The Struggle That Took Me Away

Wow. What. A. Year. When I first started this blog, the focus was supposed to be on health and wellness – both physical and mental. It then morphed into wedding prep and hosting a COVID wedding. Now, it’s more of a continuous “about me”, but I swear this one does tie into the importance of your mental health.

Some of you may know that I lost my job in March 2020. Not just my job, but it was my dream job. You guys, I come from a very math and science heavy household growing up but always loved being creative (right side) and artsy (left side) which came out through dance for me. This job was marrying both the analytical and creative sides of my brain. It was the job that had the title I wanted, the projects I was ready to own, and best of all: the greatest team and company culture – it was my unicorn! THEN BOOM! The company shut down and it was my first time since I was like 12 having no job.

Yes, I know I’m not the only one that lost their job during that time and I am very grateful to have the support system that I have to help me get through this tough time. I always say, it takes a village, and it truly does. At the time, I tied my livelihood and value to my occupation and so to not have one meant I was nothing. It toyed with my self confidence which was not great when job searching.

Long story short, it was about 5 months before I landed a job – thank God! Although, it wasn’t necessarily the job I was hoping for. Don’t get me wrong – I am very grateful for any and all of my experiences, but looking back and reflecting on it. Career wise, it was an events role, but it wasn’t in the industry I wanted to be in, wasn’t helping me grow my skill set, or take advantage of all of my skills I already had. I feel like it was a job during COVID – something to pass the time, keep my brain engaged, and money coming.

But, what I didn’t realize was that it was slowly taking pieces of myself every single day. Unfortunately, I did not feel supported in the role and set up for success which then led me to stress out and have anxiety to the point where I would have anxiety dreams and wake up sweating- and I’ve never had anxiety like this before. I was grateful to have a job during these troubling times but in the end there were too many red flags for me to ignore. I kept going back and forth on quitting vs. sticking it out. And I am not a quitter. I take a lot of pride in my work and I had my old values of job security, income, and the scarcity mindset that I grew up with vs. my new values of prioritizing my health. It was like I was in this inbetween of evolving into a new state of being and my body was ready but my mind hadn’t 100% gotten there yet.

So here I am, the week of my last day at this organization that is a great organization with amazing people and a great mission, but it just wasn’t right for me and what I needed to thrive. Yes, I realize not everyone has the opportunity or is in a financial state to be able to come to this conclusion but I worked my butt off to have this choice . I’m sure someone else will take my place and crush it there and that will be their journey. But for me, I will continue to heal and know there is more for me, to not only have, but more for me to contribute to in this world.

My takeaways from this life lesson:

I am learning to listen to my body because whatever is going on in my mind will ultimately manifest in my body to tell me what is the right thing to do.
Give yourself the time and space to evolve. We are ever changing and that is the beauty of life – just surrender and let it take you.
Manifest the life that you want and need.

Until next time, I am forever thankful, grateful, and blessed to have you on this journey with me.