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Tough Conversations at Work? This Episode Can Help
48 Plays2 months ago
Let’s be honest—working in the beauty industry often means wearing more than one hat. You’re not just a stylist, barber, or esthetician. Sometimes, you’re a listener, a shoulder to lean on, or even an unofficial therapist for your clients. Sound familiar?
On the latest episode of The Business of Style podcast, Greg Robins sits down with trauma-informed consultant and coach, Chavisa Horemans of The Mother Corp. They talk about something that doesn’t get discussed enough: how beauty professionals can deal with emotional conversations while looking after themselves.
Here’s a taste of what they cover:
- What Is Trauma, Really? Chavisa explains that trauma isn’t just the big stuff—it can show up in smaller, everyday stressors that pile up over time.
- Staying Grounded: When clients start sharing heavy stories, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Learn simple ways to stay present and protect your energy.
- Drawing Boundaries (With Care): Sometimes, conversations can cross a line. Chavisa shares tips on how to guide these moments with empathy, while keeping things professional.
- Passing the Baton: Don’t feel like you have to handle it all. Referring a client to a trauma-informed expert can be a huge help for both of you.
If you’ve ever ended a long day feeling emotionally drained, this episode is for you. You’ll walk away with practical tools to make your workday less exhausting—and maybe even more rewarding.
Curious? Hit play on this episode and hear what Greg and Chavisa
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to the 18th episode of the business of style podcast brought to you by the beauty council I'm Greg Robbins your host and today I bring you sha visa from the mother corp talking about trauma in the workplace How you can manage it the best way to work with your clients when it comes to things like personal information And you know all those admissions. Let's get on with this show. It's a good one
00:00:33
Speaker
Hey, Shavisa, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a real pleasure having you here. Thank you so much, Greg. It's such a beautiful opportunity to have a good conversation with you. Looking very much forward to it. So give us an idea
Challenges Faced by Beauty Professionals
00:00:46
Speaker
of the kind of work that you do and how you help people on a day-to-day basis.
00:00:52
Speaker
I'd love to. I'm a trauma-informed consultant and coach. I own the business called The Mother Corp, and I provide trauma-informed education and resources and coaching to people. I have a background in interdisciplinary social sciences and a graduate diploma in adult education, but I also have i certification as a divorce coach. And because I've worked with folks who are going through bad divorces,
00:01:21
Speaker
I also got certified in trauma recovery. And so I blend these together to be able to support people who are going through trauma to have skilled support as they navigate. And of course, I'm mindful that in your population working with beauty professionals, that so often people feel that when they interact with their beauty professionals, that it's an opportunity to have an informal confidant. And so of course, beauty professionals are getting a lot of information about people's personal lives, some of which is challenging and some of which is traumatic. And so I want to be able to support beauty professionals to be able to A, look after themselves, but also to be able to give um good insights to the person who's in their chair in front of them so that both the beauty professional and their client can be in the best state possible.
00:02:17
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Well, you hit the nail on the head there because if you just flip through some Instagram or Facebook posts, very often you see hairstylists in particular, but more and more even just beauty professionals as a whole begin to describe themselves as therapists um and having to bear the weight of their clients.
00:02:37
Speaker
trauma or ongoing personal concerns as part of their normal workday. I mean, typically they're in the business of cutting hair, colouring hair, fixing skin, doing nails, and now they're faced with somebody's ah life story or their challenges at home, personal or or otherwise. So it's a great opportunity to talk about the ways in which um professionals can manage that. Give us a couple of ideas
Managing Client Trauma
00:03:01
Speaker
around how people can improve their strategies when faced with these conversations.
00:03:07
Speaker
Well, I think you're hitting the nail on the head. I mean, we've got these beautifully talented and so stylistic practitioners. But in their relationship with their clients, they're building rapport, they're building trusted relationships, and they're often ongoing. Like when somebody finds a hairdresser that they love, they go back to them again and again and again. And so you're starting to hear people about people's details of their lives. I always like to do my work grounded in evidence based information.
