Sheila Whitescorn, Intuitive Life Coach, joins Yo to discuss Brené Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart and how understanding the emotions of Fitting In and Belonging can make us better leaders. This is part 3 of 3 and you can listen to parts 1 and 2 in episodes 15 and 16.
Please accept our sincerest gratitude for listening to this series. It was an amazing journey for us to navigate these emotions and relate them to our own life experiences. We'd love to hear how they related to you - please feel free to post on our FB group page (details below) or send Yo an email. Tell us what your thought!
During this episode we explore the following questions around emotions and dig a little deeper into Fitting In and Belonging:
· What is the difference between Fitting In and Belonging?
· How do you feel when you belong?
· What happens when we don’t belong or need to make a change?
· What emotions can be present during a layoff?
· What can we do to heal from betrayal?
· How does the emotion of Bittersweet fit into this conversation?
We hope you’ll enjoy this episode and will tune in to hear the rest of the series! Here’s the line up by episode:
Episode #15, Part 1: Empathy and Compassion
Episode #16, Part 2: Stress, Overwhelm, Comparison (Envy, Jealousy, Resentment)
Episode #17, Part 3: Fitting In and Belonging
Here’s link to the resources we mention in the episode:
· The book Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown
· The book Bittersweet by Susan Cain
· “Why Belonging Matters”, a podcast by Mike Robbins
More about Sheila:
Following a successful 20-year career as a Marketing Communications expert with Fortune 500 companies, Sheila became a certified Intuitive Life Coach. She became certified by successfully completing a 12-month program with Atmana Coaching Academy which provided her with a dual credential in both Intuitive and Life coaching.
Sheila lights up when she is able to help her clients turn their stresses into resilience and assist them with their transformation into the life they desire. They learn how to recognize and tap into their intuition to align with their true purpose. As a result, they live a more fulfilling, authentic, soul-led life.
On a personal note, Sheila lives in the Bay Area with her husband and collie, Rowan.
Ways you can contact Sheila:
Link Tree:
IG:
https://www.instagram.com/sheilaWhitescorn
Ways to reach Yo:
Public FB group: Girl, Take the Lead!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/272025931481748/?ref=share
IG:
https://www.instagram.com/yocanny
LinkedIn:
00:00:07
Welcome back to episode 17 of girl take the leader each week
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we explore Womanhood and Leadership.
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Before we get started I'd like to give a shout out to some
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special listeners, Susan, stucked in costs, Grace sales,
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and Tony Morris. Hey, thank you so much for
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listening and your continued support today.
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We wrap up our three-part series of Brunei Brown's book, Atlas of
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the heart and will Explore the emotions of fitting in and
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belonging as someone who has spent, most of their life trying
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to fit in this episode. I must say, hit me pretty hard
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and I hope you'll enjoy the listen.
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Sheila, White scorn, amazing intuitive, life coach and dear
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friend. Joins me again, as we explore
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these two emotions, special thanks to Brené Brown.
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Who has researched these emotions and provided us such a
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great map to better know ourselves.
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It is in that knowing that we can connect and Lead others.
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Thank you so much. This episode, we're covering two
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more emotions belonging and fitting in.
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It's really interesting the difference about between fitting
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in and belonging. I really liked how she
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differentiated the difference between fitting in and belonging
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fitting in. She says, is about changing
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yourself to fit in with a group, but belonging is being part of a
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group in which you are free to be your unique.
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Self, and our wanted. You know like that idea.
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If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be, like you, I fit
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in and I think when I heard first heard this, I was taken to
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how we recruited people in organizations.
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I worked in the deciding question was, could this person
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fit in? I think it it's part of an
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indication of the old Paradigm that a Person is hired and they
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change themselves to fit into a culture, which is established as
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opposed to taking the culture expanding it.
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So that a person can come in with differences and diversity
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and creativity. I mean, that's her creativity
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and Innovation comes from with the expansion of the culture
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people. If they feel they belong, they
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will definitely be more productive.
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Be better problem, solvers probably work more efficiently
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and have a good mood. I really think that the
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Millennials and the Gen Z groups are helping to pave the way with
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this and kind of expedite it because it really was taking
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some time. I mean, obviously some of the
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real modern companies they, they've caught on and been
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studying this for a while now, but with some of the other
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Industries. I think they've been late to the
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game. I think it's one of the great
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things that the younger Generations are going to be
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bringing forward and impacting organizations.
