There’s a popular phrase in corporate America that goes like this: “Can I give you some feedback?”
For many of us, that sentence triggers a physical reaction. Tight shoulders. Shallow breath. That slow inner brace.
We’re not just anticipating a helpful note. We’re preparing for coded language, veiled critique, or worse: character assassination dressed up as professional development.
In far too many workplaces, feedback is not a gift. It’s a grip. It is used to keep the hierarchy intact, to keep you in your place.
It’s less mirror and more muzzle.
But here’s the thing. It was never built for your liberation in the first place.
Feedback systems were shaped in environments where worth, work, womanhood, and what gets worshipped were predetermined. They reward proximity to power and punish the people who disrupt it. They tell you to perform belonging instead of live in your truth.
That’s why we have to reclaim it. And that’s where the hand comes in. I’m not here to leave you in that mud. I’ve been there, chest-deep in other people’s comfort zones, and I know what it takes to walk out.
When Feedback Was Built to Control
Let’s be honest about where we come from. Corporate feedback loops often reinforce cultural and racial hierarchies under the guise of professionalism.
- “You’re too direct” often means you made someone uncomfortable with your clarity.
- “We’re concerned about your tone” can mean you told a truth they didn’t want to hear and you didn’t smile while doing it.
- “We’re not sure you’re a good fit” is often code for we will not adapt to grow with you.
The trauma this causes is real. Studies from Harvard Business Review confirm that Black women receive less actionable and more personality-focused feedback than their white peers. This isn’t neutral. It’s coded. It’s ideological. It’s built to preserve comfort, not clarity.
So when we leave those spaces and start businesses or step into community-rooted leadership, we carry those feedback wounds with us. We flinch. We over-explain. We question our every move.
That is why conversations like the one I had with Faith are essential. Faith is a trademark attorney, entrepreneur, mama, and full-time truth-teller. She is doing the work of building a different kind of feedback loop, one that doesn’t drown you but hands you a rope.
Reframing the Feedback Loop
Faith and I started with a simple but sharp question:
“What’s one boundary you’ve held around feedback that made you feel more whole?”
Her answer came without hesitation.
“I had a client come at me saying I wasn’t transparent about my fees. Even though they had initialed the agreement. Even though I had a document, an explainer video, voice notes, and paragraphs in emails. Early me? I would have folded. Given a discount. Apologized. But this time, I said: here’s the document, here’s the invoice, and here’s the boundary.”
That wasn’t about ego. That was integration. She was listening to feedback from the situation without being overtaken by it. She was not confusing someone else’s panic with her own integrity.
She said it perfectly:
“Feedback is a system, honey child. Not just what a client says. It’s what your body says. What your calendar says. What your spirit says.”
Let the congregation say: “Read the email next time.”
The Body as a Feedback System
We’ve been taught to see feedback as something that comes from the outside. A boss. A client. A performance review.
The truth is, the body is the first feedback system.
- That tightness in your chest before a meeting? That’s feedback.
- The nausea when a boundary gets crossed? That’s feedback.
- The deep exhale after saying what you really needed to say? Feedback.
And here’s the liberation piece. Your body is not just alerting you to the harm. It is handing you the map out of it.
Trauma research confirms this. Your nervous system keeps score. It remembers every time your worth was questioned, your work was undervalued, your womanhood was policed, and your refusal to worship the status quo was punished. That’s why a single email can make your stomach turn before you even read it. The reaction is layered. It’s the present stacked on top of all the times before.
If you are waking up tired even after you left the job, that is not weakness. That is old feedback finally arriving. It is the backlog of what your body could not process while you were still just trying to survive.
Entrepreneurship Doesn’t Remove the Feedback Loop. It Changes the Source.
Leaving corporate does not mean the feedback stops. It means the source shifts. Now it comes from your own systems, your own schedule, your own people.
Faith named it clearly:
“You think you leave corporate and it gets easier. But then you’re in business and you’re exhausted. You have to unlearn the mindset that says hustle is the only way. And you have to build systems that allow you to rest without guilt.”
Rest is feedback. Resentment is feedback.
When you try to do it all — lawyer, admin, project manager, brand designer, invoice chaser — your body will eventually call a meeting. And if you don’t listen, the shutdown will come without warning. It will arrive as burnout, disconnection, or a deep fatigue that whispers “something has to give.”
Boundaries Are the Climb Out
One of the most powerful things Faith said was this:
“My feedback was my notice.”
When a job, a client, or a dynamic shows you who they are, you don’t owe them a second syllabus. Sometimes the boundary is the feedback.
Every time you enforce one, you are climbing out of the swamp.
Every time you refuse to downplay your truth, you are walking further onto solid ground.
Every time you honor your capacity, you put more distance between you and the mess.
Knowing Your Value Makes Feedback Less Scary
A theme that kept showing up in our conversation was value clarity. Faith realized that when she aligned her business operations with her values, she stopped internalizing every critique as truth.
“I had to get clear: what do I value? What’s my worth? Because if I don’t know that, I’ll start thinking every critique is the truth.”
This is where so many of us get caught. We fail to separate:
- Feedback as information
- Feedback as projection
- Feedback as manipulation
When you know your value, you can see the mirror without distorting your reflection. You can say, “That’s their unmet need. Not my unfinished work.”
Feedback as Mirror, Not Threat
Here’s the blueprint Faith and I walked away with:
- Listen to your body.
- Honor your rest.
- Build systems that reflect your values.
- Stop over-explaining your boundaries.
- And when the feedback is clear and kind, let it sharpen you without cutting you down.
This is post-corporate leadership. It is not just about freedom. It is about integration.
A Vision for the Other Side
Imagine getting feedback and not feeling your chest tighten.
Imagine breathing steady through critique because you know who you are.
Imagine holding the mirror yourself — polished in truth, framed in rest, reflecting the version of you they never imagined.
That reality is not far away. And my hand is still out.
💬 Journal Prompt:
What’s one form of feedback you’ve been ignoring that actually holds the key to your next phase of rest, truth, or wholeness?
🎙 Listen In:
This post is part of our Wounded vs. Wholeness™ podcast series on She Don’t Work Like That No More™. Want to go deeper?
- Take the free What Kind of Leader Are You, Really? Assessment
- Get your copy of the Wounded Leadership Pattern books for deeper journaling
- Hear how leaders like Faith are building feedback systems that heal instead of harm
Because the next level of your life will require a different kind of listening.
And yes, Faith said what she said. Now go read the email.
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