00:03:36
Speaker
And so I've been taking a good look at what the theory says about beauty professionals, especially since COVID. And I think as a society, we have a general approach to do disclosure with ah beauty professionals. And they've been discussed as informal confidants, that they take on a social responsibility, that they have blurred role boundaries. So I think often practitioners aren't entirely sure about how to um navigate these blurred role boundaries. But also I'm seeing like beauty professionals are reporting feeling undervalued or emotionally drained or in need of support in their roles. And I think this is a really interesting space that we start to unpack. And so part of what I'd love to do is to provide beauty professionals with a support, but coaching
00:04:29
Speaker
And then also some education about how to look after themselves and also how to look after their clients. I'm really lucky because the trauma recovery training that I have is holistic and it's embodied. And of course trauma sits in the body. So that means that how we attend to the our bodies as we're going through stressors can either exacerbate or make it worse, or we can start to get grounded and situated and start to be able to
00:05:01
Speaker
manage the feeling the big feeling state that's coming through. So I really want to be able to help beauty professionals gather skills to look after themselves and look after their clients in light of this kind of social space where there is a lot of disclosure and informal informal confidant ah behavior.
00:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, it is such
Understanding Trauma and Recovery
00:05:24
Speaker
ah an incredible role that individuals in our industry play when they go into this informal confidant. And for the most part, I mean, unless somebody went ahead and got special training in that or went to school for it or is somehow ah knowledgeable about how to deal with it, pretty much nobody is really skilled in the proper management of receiving that type of disclosure from from clients. So as as people who are really not trained in that, we're kind of technicians, right? We we we know chemicals, we know skin pH, we understand um um how to form shapes. We don't really understand how to deal with trauma and and how to even take care of ourselves. so
00:06:08
Speaker
Can you help just define what trauma is? You've used the word a couple of times and we all know what trauma is, but just describe it to us in the context of your work and how it manifests itself in a day-to-day hair salon or beauty salon. Sure. So the simple definition of trauma is something that causes intense physical or psychological stress reactions, but I think Often, you know, we think about it as um having serious injury or potentially a violence or ah the threat of death at the most extreme end of trauma. But what I like about more formal definitions of trauma is that they acknowledge the adverse effects on the individual's functioning and physical, social, emotional and spiritual well-being.
00:06:53
Speaker
And what I love about that is that it's really holistic. You know, it's like if there's been a trespass to your physical. um body, if there's a social trespass, if there's an emotional trespass, but also spiritual, because of course, we're whole beings. So it tends to all those nuances and layers of what it is to be alive. And then the other piece around trauma is that some people experience trauma as a one time experience. So for example, you know, you have a a car accident, then that's like a
00:07:24
Speaker
an incident but for some people it's extended trauma or living with trauma and so that can often happen when people are dealing with gender-based violence or there's like a family violence issue then that can be a really long extended trauma that people are living with and so I'm mindful of There's a whole range of what traumatizes people, but really what I can help people with is to situate themselves in their bodies and be able to start to process and get resourced so that they are not alone with what they're experiencing and that they start to learn and develop skills that can support wellness and safety.
00:08:08
Speaker
Okay, i really I really like what you just said there. So some practical tools that people could deploy when they're faced with either having their own trauma triggered, because I i suppose that can happen, right? And also to work with and receive the trauma that may be, or I don't know if that's the right word, but what the revelation, let's say, or the conversations that are taking place between them and their client. So these are are they are they real practical tools that they can kind of lean on and and enable when these things start to happen to them?
00:08:42
Speaker
Absolutely. So this is exactly where I want to help people is like understand how to get situated and grounded and take care of themselves moment to moment to moment. So what's unique about beauty professionals is that when you have someone in front of you in your chair, probably they're there for half an hour or an hour,
00:09:04
Speaker
but so so yeah there's a you know There's a period of exposure, but because of the profession, ah There's a frequency aspect as well where you may experience people disclosing things to you three times in a day. And so ah there's some compounding aspect to it as well. And so really it's about how to learn to take care of yourself in the moment so that you're able to look after yourself after lunch, to look after yourself when you go home so that you're able to look after yourself in
Establishing Boundaries
00:09:39
Speaker
the evening. And so you're able to look after yourself the next morning.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's so true. It's so true not only frequency during the day, but then that client may come back in six weeks and then you're sort of brought back into their personal dramas or whatever it is that's going on. So it becomes almost a rinse and repeat, so to speak, not to use an industry cliche, but it can kind of repeat itself. You talked about trends. You talked about two things that I found very interesting, boundaries and trespassing.
00:10:13
Speaker
Describe to me how that is initiated. In other words, to me, trespassing is someone, you know, crosses a boundary either knowingly or unknowingly. Are there ways to set up those boundaries more clearly so that we avoid this whole situation? Again, we're talking about a profession that's societally known to have blurred role boundaries.