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So that organizations began to have belonging and equity, and
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diversity initiatives to accommodate all of this because
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those Generations aren't going to tolerate a culture that
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doesn't allow for belonging. Yeah and they're also going to
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demand consistency, you know that it's not just you know
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something that they roll out and then it fades away.
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They're going to demand the Integrity in it too which I
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really like yeah I can remember back first being hired and that
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would have been 1978. My first job at out of graduate
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school, there was just no sense of belonging boy that was about
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fitting in when you were maybe Maybe the third woman on a team
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of 12 men, and the norm was that the woman had to be very manly.
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We were blue suits and white shirts kind of like the guys
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did. And we had a bow tie instead of
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the suit that our male counterparts war.
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And boy, you know, it was hard for Yoli to fall into that.
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Corporate look for too long. I eventually, I think I was
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there for this particular or company which was rather good
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package. Goods company certainly Fortune
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500 and I had been there for about two or three years, and I
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knew I was it was not working for you.
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It was like, I didn't understand.
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I went walking with one of my dearest friends, once and I
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said, you know, I just don't understand why that guy got
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promoted and I didn't and she She looked at me and she goes
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honey, this is a man's game. Like what are you thinking?
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You're not going to get ahead in this.
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I went really. That's it was like this first
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moment of truth of for me like oh I see something that I didn't
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see before, the naivete was kind of like wearing off.
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And I went, oh, I started to just bust out of myself.
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You know, I started wearing silk dresses too.
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Work. Diane Von Furstenberg was a very
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key designer, right? Of the wrap dress.
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Yeah, I had a wrap dress, I was not going to do it anymore
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because I figured what the hell. I'm not gonna make it there.
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Up the ranks anyway. I was going to do it my way and
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listener. I hope you're not too judgy into
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this, but I stayed there for about three years and then sit
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Okay, time to go big time and I moved from California to New
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York and started a career in Beauty out of from packaged
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goods. And I remember one of the guys
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said to me in a not-so-nice way, like oh that's going to be so
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much better for you. You're going to fit in there,
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much better. And I remember that, I guess I
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still have a little resentment, I guess, I have to go back and
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listen to episode 16 so that I Get through the reset, but there
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was definitely you fit in. You had to fit in.
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And that was it, and there was no differentiation no room for
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being different. And it wasn't seen as a an
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asset, the way it is. Now the way that I think women
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are perceived and their strengths and an even
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ethnicities, I'm half Mexican and my last name was Javis boy,
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you add that with woman in nineteen, you know, 78 and
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through the 80s. It was not a formula to get
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ahead. I, I was Determined and kept
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moving myself up the ranks. It wasn't like I was doing it in
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one company. I moved my strategy was to move,
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come to different companies at a higher level and I did I did
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pretty well. There was no belonging and
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Equity initiatives. There was nothing that said
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Chavez was great and that I had my tribe or my people there.
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But I sure see it now and it makes me so happy that someone
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can go to work meet with. Other women and men who are
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similar to you. And it's so, oh, man.
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It makes me so happy that there's that possibility.
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Yes, I love that. And I thought this episode, I
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know might be one where it gets at our heart of things, you
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know, like we do want to belong, we do want wherever we are, it
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should be worthwhile. It shouldn't be a place where we
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are fighting all the time to be heard and I love this.
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You know true belonging doesn't require you to change who you
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are, it requires you to be who you are.
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Numbers makes it touches my heart so much because I it's
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hard to belong when you're searching all the time for your
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tribe in her dare to lead book, she has the quote people should
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feel a strong sense of belonging and organization and shape the
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culture through representation co-creation Once that is
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inextricable unnameable spiritual connection.
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That is shared Humanity. Anything less is not enough.
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Amen to that. Yeah, I thought that just sounds
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so aspirational, doesn't it? Absolutely.
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But I think there's so many good people trying to do this in
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organizations, like the Millennials and the Jen's ears
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are going to be talking about how you do this.
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You know, Sheila I've been giving this some thought and
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reflecting back on my career and I worked for 11 organizations
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and I realized I was laid off in four of them.
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This was when, you know, your services are no longer required.
