It took shattered glass and a trip to the ER to get me to slow down
Last Tuesday was the last day at the full time job I worked for the last 6 years before fully transitioning into full-time life coaching.
This was the job where my career truly got started.
The job where I developed most of my professional confidence and skills.
The job that made me feel that I could problem-solve my way out of any challenge and accomplish almost anything.
The job where I hit my first $1-million in annual sales.
The job that led to Dan and I packing up our lives and moving to the UK for the last 3 years.
It was the job I worked at when the pandemic hit.
It was the job I worked at when I faced death of immediate loved ones for the first time and learned to navigate working while grieving.
When I woke up every day, I thought about work.
When I went to sleep at night and in countless dreams, I was thinking about work.
My mind was either stuck in the past thinking about something I could have done differently or in the future thinking of what needed to be done.
After I wrapped up my last email and walked home, I still found myself thinking about this job that was no longer mine.
I knew that my body needed to rest.
My heart needed to replenish.
And my brain needed to re-calibrate.
Did I do that? Kind of. Until the guilt started creeping in.
I rested for a few hours, watched a few mindless TV shows, and began to unwind my very tightly wound-up brain.
Then when Dan asked if I wanted to watch a show that evening, I said I hadn’t done enough to deserve that. He proceeded to (very kindly) tell me off for how crazy I sounded and that I deserved to rest. To really realllly slow down for at least a few days.
The next morning after dreaming about my no-longer-mine job, I told myself I would spend the day resting.
What did I do the moment I woke up instead? I started cleaning my kitchen, further delaying my well-deserved break.
About 5 minutes into my cleaning escapade, a thick glass tupperware container fell out of my hands and of course being the hero I am, I attempted to catch it.
I’ll spare you the gory details, but my kitchen and finger were in a state. After returning home from my trip to the ER, I decided that this had been life’s funny way of (slightly aggressively) telling me to slow down.
By cleaning my kitchen incessantly, I was avoiding myself.
By telling myself I hadn’t “earned” rest, I was perpetuating a cycle of overworking and always “chasing the carrot” that I was trying to break free from.
By diving right into the next thing, I was not setting myself up for success in my new career venture.
I listened to this sign to slow down and decided to go out without any plans and just enjoy myself.
For a few hours I let myself just be.
Over the course of those few hours, I felt myself starting to detach.
I started to feel my never-ending to-do list float away.
I walked around the city listening to buskers, people-watching, and just enjoying the sun and crisp fall air.
I had nowhere to be, and nothing to do except to just live.
Sure, I’ve taken breaks and holidays before, but I don’t remember a time that I felt at ease in that way.
I let go of any notion that something needed my urgent attention. I wasn’t falling behind on some self-made to-do list. And I wasn’t letting anyone down.
I remembered what it was like to just feel human. To simply enjoy life.
Even though I was about to really start diving into this new career change, I realised in that moment what I’d been missing in my life. Something that no person, no career success, or any material goods could ever bring me.
This experience taught me how good it could feel to be present and to fully live in a moment.
There’s no guarantee that I’ll have this same experience again of being in between careers and feeling a momentarily low list of obligations.
However I now realise through catching a large shard of glass that this feeling of presence is always available to me.
The present moment is right here, right now, and I can allow myself to live in it at any time if I chose to.