00:10:37
Speaker
So people, you know, as a standard rule, if you talk to a person on the street, they would say, yeah, it's reasonable to talk to your hairdresser about whatever's going on. So we already have that blurry gray zone. And so what I help people do is learn to develop communication skills around being clear about what those boundaries are or how to effectively give care and compassion and empathy and encouragement to for the person that they're working with to get grounded so that basically it doesn't steamroll or it doesn't snowball or it doesn't get more and more intense. So I can help people gather skills so that they can acknowledge, identify, but and hold respectful space, but also not help it, um the the disclosure flourish
00:11:36
Speaker
so to speak. Does that make sense to you? It does. So in other words, to be able to recognize when these things are happening to you so that you don't get caught by surprise or suddenly wake up ah very sad or exhausted one day wondering what what's going on with you. You're able to identify these things as they come at you. Is that right? Yes. And how to give ah meaningful feedback so that you can support people where they're at. And just I think so often as a society,
00:12:05
Speaker
people aren't necessarily seen or recognized. And so just gathering some communication skills to just be able to say, you know, that sounds really challenging. You know, I can really hear that that is really, ah you know, intense for you right now. And when people get recognized, they tend to settle down.
00:12:30
Speaker
You know, because I think we're in some ways, some of our suffering is alleviated when another person can mere back and echo locate is the term I love. But when another person can just echo locate and say, I see that this is what you're experiencing. And when a person is recognized, they tend to settle down and get grounded. And then you I can help people learn communication to support the grounding and getting situated in the body. So that again, the client is returning into their body and into their bodily vessel. And in that
Referral to Trauma Specialists
00:13:03
Speaker
way they start to settle down.
00:13:05
Speaker
Interesting. Is there an opportunity for a beauty professional to help a client seek help um or find ways to alleviate their own personal situations so that they can heal themselves? In other words, to be able to refer to um somebody such as yourself and is that a role they should play?
00:13:26
Speaker
Well, I think it's one way that we can alleviate burden. If as a beauty professional, you have a resource that you know is useful and you provide it to your client, then in some ways you've done what you can do. You've passed on information that's valuable and useful and it will ah enable that person to get the support and resources that they would benefit from. So I think actually that's a really beautiful way to offer care to a client. And I certainly do that in my practice. As a trauma-informed consultant and coach, I'm more than happy to work with your members and provide them with the support that they would benefit from and help them learn learn skills that will advance their well-being and safety. But I also offer my services to their clients. So let's say a beauty professional has a client in their chair who's
00:14:21
Speaker
having a really challenging time, I would be more than happy for my contact information to be given to them. So in this way, the client is able to access loving support as they navigate through challenge. And I, as a trauma-informed coach, am very comfortable talking to people about trauma. it doesn't um It doesn't cause me any hardship and it takes it gives me joy to be able to support people. And part of how I envision my service and part of why I formed my company was to alleviate and take weight out of the network. So instead of a beauty professional struggling with a client before them, I would love to be put in touch with that person so that I can help take care of them so that they are more grounded and well.
00:15:11
Speaker
I can tell you that that would be very, very welcome for many individuals that I know in the industry who who simply just aren't equipped, have their own thing going on, are busy, um or don't feel that they're the right person to help their clients. So that's a wonderful gift, ah very very generous of you. That's my pleasure. It's such a beautiful opportunity to talk with you, Greg. And in terms of people being able to get in touch with me, may I share my contact information?
00:15:41
Speaker
Please do. I was just going to ask how everybody can get ahold of you and the best way to reach you. So I'm Shavisa and my company is The mothercorp it's w w w the Mother Corp. C-O-R-P, dot com is the web and my emails similar the mother corp c o rp at proton, P-R-O-T-O-N dot M-E.
00:16:09
Speaker
It's a secure email coming out of Switzerland, and because of the area that I work in, I always try and ensure that there's high security. The service that I do is confidential in one-on-one coaching, so people have freedom to be able to talk about whatever they're grappling with in their work environments, their interpersonal relationships, their personal aspects of their lives, so that people are able to get confidential support. And I always try and work with people very responsibly. So I try and make a very agile service so people can get support as soon as possible.
00:16:49
Speaker
This is wonderful,
Closing Remarks
00:16:50
Speaker
Shavisa. Thank you so much. I very much appreciate everything you have to offer and looking forward to having you help us, our members and their clients navigate to a better self. Indeed. I think at the end of the day, you know, the more we can look after enhancing our safety and wellness, the better better we have for today, but also a future trajectory. And that's really important to me. Can't agree more. Thank you so much for joining us again today.
00:17:19
Speaker
Thanks, Greg.