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Hmm. And you know, you just I just
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sort of went through whatever it was not knowing the complete
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picture in most cases, a, why I was being laid off.
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A couple of them were changes in.
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That I learned much later. Organization at the high level.
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So the entire leadership team was changed but because I was a
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director, I was one of the first ones to go.
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They didn't change the changes at the leadership.
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Level was kind of the last thing.
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But they all knew what was going on.
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They were glued in and I remember one of the vp's pulled
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me into his office said, got your resume updated?
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Wink, wink. And I wear what the hell's going
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on? Well, this guy is just telling
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me. Something he couldn't come out
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and tell me what was going on, but he was giving me a heads up.
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And then of course, I got Laid off.
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And then I learned that the whole organization was changing
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over. but I felt I didn't get angry about that one.
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It was more like I was in shock. Maybe humiliated a little bit.
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How did you feel about him giving you that heads up?
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The way that he did, I didn't understand it at first, but now
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I'm looking at it. Like he was it was trying to
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help me. Hmm.
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He was trying to be good guy. I'm wondering if that was part
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of the reason why you weren't angry, or it was something
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bigger, right there was something bigger going on.
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In one of the Situation's, I did get angry.
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Because I was brought in and they, and had a business
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background and marketing background, and they brought in
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this die to be like the general manager, and he had none of my
00:12:03
background, and none of my skill set.
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And he was a bully and I didn't like him and he didn't like me.
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And so I was going and I was angry that they were doing that
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to me that I thought they should have their loyalty to me.
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And I felt betrayed, mmm. Whether that was right or wrong
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in most corporate situations, the Loyalty goes to the
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highest-ranking pert manager, right?
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So the that new general manager was deciding who was going to be
00:12:44
on his team and I was not on his team and I was angry and they
00:12:51
were shocked when they gave me my package and said, you know we
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need for you to go. Nice time not signing anything.
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I'm going to go see Lawyer. Well, those those words.
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Put the fear of God in h.r. people because because you're
00:13:08
supposed to be the question they have is, how much are you going
00:13:14
to hurt us? Are you going to sue us?
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Are, you know, they're trying to manage risk, and here comes this
00:13:20
little Latino woman. Totally pissed off that this is
00:13:24
happening to her indignant. Arrogant, all kinds of.
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You got to be kidding me. And I went to the lawyer, talk
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to a lawyer and for our young listeners, I want you to know
00:13:41
what I learned which was if this guy is a bully but he's a bully
00:13:47
to everyone then you have no case if he singles you out.
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And is directing aggressive or bully type actions towards you
00:14:03
in particular. Then you do have a case now
00:14:05
because this guy was a jerk to everybody.
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I didn't have a case. So I signed off and I went on
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but there was something about me standing for myself and I can
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feel it right now. When I'm I'm talking about it,
00:14:20
that it was like I wanted to have something for myself.
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I didn't want to give them everything, like, it was not,
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okay. Okay.
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For them to just do what they were going to do and make it
00:14:39
easy for them. right, and I got to say, That that was pretty
00:14:49
close to trauma for me. Like, when you're, when you're
00:14:52
on those kind of edges of extreme anger For me, that
00:14:58
becomes almost traumatic where I'm my body.
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My emotions, everything is kind of Mike, very highly stressed
00:15:11
and this was a non-profit. Hmm, that was funded by one of
00:15:17
the richest men in America when we don't belong anymore.
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You know, the Betrayal that we feel.
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Shame. Yeah here I have to tell my
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husband again I'm laid off you know, I had just been laid off
00:15:36
at another company. I mean there's that
00:15:39
embarrassment, the humiliation, all of that and all you want to
00:15:45
do. All I wanted to do was to get
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the next job. I didn't want to process
00:15:52
anything. I just wanted to keep going.
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Just keep achieving, just keep moving.
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I don't know. Sheila, what do you think?
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I mean, well, I do. How do people heal from this?
00:16:03
Now from these kinds of things because I think they do it a lot
00:16:06
differently. Well, I think the one thing that
00:16:08
I would say to our, you know, younger listeners that are, you
00:16:13
know, starting out on their career path is this.
00:16:17
This happens to everyone. It's not just a few people.
00:16:20
Everyone has an experience where they're pushed out or it's just
00:16:24
not working and they need to move on.
