On the beige rug in my parent’s Florida condo, the girls finished home school circa 2021 and were starting kid Monopoly on the round kitchen table. This Friday in Covid was warm for December, even in Florida. I sunk onto the floor in my running shorts and button down striped blouse, the ultimate zoom outfit. I hit my head, too tall to find under the window sill, the ripples of the old rug caused me great irritation. I wasn’t used to feeling unhinged at this level any more than the floridian condo we camped at during covid.
The sobs rolled through me, laughter from our young girls echoed past me like shards of glass, cutting me into a million little pieces. I realized I couldn’t stand up from the sheer anger and upset raging out of my eyeballs in the form of tears.
Dinner needed to be cooked, emails needed to be answered, laundry folded and the dog walked, socially distanced from my parent’s Florida neighbors. I would not be doing any of those things this Friday.
I was not frozen, I was raging. My nervous, veins, arteries and muscles were in overdrive filled, a true cortisol spike. A volcano of anger moved through me, creating a heat that left my brain and into my subconscious, my real true soul.
How would I keep working like this, in covid, working and Parenting 7 days, getting literally screamed at all day long and promoted and demoted all in one week? A hug would not do it. A drink would not do it. A walk would not do. I had to take action to leave.
That one phone call, that one final time I was yelled at created a wall so thick and tall, that work was no longer something I cared about, it was something I tolerated.
The bottom of a sandbox is filled with tiny toys, broken shovels, chipped sandcastle molds, leaves, sticks and holes where toddlers have dumped out the sand. What starts as a playland, the promise of fun for kids, ends up a dusty dumpster that is hard to get rid of.
The end of a career or job road is often the bottom of the sandbox when there might be nothing to do but toss the thing in the woods and cover up the dirty square in your yard with a shiny new raised garden. Sadly, most often, your ego has no idea what should replace the old sand.
When you reach the inflection point of a major life career change it sounds like “I can’t do this anymore.” but this time you MEAN it.
Subconscious work is not once size fits all or a sweet dessert you can eat with joy. W A I Ting for the perfect next stop on our career roadmap will never come—the right boss, the right title, the right location doesn’t exist. That’s EGO acting out in name of other people’s idea of what work should mean.
Prescription: IFS work (to understand what part of you is keeping you stuck) & somatic movement or energy work. (get help, hire a professional!)
It’s easier to say company names or job types people can easily understand for THEM. It is not easier for YOU to say in a job that’s killing you.
There was no one who was going to give me permission to quit and lean into what was next.
I knew what to do, what was next and it was a few months until I could resign (ok, it was a long 18 months).
Our nervous system loves to keep things as they are. Our friends and Family like us to stay where we are. Digging deep for ourselves is the way forward. Without resilience when things do get frustrating, you’ll stay at the job 5 years longer than you meant to.
Embodiment of conscious need for change. The casual tears become daily breakdowns, the exhaustion of Depression defines weekends, numbing is the survival tool. When you get sick of hearing yourself complain about the bitch trying to take credit for your work, the ignoramus on the phone who things we don’t know his ideas suck the life out of the plans or the vagrant sales manager who is running in circles pointing fingers, it’s the wake up call in a way you can name. This is the part of the iceberg we all see and feel.
Prescription: Career Mapping, including pit stops and all parts of your life. Stages of life create different work needs, wants and requirements. My digital career map can be used over and over, with a legend for self-guided work.
Steps can look like—
asking friends what you are good at (vs what job you should do)
finding people you admire and research how they got there and how long it took
networking even when you are ghosted *rejection is normal.
The way my resilience & perseverance shows up might be different than yours. I’ve never worked more hours during the time I wanted to quit and could not yet. I was never so motivated to get things going that I completed Coaching certification, Yoga 500 training, took multiple courses including Lori Santos happiness Yale course for free, created my branding, social media was starting, writing, networking.
Money is important, Health care is important and mortgages don’t disappear. Next week’s substack I’m talking about how to talk about money with your spouse without fighting.
Prescription: Download your banking budgeting app or get one, download your annual and month credit card expenses or ask your advisor to start running real projections on changes to salary in year one. If you want time off and then return to corporate, look at salary shifts for part time work or lesser salaries, too.
The one thing that changed in my Finance conversations was my timeline and how I spoke about a career shift.
From: “What do I need to do if I quit Merrill’ to “when I resign next spring, what do we need to change, save, stop, start doing.”
Things get real, very fast in a liberating way.
💬 Read Brooke Taylor’s Success Wound book or watch our 20 mins live together.
💫 I have one for everyone in my family- anti-sweat summertime neck fans. This is what will save me in my summer travels to FLORIDA(help!).
📌I workout on my back deck & this bala halo is great for all of the online classes. This brand holds up very well over time.
🌙 Here is a playlist for chilling out when things get really dicey in life. Hertzog’s really change your brain waves. What do you think I listen to when I’m writing?;)
