Read about the upcoming Workshop "Healing the Wounds from Corporate Life” with Robert Francis Johnson and John Monroe-Cassel on June 9th 10am to 5pm.
Corporate Burn-out done did me inBy Shirl A. Steward
Wow, it was so long ago, I hear you say.
Yes, it may have been many years ago but have you healed from the experience?
I know that I haven't.
In the 60s through the mid 80s I was a corporate executive. Yes, me . . . Shirl A. Steward, the one you know as a free-spirited writer and environmental activist. In fact, I held several high ranking 'management' positions. I was the Executive Assistant to a CEO for an entertainment company in NYC. I was an Accounting Manager for an advertising agency. After I took the CPA exam, I worked for a CPA firm as a Senior Accountant/Audit Team Leader and even hung out my shingle to practice accounting for a while.
Probably the most damaging of these to me was a position I held at an international conglomerate that made major public utility equipment and built shipping vessels among other things. I was THE International Tax Manager. I was responsible for training and supervising ALL the accounting departments/support personnel in our 23 divisions and subsidiaries. I supervised tax audits. I wrote up the case documentation and represented the company at tax hearings. Eventually I found myself researching and writing long reports for presentation to the board of directors. By that time, I had become rather a specialist in mergers and consolidations.
Impressed?
Yeah, well so am I. Actually, the word for it isn't impressed. It is amazed. I am totally amazed how I lasted so long in the corporate environment considering who I am today. I literally went from total competence to a full blown burn-out in which I could not function in any way except to do all the normal human 'routines' like getting dressed, for example. Yes, it was the kind of classic case of burn-out you read about in textbooks . . . corporate stress city sure did me in.
I was a fish out of water. One day, I found myself supervising those sitting in many rows of endless desks. I could not strike up a conversation on topics other than work. I could NOT relate to any of these people! We were total strangers. Don't get me wrong. I did my job extremely well. It was just that my creative spirit just didn't know how to deal with the day-to-day nonsense of corporate life. Yes, I brought home an excellent paycheck but the money never meant much to me in light of all my physical ailments from stress.
My only outlet was writing which I seemed to do extremely well. I always wound up in a position where I did a lot of writing. Or I just simply did it. As a tax manager, for example, when I wasn't suffering from a migraine or a slue of symptoms I could not explain (except as resulting from all the stress), I found myself writing children's books on my lunch hours.
I had this one book to which I could not find an ending. It's called 'Frown Around Fred'. Fred was a frustrated being not sure exactly what he wants to do with the rest of his life. All he knew was that he wanted to do accomplish something . . . something that would help transform and make others' lives better . . . he wanted to help make this world a better place.
The reason I could not find an ending? Well, you see, Fred was me. I could write the ending because I hadn't lived it yet.
Workshop: ”Healing the Wounds from Corporate Life”
Details:
- Time: June 9th 10am to 5pm..
- Place: Heart of the Earth Urban Sanctuary.
- Fee: $88, Scholarships are available.
- Facilitors: Robert Francis Johnson and John Monroe-Cassel.
- Description below is from information provided by Mr. Johnson.
This workshop is designed to help us name, honor and heal from our experiences in organizational and corporate settings that have wounded us. Together, we will identify the effects of corporate values [or lack thereof] and re-assert the healing power of human values through conversation, compassion, and story telling.
The workshop will assist you in healing and understanding the corporate wounding many of us have received from working in the corporate environment and the way the corporate model has infiltrated our lives on almost all levels.
State employee's, hospitals, schools, mental health centers operate on purely bottom line values. That is, money, at the expense of moral values.
We often associate corporate rules or values as coming from family because, in our modern world of the individual, belonging is what we seem to lack. Wanting to belong is a powerful incentive to "look the other way". This is especially true if the corporate values are different from our own moral values and those we have accepted as our own from Christian, Jewish or other spiritual value systems/traditions.
It is very hard to become a whistle blower because it would mean we’d have to give up our status in our accepted community in much the same way silence is expected in the alcoholic family.
Both Robert Francis and John have experienced the disdain from being whistle blowers and felt the sting of being dumped by the corporations when their requests for ethical values were reported.
Robert Francis Johnson is a Counselor-Coach with 28 years experience in Eco-Psychology, Poetry, Writing, Sculpture and healing humor. You may reach him at (505)954-4495 or
earthprayers@hotmail.com.
John Monroe-Cassel holds two graduate degrees and has thirty years experience in the arts, education, and Hospice Ministry. John Monroe Cassel has over 30 years experience in bringing human, ethical values to all that he does. You may reach him at (505) 603-8231 or
mmonroecassel@msn.com
Shirl Steward can be reached at the New Mexican 995-3824 or by email at either ssteward@sfnewmexican.com or at santafeshirl@gmail.com. Besides being a Web Producer for the New Mexican, she is writer, editor, poet, journalist, web designer and photographer. A few samples of her photography work can be viewed at www.whitewolfmediagroup.com and more spiritual oriented writings can be found at www.healingwaterspress.com. Sites have been recently down due to host problems and are currently being updated so stay tuned!
