I’ve spent the last few days finishing up a redo of my business website—the one that promotes my digital marketing services. It took weeks to complete because of my ongoing procrastination, so it seemed appropriate to step back and examine this unusual reluctance to work on something that’s mine. And in doing that, I got super honest with myself: I really don’t want to work in my field anymore.

It’s an unsettling moment when you realize you no longer want to do the thing you’ve built your life and livelihood (and business!) around. In fact, I was just getting really good at my job after spending almost a year being in charge of everything. It wouldn’t make much sense to walk away from something that I do well and that pays me well, right?

But I’ve been graced with a break over the last few months. I was on medical leave for my health issues first, which created a lot of thinking time on the sofa, and then I became unemployed and transitioned into the thoughtfulness of pandemic life. And I find that I’m exponentially happier now that I'm away from my job despite the swirl of uncertainty about what lies ahead.

I took a walk several months ago (well maybe it was a good six to eight months ago; the pandemic has distorted everything) and I remember making a pact with myself. I told myself that by the time I turned 40, I was going to be done with corporate America for good. I had no idea how to make it happen and also had no idea that I’d be unemployed anyway just six months before said birthday, but I set it as an intention and decided I'd figure it out in the coming months.

I took another important walk a few weeks after that. It was a late-morning speedwalk meant to disperse a buildup of negative energy and frustration about things going on at work, and about fifteen minutes in, as I rounded a corner while lost in thought, I started screaming inside of my head, “I HATE business!” I continued those screams, with my fists clenched and my eyes wide, for probably a good thirty seconds before heading home with tears rolling down my face.

I knew my truth. It was coming through loud and clear.

I think each of us already knows our truth if we just listen carefully. It’s not always what we want to hear because it can contradict our lifestyles or our plans, so sometimes we ignore the quiet voices until we end up having a breakdown on the sidewalk on a random weekday morning. Then we go home with our hands still shaking, and we tell our spouses that we just cannot keep going like we are and that we’ve got to find an exit route. And then we cry some more.

I deployed my new website into the world today despite all of the above, because it cost a lot of money to create and because I need it as a sort of insurance policy in case finances get worse. But beyond that, I plan to just let it sit out there like a business card that I can pull up and share on demand if I need to. I think it’s finally time to walk away if I can, since I’ve reached the point of screaming inside my own head.

From a logic (and logistical) perspective, however, this seems like a really dumb thing to do. I have a ton of experience and I actually really know my stuff, so I’ve spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that it wouldn’t be all that bad if I just took a part-time gig that paid well and then did whatever I wanted on my own time. And then I think about the last decade of my existence, and how the continued drudgery of corporate work hampered my progress as an artist.

I remember how I’d wanted to set my Fridays aside for writing but that it pretty much never happened. My paid clients consumed every single weekday despite my best efforts, and the intense copywriting I had to do for them often stole every last bit of my creative energy. I had nothing left for myself.

I also remember how my creativity always dried up and cracked like scorched earth when I was subjected to work I didn’t want to do—even small bits of it—because the negative emotions snuffed out all of the other parts of me. I think I’ve spent so many years in jobs I’ve disliked that even a small dose of one makes me recoil on all levels now. I become paralyzed and sink into a heavy depression.

So I can't help but ask myself, do I really want to spend another decade of my life feeling broken simply because I didn’t have the courage to finally let go of my established career?

This decision isn’t easy, of course. Right now we have a pile of bills and I still haven’t heard if I’m going to get unemployment. But then I also want to vomit when I think about going back to what I was doing a few months (and a few years) ago. In fact, the “not wanting to go back” is a lot more powerful than the “not having money to pay bills” at this moment in my life, and I think it keeps me grounded on my more fearful days.

When I made the vow during walk #1 that I’d be out of corporate America by age 40, I didn’t understand that what I actually meant was I wanted to be out of corporate activities by age 40—out of marketing, out of tech writing, out of social media (except for my own use), and out of anything related to making money for a business. Because, remember? I hate business (walk #2).

I’m trying really hard to be okay with that decision despite the recent loss of money on my website and the ongoing uncertainty about finances. But I have to let go of what was in order to make space for what could be. There's no other way forward if I want to finally change my life. So let's say it together now:

We have to let go of what was in order to make space for what could be.

And what could my life be? Well, I know that I’d like for my literary magazine to take off and for my book to sell. I know that I’d like to spend my days alternating between my publication and my personal creative projects, which would allow me to make my living in an authentic way by doing the things that feel right to my soul. 

Sometimes we’re forced make hard decisions when we’ve hit rock bottom with our health or our emotions or our jobs (or all three, like I recently did). Letting go of who we used to be could mean we lose a little—or a lot—financially or otherwise. But I think this losing is temporary if we’re following what we believe is right for us. I think we lose more of ourselves by staying on the wrong path, even as our bank accounts grow and our prestige increases, than we do by taking a risk to make a change. And that’s what I’m holding my hopes on today: that I’ll lose a little by letting go of what was, and gain a whole lot by reaching for what could be.

