How to Heal from Trauma While Building Your Career

Let’s be honest—healing from trauma while building a career feels like fighting two battles at once. But here’s the truth: your healing and your career growth don’t have to compete. They can walk hand-in-hand.

As a trauma-informed life coach and HR executive, I’ve worked with countless women who carry invisible wounds while trying to show up strong in the boardroom. They’re high-achieving. They’re resilient. But underneath the confidence is a silent struggle—a history of childhood trauma, grief, burnout, or abuse—that’s never been addressed.

What Is Trauma-Informed Career Coaching?

Trauma-informed career coaching goes beyond resumes and promotions. It’s about supporting your whole self—mind, body, and spirit—while helping you navigate your professional path with clarity and confidence. It honors your past without letting it define your future.

Here Are 5 Ways to Heal While Building Your Career:

1. Acknowledge the Wound, Don’t Bury It
   You can’t heal what you refuse to confront. Suppressing trauma for the sake of productivity will only lead to burnout. Start by naming the pain. Give it space. Honor what you’ve survived. Healing begins with awareness.

2. Choose a Safe Support System
   Whether it’s a therapist, life coach, mentor, or a trusted friend, healing in isolation is not sustainable. You weren’t meant to carry it alone. A trauma-informed coach can help you identify career blocks rooted in trauma—like perfectionism, imposter syndrome, or people-pleasing—and help you break them.

3. Redefine Success on Your Terms
   Healing requires you to challenge hustle culture. Rest is not laziness. It’s part of your recovery. Define what success looks like with your values, not society’s expectations. When you pursue purpose, not pressure, you make room for true growth.

4. Practice Intentional Self-Compassion
   You’re not behind. You’re healing. Your journey is valid—even if it’s slower or messier than others’. Learn to speak kindly to yourself on hard days. Give yourself permission to feel, to rest, and to rise again.

5. Make Purpose Your Power
   The very thing that tried to break you may be the thing that qualifies you to lead. Your healing becomes your testimony. Your story can light the path for others. That’s how you reclaim your voice—and your power.

Final Word: You Don’t Have to Choose Between Healing and Thriving

You can do both. Healing while building your career doesn’t make you weak—it makes you unstoppable. I built CoachHER Life to support women like you—ambitious, purpose-driven, and ready to stop surviving and start thriving.

Want to explore coaching with someone who’s been there?
Book a Curiosity Call with me today and let’s walk this healing journey—together.