our why
From the Founder
Hi there, Faced With Grace Community. I'm so glad you're here! My name is Kaitlyn and I'm the founder of Faced With Grace. I'd love for you to take a couple minutes to read on and understand the inspiration behind this organization. It's become my passion to pursue, the legacy I want to leave, and I'd love for you to understand it, in it's truest most raw form, so you, too, can join this movement to fix the future of workplace culture.
Back in 2018, I was going through a very low point in my life. I had a 5 month old, my parents' 32 year long marriage was ending, and I was re-entering what would become one of the most toxic workplace environments I've seen to date.
Many times I would cry myself to work, driving with absolute dread and misery. That awful "Sunday Scaries", rock-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach feeling - that was my every single day. At the time, I couldn't even articulate what it was that was so terrible about my job, I just knew it was slowly killing me. At one point that year I started wondering if it might just be easier, better, or simpler to just let go of the wheel and let my car run itself into a light pole, off an overpass, or into a steep ditch - I honestly didn't care. I wondered so many times which method would rid me of this gut wrenching, breathless feeling in the swiftest of ways...
It only ever hit me in the car. And I only ever felt it while traveling to work. And every single time, I would look in my rear view mirror through tear-filled eyes to find my baby girl looking back at me. She was filled with innocence and peace. She was so untouched by all this toxicity. She was everything good I had left to hold onto in those moments, and, I swear, she was a clear representation of God in my back seat. Every time I looked up into that mirror, I was faced with grace. The grace to carry on. The grace to stay alive. The grace to pull myself from the wreckage of my life at the time. The grace to give her a better world to live in.
Looking back, I now know I was riddled with extreme anxiety that stemmed not only from the life stressors I was facing, but the insanely toxic dynamic that existed within my workplace. And while I refuse to throw any one person, or even any one organization, under the bus for any of my numerous toxic workplace experiences (after all, they shaped me into the woman I am today), I do now recognize them for what they were to me, and likely many others that lived and worked alongside me through that dark time in my past. I'm so grateful for my past because it has lead me into the light, more connected to God, and more willing to leap in faith to build something bold and beautiful.
For quite some time now, I've felt a distant calling to do something bigger with my life. Lately that calling has become deafeningly loud and clear, to the point where it's the thing that keeps me up at night. I firmly believe that God walked with me through those awful moments and He wants me to turn them into something beneficial, impactful, and life-changing for women in the workplace.
I plan to use this organization as a vehicle for change. I want to work collaboratively with like minded women to find new and innovative ways to break workplace toxicity, promote healthy work cultures, empower one another, and support those who are actively suffering. I also desperately want to arm future generations of working women with the tools they need to become healthy leaders, themselves, and to easily spot toxicity in the workplace from a mile away so they never have to go through the darkness I encountered all those years ago.
So, what do you say? Will you join me in this movement?
Let's go lady leaders. Let's change the world, TOGETHER.