​What about you? Could you dare to step out of the life you used to have, and into the life you truly want to live?
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My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, will be published in summer 2020. To be notified when it is available for purchase or to follow this blog, sign up for my mailing list.

When I was in my mid-late twenties, I’d sit down at my computer and spew my emotions onto a public blog that I ended up keeping for about nine years. I always wrote from a place of negativity during that time because, when the pain got too intense, I’d suddenly find myself able to write when I couldn’t most of the time. I guess I didn’t have space to judge myself in those moments.

But as I grew older and as the waters calmed a bit, I noticed the negativity of that blog was settling around my new life like a thick fog. It no longer matched where I was or where I wanted to be, so I decided to change direction and start a new (and less emotional) blog about my struggles as a writer. 

My second blog wasn’t a full-on rebirth; it was somewhere in the middle—not totally negative but not totally positive, either. It wasn’t until I started my third blog in 2019 (this one) that I made a more permanent shift. 

I tell this story because it’s a really good illustration of how reframing your thoughts can be a long and iterative process, especially when you have a lot of emotional baggage. It took me a full 12 years of slow steering to move from a negative space into a more positive one—and that’s just in this part of my life.

I’ve really struggled to craft a post for this blog over the last couple of weeks. And I realize now that it’s because I’d shifted back into a negative emotional place with the ongoing pandemic, and that everything I produced was tainted by it. I think many of us are waffling a bit right now, going up and down emotionally and thinking a bit too much. Or perhaps we’re stuck entirely in the down, as had been the case with me lately, because our natural tendency is to land there during times of stress.

What I learned over the last few days is that my internal state can have a dramatic impact on how I engage with loved ones and how I participate in the world. I also learned that, much like I shifted my way out of a negative writing space and into a more positive one, I can shift myself out of a mentally distraught place and into a better one. It just takes a herculean effort right now.

I opened Instagram the other day and stumbled upon Rainn Wilson doing his live TV show on SoulPancake. I didn’t tune in for long because I’d missed a lot of it, but I did hear the part where he said focusing too much on all the bad going on will spin us into a negative abyss. That yes, there’s so much of it right now, but that we can’t focus on it or we’ll drive ourselves crazy.

It hit me in that moment that I’ve been driving myself crazy. 

For the last two weeks or so, I’ve spent hours scanning the news every day because I’ve been searching in vain for a sense of safety. I’ve been distraught and frantic because that safety is just not there, and as a trauma survivor, I have a deep need to find it during chaos. My automatic responses (panic and fear) can overtake me if I’m not careful, and that’s exactly what had happened as of late. 

In fact, I’d been focusing so hard on everything that felt threatening to me that I’d lost sight of the experiences I was relishing a few weeks back. Things like the quiet, the breeze, the downtime to think and to change. The peaceful feeling of watching the earth slow down for a spell and maybe even heal itself a little, as we humans step back and stop wreaking havoc all over the place.

As I go into this next week of quarantine, I want to shift back into positivity despite the utter devastation on the other side of my window. I’ve been working really hard on it today by digging bermudagrass out of the dirt for a new garden bed. I know it sounds crazy, but I find getting on my knees and digging in dirt is really grounding for me. It reminds me that I’m on a solid foundation and that whatever is going on will just go on around me; I don’t necessarily have to participate. Well, I don’t have to participate in the emotional insanity. 

I also need to protect myself better from the people, things and activities that throw me off and shift me in the wrong direction. So what I need to do more of is to turn off the news. I also need to ignore the people who are not following protocols, and remember that I’m only responsible for me. I cannot control the situations that come or how other people respond to them—I can only control my own responses.

I can also remind myself that, today, I’m safe in my home with my husband. And I can sit down with him for dinner, both of us ratty and unkempt, and be proud of my continued efforts to shift into positivity when I’m hardwired to remain stuck in the dark. 

Like many people, I’m fighting an internal battle that is exacerbated by the pandemic and that nobody understands but me. You may be fighting a similar battle because of your specific circumstances, be it health or financial or family or disability. But I say, let’s forgive ourselves for not being perfect. Let’s forgive ourselves for experiencing temporary anger at other humans. Let’s forgive ourselves for our bitterness or our snappiness or our tears flowing onto the pillow.

The ups and downs are just part of a process of transformation that often comes out of catastrophes like the one we’re in the midst of. Just keep moving, day by day, to the best version of you that’s currently buried in the muck. You’ll eventually get where you’re supposed to be as long as you keep trying. It’s just how life works.
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My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, will be published in summer 2020. To be notified when it is available for purchase or to follow this blog, sign up for my mailing list.