Making the decision to leave the corporate world has been simultaneously the happiest and scariest event I've experienced in a long time. I am so happy to be able to pour into myself. I am so happy to be able to be creative, to teach, to rediscover myself. And with that also comes that pesky voice in my ear saying "but what if it doesn't work out?" I've been sitting with that fear. I've been sitting with it, not just to avoid that type of positivity that is expected. The if it's meant to be it will be, the don't worry, it'll all work out. I've been sitting with it because I recognize that I am also beginning a whole different type of healing.
I've been working in the corporate world, for someone else, for almost 30 years. It's what I've known. It's what has been comfortable to me, and I don't mean comfortable in the warm and fuzzy way, I mean in the way of knowing that I was making ends meet, able to feed and house myself, and at some points, being able to feel a level of comfort that wasn't always there. And money trauma is real. It is real, and it can be paralyzing at times.
I grew up in a home where we had our needs more than met, and a lot of "wants" were also met, but those times were few and far between. I didn't realize until adulthood that my parents were strategic and sometimes frugal, largely in part to their own pasts and how they grew up. My parents were, by society's definition, well off and financially set. The thing about the way they treated money, however, did not translate to passing along money management tips. That showed up in the way of all sorts of peaks and valleys in the money department. And the valleys...they were some pretty deep valleys.
Finding myself in a job where I was able to not only take care of myself, but also "treat" myself (I'll unpack why I think finding joy for myself feels like a treat rather than exactly that, joy), I started to tuck away the financial trauma a bit. Then I found my way to TikTok, and 3 years later, I'm doing what I have learned to love by educating, facilitating, and getting back to writing. I feel such joy doing this, I feel such joy doing what I love and what I'm good at.
I am learning more about myself now in so many ways and it is heavy and beautiful. I've heard that we give so much of ourselves to the company we work for, and while I believed it, I didn't quite see it in myself. Until now. Now that I have time that is MY time, now that I have the room to listen to me, to truly listen to myself, I feel like I've let out the biggest exhale. I feel raw, I feel vulnerable, and I also feel JOY.
And that, that is what matters.
Your work is a gift, thank you for being brave enough to offer it to the world. ♥️
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