I used to be a ghost. No, really!
In this blog post, I want to begin by sharing one of my earlier poems. I wrote it at the end of 2022 when I was experiencing turmoil in my corporate role with a sense of frustration beginning to build, deep within me.
However, now I feel it speaks to the pain that many sensitive professionals have felt at some point in their lives. The experiential dissonance of being physically present in the corporate world, but inwardly absent.
Corporeal Corporation
How many times do I get seen through
When I'm talking to my peers
It seems as though I'm like a ghost
But I'm not without my fears
There are times when I'm asleep
However really quite awake
I'm looking out of the office window
The reflection looking back is fake
My desk and my chair are posh
The position is breaking my back
Workspace risk and processes
Must be opened with a crack
Those ghosts are back again
But this time it's everyone
We died and went under ground
Joined corporeal corporation
When I wrote this piece, I really didn’t know it would become a mirror for many expat professionals I’ve since met in coaching. It is about ghosting ourselves in the workplace, a way of disconnecting from our bodies, our presence, and our deeper truth just to survive the politicking, the systems, and structures around the environment.
The poem is deliberately dissonant, to create a feeling, to be a bit uncomfortable to read, and that discomfort reflects the lived reality of being in roles, environments, or cultures where we feel unseen, unheard, or forced into masks.
But here’s what I have come to realise, through my corporate lived experience, my coaching practice, and my recent Vipassana course:
we don’t have to stay ghosts.
This August, I undertook a 10-day Vipassana meditation course. Ten hours of meditation a day, in Noble Silence, facing my poor posture and the deepest currents of my body and mind.
What I discovered is this: the body never lies. It is always present. Always speaking. Always guiding us back to what is real. We just are not always listening.
Vipassana taught me to feel again—to tune into subtle sensations, to witness the impermanence of pain, and to stop outsourcing my reality to the old corporate scripts that once demanded I sit straighter, smile wider, or perform harder, and that I intensely avoided.
I discovered the broken collarbone in 2020 that had left me with chronic pain and poor posture, was the reality I could let go of. By practicing Vipassana and going to the Free Flow of my body, I could access the immediate relief from misery and suffering.
It was a small miracle coming back to myself. I have since had an amazing bike ride and a short run where I felt alive in a way I remember from 10 years ago running marathons!
As an expat professional, when you stop being a ghost in your own life, you reclaim your presence. You stop just surviving and start embodying who you are meant to be.
An invitation
You don’t have to live your life like a ghost, nor having your belonging impacted by mindlessly trying to fit in to systems not your own.
Invite me into your life.
Together, we will map out a path for you to reconnect with your body, regain your clarity, and reclaim your sense of purpose.
➡️ Use the link above to book a free discovery session with me. Let’s begin your journey back to who you truly are.
Peace
Shaun 🙏
