My Job Was Killing Me, But Yoga Saved Me
If it wasn’t for yoga, I would be dead right now
I was emotionally abused and bullied by several male and female superiors most of my 13 year corporate career .
But the worst abuse came from a male boss that treated me like I was sub-human for close to 6 years.
At that time I was an executive assistant to three sales men. One, of which, was an absolute nightmare to work for.
Every single day I endured verbal and emotional abuse from this man. I constantly felt as though I had to walk on eggshells around him to avoid feeling his wrath.
Nothing I did for him was good enough or right in his eyes.
He would often speak poorly of me to my co-workers behind my back and would put me down in front of them.
One instance when I was in the bathroom he actually said this out loud about me:
“Someone should put a bell around her neck like a dog” 😮
Co-workers would constantly approach me asking, “How do you put up with this?” or “I can’t believe he talks to you like that”. Many urged me to confront him or get upper management involved.
After going through the proper channels to report this abuse, there was zero change in my boss’s behavior.
My anxiety was through the roof. 😨
I felt completely alone.
I dreaded every morning waking up and going to work. I went home every evening feeling utterly drained.
I cried multiple times a week either at my desk or outside against the building during my lunch break. My confidence was ZERO and I felt completely worthless.
I had developed a very painful digestive problem that caused me to have weekly painful procedures to treat it due to the stress.
I was literally bleeding and in pain every. single. day. on top of being yelled at or passively aggressively ignored by my boss.
All of this stress at work began to trickle into my personal life outside of work.
I spent most of my time at home struggling with unmanageable anxiety and hypochondria. I had horrible coping mechanisms which included binge drinking and compulsive shopping.
My finances suffered BIG TIME as a result.
I eventually went straight to the owner regarding this abuse as I could not take it any longer.
Time went by and still nothing changed. I became increasingly frustrated that no action was being taken.
It started to become clear to me that since this man was the second highest earner in sales, that the company’s bottom line was more important than my mental well being.
Next thing I knew I was told that my role in the company was being dissolved and there were no other positions open for me.
Yes, I was fired.
I felt betrayed, helpless, and even more alone.
I didn’t think anyone would ever hire me after being a bad enough employee to be fired like that. Since I didn’t have a job I knew could not get out of my financial hole I had gotten into on my own.
Quickly I realized that I was in no mental state to even begin to look for work… And my drinking and overwhelming anxiety had become more than an issue.
I knew that I had hit rock bottom.
I had to come to terms with my mental health and to take immediate action steps to fix my life so that no one could ever f*ck with me like that again.
First step I took was finding a local therapist to talk to.
I could not live with my overwhelming anxiety anymore and I had to do something about it. I had to take a hard look at why I allowed myself to be treated so poorly and bullied at my previous job. I had go deep on how I viewed my self-worth.
Why did I allow someone to make me believe I wasn’t smart enough, capable enough, and that I didn’t deserve to be treated like a human being?
Second step I took was that I filed for personal bankruptcy to get financial help.
Though it was a very scary decision I was willing to fall on the sword, learn the hardest lesson of my life, and to take FULL responsibility for it.
The most important action I took was starting a yoga practice.
I decided one day, while sitting on a cheap gym mat in my basement, at the lowest of my low, that yoga could be something to help me with all the mental anguish and anxiety I was living with.
I mean, it couldn’t hurt right?
Yoga was the best decision that I made for my life and for my mental health.
Yoga helped me to learn to love myself again and to remember who I really was on the inside.
Yoga helped me to overcome my anxiety, become super grounded, and live in the present moment.
Yoga helped me to let go of things I thought I could control and to no longer live in constant fear.
But most importantly, yoga helped me to build my confidence and to become resilient so that no one could ever take advantage of me again.
I was gradually repairing my life through my yoga practice.
I was learning new and better ways of living.
I was learning that I was no one’s frickin’ doormat in the workplace or in any aspect of my life!
This is why I am extremely passionate about helping administrative assistants who find themselves to be victims of emotional abuse in the workplace.
So much so that I’ve taken my yoga teacher training and turned it into my own company, Caitlin Red Yoga LLC, so that I can help people who are suffering like I suffered.
Three years after being thrown out of my job like yesterday’s newspaper, I own my own business!
Now I’m on a mission to help administrative assistants who are experiencing emotional abuse in the corporate world to heal through yogic practices in order to gain emotional freedom from their abuser(s), gain confidence, take back their lives, and be unf*ckwithable!
Are you an administrative assistant who is being emotionally abused in the workplace and have had ENOUGH?
If you are an administrative assistant who is being emotionally abused in the workplace and have had ENOUGH I invite you to join my Free Facebook Group: Be Unf*ckwithable for tons of free resources and content on how to cope and become resilient!