00:16:27
But I think that, you know, acknowledging your emotions like
00:16:30
how you're talking about your the feeling of, you know, anger
00:16:33
or betrayal, or whatever came up with for you at the time, you
00:16:39
know. It's important to acknowledge
00:16:41
those those feelings and really lean into your, your network,
00:16:47
your connect, your community, you know, find a trusted Good
00:16:50
friend or a family member that you can share the experience
00:16:54
with because you're not alone and really just remembering to
00:17:00
take care of yourself your body and you know meditation
00:17:06
mindfulness. Those are the types of wonderful
00:17:10
tools that you can take take into consideration, but I also
00:17:15
think writing it out, I don't journaling or writing it out
00:17:19
because that really helps you Her out whether or not you do
00:17:22
want to make, you know, if you do want to start looking right
00:17:25
away for a job, maybe you ready for a change?
00:17:29
Maybe you're just deciding like this isn't working.
00:17:32
I'm going to do something completely different and I think
00:17:35
that's way more accepting nowadays than it was.
00:17:38
Yeah, definitely because because you were, you know, you didn't
00:17:42
want to move around so much in your career, you're supposed to
00:17:45
show longevity, and thank you. Yeah, I think also too, what
00:17:49
you're talking. talkin about is taking the time to understand
00:17:54
what's driving you like, I didn't really see that I was
00:18:00
constantly driving myself to achieve more and more and that,
00:18:08
you know, that came to me, when I was probably really really
00:18:14
young that My father being half Mexican.
00:18:23
And me being by ethnic there. The way that we were going to be
00:18:29
respected was by achieving. Helped us achieve what we did
00:18:37
but it was driving me and I don't need for it to drive me.
00:18:44
And I think what I would say to, you know, my daughter's and any
00:18:48
anyone at this point is take a look at that.
00:18:53
Like it was helpful at some point that maybe it's time to
00:18:59
let some of that go and be okay. With however, it's happening for
00:19:05
you. Right?
00:19:08
Well, I think also, you know, it's recognizing that we we're
00:19:12
not always in control and I think that's the most
00:19:15
uncomfortable unsettling part of it is when someone else is
00:19:20
making a decision for you. Mmm.
00:19:23
That really kind of is a opportunity to check in with
00:19:27
yourself to see how you're responding and how you're going
00:19:29
to handle that situation. In the show, notes will put a
00:19:35
link to this book? Bittersweet, which is mentioned
00:19:41
in the atlas of the heart book. But one of the cool things that
00:19:48
Susan Cain does in that book, is kind of talked about how this
00:19:54
winner and loser mentality, because I definitely had the Big
00:19:59
L on my forehead. Every time I got laid off, you
00:20:02
know, where did that come from? You know, and we're talking way
00:20:06
back 18. Hundreds.
00:20:09
Mmm. And we're hanging on to that,
00:20:12
like Maybe we don't have to exactly.
00:20:17
I really believe that the more that you talk about it with a
00:20:20
friend and with your, again, your trusted Community, the more
00:20:25
that you actually the shame will dissipate, you know, I think
00:20:31
it's very old school to be like, keeping it secret and not
00:20:34
sharing the how uncomfortable it is, but it really is something
00:20:38
that is part of life. Right?
00:20:41
Because maybe experience like it, maybe that drive or that
00:20:45
embarrassment is coming from something that a parent told you
00:20:48
once or that is so old that you don't need it anymore.
00:20:54
You know, that's that I think helps the person recover and
00:21:00
heal from these situations and you know, I definitely am
00:21:08
grateful. That's the other thing about the
00:21:10
book. Her sweet is that we can look at
00:21:12
it like what opportunity got opened up when that one got
00:21:18
closed down. Mmm you know like in some cases
00:21:22
I got to spend a heck of a lot more time with my daughters
00:21:25
while they were in in high school and be there for them
00:21:30
with you know, the water polo team and the all of the things
00:21:34
like that. I took a big.
00:21:39
I decided at that point. Point that, you know, let's try
00:21:43
different things. Try to start up a couple
00:21:45
startups and both of them failed.
00:21:50
So it was like oh wasn't personal this time.
00:21:52
It was like the company company failed.
00:21:56
It's it's part of the process like you said, And it does make
00:22:04
us resilient. That's make us able to handle
00:22:08
more. Yeah, I mean I think that for me
00:22:12
I've always been someone that would check in with myself, you
00:22:15
know, at various jobs that I had and and say, no, am I
00:22:19
contributing here? Am I still fitting here?
