Corrosion of Conformity

Corrosion of Conformity

I speak to dozens of women who share a version of the same frustration:

I’m tired of playing the game. I don’t know how to play the game. I’m not good at the game. Why the f*ck is there a game?

What they’re describing usually isn’t about their skills. It’s the experience of working in systems where the rules are opaque, visibility is manufactured, and merit doesn’t guarantee anything. Where being good at your job isn’t enough—because competence takes a backseat to politics, optics, and unspoken alliances.

In my experience—and in the stories I hear again and again—two kinds of workplace harm tend to accumulate in our bodies over time:

• Rancid moments are overt and hostile. These are the incidents that stop you in your tracks: harassment, discriminatory remarks, blatant exclusion. The harm is immediate, undeniable, often traumatic, and sits in the solar plexus, gut, and hands.

• Corrosive dynamics are harder to spot. They build slowly—through dismissive comments, repeated interruptions, being overlooked or talked over. You start to question what happened, whether it was worth noticing, or if you’re somehow the problem. The impact is cumulative and erodes your internal reference points and accumulates in the brow, diaphragm, and pelvis.

Neither harm is easy to recover from, especially when you’ve spent years holding it together under pressure. Holding it in your body.

Recovering from corrosive work environments often means unlearning the habits you picked up just to make it through. That might look like:

• Staying constantly on guard

• Second-guessing your instincts

• Explaining yourself too often or working to prove your worth

• Feeling like every task takes more effort than it should

It drains your energy and fractures your sense of self.

Healing from this kind of harm often requires a recalibration of your nervous system and a rebuild of your internal reference points. It doesn’t happen just by changing jobs. You can be ambitious (if that resonates) and also reclaim and protect your agency. You don’t need to keep contorting yourself to win a rigged game. The goal is to find alignment, clarity, and self-respect in how you choose to move forward.

What Might Healing Look Like?

Here are two practices I’ve seen support clients who are trying to rebuild from corrosive work experiences:

1. Build Somatic Fluency

You may not be able to leave your job tomorrow. But you can start defending against the erosion.

Corrosive environments get under your skin. They blur your instincts, dull your responses, and leave a residue in the body.

Start by noticing how it shows up: the tension in your jaw, the shallow breath, the slump in your spine. These signals matter.

Find ways to discharge the buildup. Move. Shake. Breathe. Walk. Let your body complete what the system keeps interrupting.

You don’t have to fix the environment to stay connected to yourself.

2. Create Conditions That Don’t Require Performance

Look for spaces—coaching, therapy, peer circles—where you’re not being evaluated or expected to perform. Places where your nervous system can settle, and your full self is welcome.

Ask yourself: Where do I feel seen without having to earn it?

Spend more time there. And if those spaces are hard to find, consider creating one.

3. Where Psychedelics May Support

Psychedelic experiences can sometimes bring clarity that cuts through these sort of experiences and old beliefs.

For many women I work with, these moments allow them to remember who they were before the workplace (or life more generally) trained it out of them.

If you’re curious, here’s an article that discusses what we know about the intersection of psychedelics and women’s health. The article was published in the last two years.