Kathy's Story

Shortly after I turned 5 years old, a neighborhood bully decided to make me her target. She pretended to be my best friend while she terrorized me with stories of evil monsters living in the forest next to our house and kidnappers who grabbed kids off our street and killed them. I bought the stories hook, line, and sinker, and was transformed within a year from a vivacious, outgoing leader to a weak, fearful follower. From then on, fear, insecurity, and sadness became my constant companions.

We moved away the following year and then, moved yet again while I was in 8th grade, but wherever we went, the local bullies always smelled my fear. So, over and over again, they tormented me and tried to control my life and keep me small, and I was too scared to stop them. That meant being bullied all the way through school and beyond.

When I started working, I became a people-pleasing workhorse. I kept my head down, worked my butt off, and pretty much did whatever I was told, and my bosses took full advantage for many years.

Eventually, though, I finally worked my way up to running the website of a large international organization. And that’s when the $*#! hit the fan, because it was a very cut-throat, competitive environment where political connections mattered more than hard work, talent, or effectiveness.

A year or so later, I went out on maternity leave when my son was born, and that was when yet another bully (a.k.a. my boss) decided to strike. A week or so after my son was born, my boss called to tell me that he had hired someone else to manage the website because the job had become “too big for me to handle and he needed someone with more experience.”

The truth was, he was under political pressure to replace me with someone who had political connections and he knew he could get away with it because I never fought back!

Years and years of hard work to climb the ladder and now, I was basically being kicked out! Sleep-deprived from taking care of a newborn and already reeling from the emotional rollercoaster that comes after childbirth, this news took me over the edge—I was a wreck! After crying my eyes out for a few days, I tried to focus on my family and put it out of my mind. But eventually, I had to go back to my new shell-of-a-job at work.

For over a year, I had to work under a new boss who took every opportunity to undermine my projects and tear me down in front of our colleagues. But I was still living in fear, so instead of speaking out or fighting back, I buried myself in my work, put my head in the sand, and pretended everything was just fine.

Then, one day I happened to rub my neck, which was constantly aching from all the stress, and noticed a small lump. A visit to the doctor and a biopsy confirmed my new fear—it was thyroid cancer.

After surgery to remove the cancer, I had to undergo radioactive iodine treatment. The treatment made ME radioactive for a few weeks, and during that time I had to be totally isolated in a hospital room. My meals were slid into the hospital room via a small slot in the door because not even the nurses or doctors were allowed in. It was like being in solitary confinement.

Hard as it was to be so totally isolated, that time alone turned out to be a gift because it gave me the space to meditate, reflect, and go within. Doing this helped me to turn down the dial of my monkey mind and drop into my heart so I could rediscover the Real Me. The Me who knows who she is, faces her fears head-on, and refuses to give her power away.

As I was recovering at home after getting out of the hospital, you’ll never guess who called— my boss! It’s like history is repeating itself as he tells me he has hired yet another person to “help” me with my job! Are you frickin’ kidding me?!?!

I’m still weak from being sick and not yet ready to fight, so I just listened and didn’t react right away, other than to ask if I could talk with the new lady by phone. He agreed and gave me her name and phone number.

After dropping into my heart and meditating on the situation overnight, I decided that the best strategy given the cut-throat environment and total lack of support from management was to divide and conquer. So the next morning, I called the new lady, introduced myself, and put forward a proposal for how we could work together.

To my surprise, she listened respectfully and agreed with my proposal. When I went back to work a few weeks later, we hammered out the details and over time, we became close allies and best friends. In the years that followed, she and I worked together closely and took on management several times to push through new policies and projects. A few years later, we won an award for being the organization’s top-producing team!

In the meantime, the cancer went away and hasn’t returned. Best of all, I know it never will because I continue to work on applying the lesson that it taught me—when the battle is important, you’ve got to stand up, speak from the heart, and fight for what’s true and right!

Now through my work at Journey Within, LLC, I feel honored to help others discover who they truly are so they, too, will know their calling, own their power, and discover how to allow their heart to guide them in decision-making and building worthwhile relationships.