Let's think about the stages of this. Kathy quits her corporate job, the world falls apart. She makes a path to her professional and spiritual and personal happiness, and mom just doesn't get it. How much responsibility does Kathy bear for helping her mom get it? And how much responsibility does she bear for just being happy?
Pong: Oh my goodness. I would say that Kathy bear's responsibility for herself and her own definition of happiness and her own relationship with herself first and foremost. Which I know is difficult and also feels very weirdly individualistic and Americanized in and of itself. And also all we are responsible for, all we can control is ourselves and our thoughts and our behaviors and our reactions. I would say sure, Kathy is responsible for making what I'll call, this is so legal ease like lawyer-y to say, but a reasonable effort, a good faith effort to explain to Kathy's mom that this is what the situation is. At the end of the day, it's Kathy's mom's decision what to do with that.
One thing I'll share that I don't know, may or may not be an overshare, but in my own grappling with differences of opinion with my parents, the thing that really was the light bulb switch, Juleyka was demonstrating to my parents that I had a community of support and that there was external affirmation for what I was doing. And yeah, a different display of success. And it was that peer pressure essentially of them seeing that their peers in their generation and in their community thought that what I was doing was cool and great that got them on board.
Lantigua: Actually, that's a perfect segue because Kathy has that with her sister and her brother-in-law. They see the things that she's doing. The choices that she's making. How she's living out her own dream and her own purpose. And they go, "That's a lot like what mom used to do."
Pong: Exactly.
Lantigua: And she's like, "I know! But she doesn't get it."
Pong: Yes. I mean, and so I think that's the beginnings of it. And also sometimes you got to go out of the friends and family circle. This almost sounds like talking about PR, like public relations because it's third party validation. Kathy basically has to do a mini PR campaign. Demonstrate that the healing business and the healing work is super legitimate and is making impact. If enough of that happens and Kathy really stays true to the calling and the dream and the mission, then I do think eventually Kathy's mom was going to get on board.
Lantigua: I mean, I love so many parts of this testimonial because to me it really, it represents so many things like standing in your own power and your own authority to be declarative about who you want to be in the world. I admire that so fundamentally in people because that's how you get free. And then that's how you, by example, give other people a chance to get free also.
Pong: That is super powerful. And that's how I think we can really dig into and strengthen our own relationship with ourselves, which is in a way, the most important relationship in our entire life. And you're absolutely right. Being able to stand in your power in that way and declare it unapologetically is going to empower other people to do the same. And that ripple effect, that to me is not only leadership, but it's transformational movement work.
Lantigua: Yeah. I mean, a hundred percent agree. A hundred percent agree. All right. Final question is what did I miss that I didn't know to ask you that is relevant here?
Pong: What really got me in what Kathy shared at the end too, was that like, "I am not lost," part. We are not lost even when we feel lost. We're not. We're making the path by continuing forward, even when it feels like we're going in circles or even when it feels like we're stagnant, we aren't. And I think we all have to reckon with that ourselves and recognize us for what we are doing.
And the wild thing about Kathy's story too, is that it's almost full circle. It's not even a new or different way in a sense, because Kathy is tapping into ancestral ways and wisdom.
Lantigua: Yes, yes.
Pong: That's what was so wild about it.
Lantigua: That's what her mother exposed here to.
Pong: I know. Yeah.
Lantigua: Yeah. I had to sit with that one.
Pong: And also generational trauma and generational healing. It's all intertwined in one big messy thing, but that's the beauty of life also in a way.
Lantigua: Cynthia, thank you so much for coming back. Ah, what a joy to talk to you.
Pong: Likewise. I always love being here. Thank you for the work you all are doing. It is powerful.
Lantigua: That was a word. Here's what we learned from Cynthia today.
Reflect back their words. Use this negotiation tactic to show your parents that while you are choosing a different career path, you understand and empathize with their experiences in this country.
Enlist third parties. If recognition and status are important to them, highlight to your parents the many ways other people see and value the impact of your work.
And remember, make a reasonable effort. Explain your career transition in good faith, but keep in mind that ultimately you are only responsible for yourself, your thoughts and your own behaviors. And conversely, your parents are responsible for theirs.
Lantigua: Thank you for listening and for sharing us. How To Talk To [Mamí and Papí] about Anything, is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show's producer. Kojin Tashiro is our mixer. Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead. I'm the creator, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @talktomamipapi. Bye, everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “Her Roots Inspired a Career Change, but Mamí Doesn't Get It”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything,
LWC Studios., June 6, 2022. TalkToMamiPapi.com.