00:22:22
And you can kind of tell when you're outgrowing an
00:22:25
organization or not and sometimes you know you don't
00:22:28
have the courage to leave and eventually you do get pushed out
00:22:31
but it really isn't the end of the world.
00:22:34
It just means that something else is coming next.
00:22:37
Stand moving you forward because every skill that you have and
00:22:42
every experience you have in your career builds into the next
00:22:46
opportunity. Yes.
00:22:48
And I think to me, My Philosophy is, you know, to really think
00:22:53
about why is this, instead of thinking, why is this happening
00:22:57
to me? It's really, why is this
00:22:59
happening for me? What's the learning opportunity
00:23:02
in the situation? Because there it's always a
00:23:05
learning opportunity. Absolutely, and especially about
00:23:09
ourselves and about the situation.
00:23:12
And like you said, things, you can't control things, you can't
00:23:18
see coming yet. That are going to be bigger
00:23:20
gifts than what you have there and what you're going to do
00:23:26
next. I think sometimes we just get
00:23:28
afraid that we don't know because we don't know what's
00:23:31
going to be next. There will be something next.
00:23:35
Hmm. Yeah.
00:23:39
Well, on that note, I think we've covered this topic really
00:23:42
well, this fitting in and belonging and so she lives
00:23:50
there. Anything else you can think that
00:23:51
we should cover? Well, I was just going to remind
00:23:55
everyone that we have some really good resources in the
00:23:57
show notes, right. We'll put in fact, one of the
00:24:02
podcasts that was really great on this.
00:24:06
Topic in case somebody wants to do more we can definitely put
00:24:09
that there. Excellent.
00:24:12
Well my friend we have done three episodes and I just could
00:24:19
not have done it without you and we have learned.
00:24:22
It was real interesting, a fun Journey.
00:24:26
So thank you so much. We're changed a lot.
00:24:32
I think as a result of this this Two grown so much just by deeply
00:24:39
reading some of these books and watching the HBO series and you
00:24:44
know what? It really was meaty stuff.
00:24:50
So yeah. And I'm so well, thank you for
00:24:53
having me. And I was just so grateful for
00:24:56
the book, I mean, because not only did I learn a lot from the
00:25:01
book but also the people that she highlighted in the Q Series
00:25:07
getting to know them you know learning about Susan Cain and
00:25:10
Bittersweet is a really good example.
00:25:12
I mean it was she brought in so many wonderful experts and the
00:25:18
more language that we have. The more information we have we
00:25:23
can really learn more about ourselves and just be more
00:25:26
fulfilled all the way around. Absolutely.
00:25:30
So anything that you want to say more about our people Reach, you
00:25:37
sure. If you or someone that is at a
00:25:42
Crossroads or you feel that you've outgrown your career, or
00:25:46
your job and you're ready for something new, I as a certified
00:25:50
coach, I Empower you to transition your stressors into
00:25:55
resilient so that you can achieve your dream life.
00:26:01
So if you can find me on Instagram at Sheila, White
00:26:04
scorn, I wish you had been around for all of those
00:26:08
transitions. I went through, would have made
00:26:10
it really a lot better than going to live alone with my poor
00:26:14
husband to went through all of those changes with me.
00:26:19
God bless them. All right.
00:26:22
Thanks everybody for listening and taking the journey with us.
00:26:27
I thank you for listening to this episode and if you've
00:26:36
listened to the series, we'd love to know what you thought.
00:26:40
So good way to do that is to post on our public, Facebook
00:26:43
group. Girl, take the lead or send me
00:26:47
an email. I'm yo at, yo, can e.com love to
00:26:53
hear from you? Next week we'll talk with
00:26:56
well-established author, Bonnie Coco's, and we'll discuss her
00:27:00
book. The boat that brings you home.
00:27:02
She is a pistol, a post-war generation real live pistol.
00:27:11
She's a sheer force of enthusiasm and joy which is so
00:27:15
remarkable. And I know that you'll just
00:27:17
enjoy listening to her. She also has a deep knowledge of
00:27:21
sailboats and her sailors. So, look forward to joining us
00:27:26
next week. Thanks.
