I Quit My Job

I threw caution to the wind and I quit my job

A date that is worthy of being in the calendar and celebrated every year as an action that changed the course of my life is February 17th 2025. I left a job I had held for 6 years, which upon reflection was the longest job I had ever held. Job might be a stretch seeing that I am self-employed, rather clients I had worked with consistently for 6 years. I had sat with the decision over the weekend, open to signs that it was or wasn’t the right step to take, only to be confronted with every reason why I should leave. It is a bold move, especially when there is no plan on what to do after. I don’t have much more than a months’ worth of savings, no partner to pick up the finances and a 12-year-old daughter that I need to provide for. There is a lot at stake and it was not a decision I took lightly, but nor is my wellbeing.

I had grown to loath my job. I would dread going in and waking up in the morning was met with a heavy head and my body being shackled to the bed. I had become irritable and, in the evenings, I would moan to my daughter about how unhappy I was, putting emotional baggage on a child who needs to experience life as free as can be. It was a long time coming, the journey so far building up my strength and resilience to any attempts to bring me down, of which they did. One thing I have always prided myself on is being fair and open, giving room to other people’s thoughts and opinions without imposing my own too much. It’s a blessing and a curse to give too much room to others, their negative opinions can seep in and rot your own like a disease gnawing away at your flesh, slowly disintegrating it. This was something I had started to notice at work, how I felt there was very different to how I felt at home, as I healed myself from my past and grew as a person, my tolerance to being uncomfortable grew thin. For years I had told myself that being uncomfortable around people was part of life. That it was normal to be around people that didn’t support me, spoke ill of me and took more from me than I had to give, or they had to return. The behaviour was witnessed in my relationship with my parents, my partners and friends throughout my life. I was used to hearing how I was too much, I was not enough, I was the problem and not, in fact, accepted. One thing I have learnt over the course of the past 5 years is that every human has their strengths and weaknesses, but being held account and ridiculed for our weaknesses makes for a very unhappy life.

When people feel hurt inside their form of defence is to project their emotions onto those closest to them and me as the people pleaser I once was, would bend and mould to become the person they wanted me to be, in order to accommodate their hurt and try and make them a little bit happier. I believed it was my job to make those I loved happy by forgoing myself and placing my needs and emotions at the bottom of the pile. Life was not for the satisfaction of myself and instead for the servitude of everyone else. A pattern that had followed me throughout my life. How was I to learn any different if the life around me echoed my belief that life was hard and punishable? Turns out I had it all wrong. Life is about serving yourself. We are not the centre of the universe, but we are the centre of our own life, the leading role in one story amongst billions of others playing out on the stage all at once. My life, in the grand scheme of things, matters not a jot, one of 8 billion, so why waste it allowing others to take the spotlight? We were born to play the main role and yet for so many, we hide in the shadows too hurt and broken to take the stage and fulfil our destiny. The journey I have been on had led me to the very moment where I had no choice but to steal the spotlight back and continue the play on my terms, under my direction and with the vision of how I wanted to view it. When we meet our end, do we want to be confronted with regret of the things we didn’t do, or the sense of accomplishment from the things we tried and learnt? I know I need to feel fulfilled in life, and I’d rather try than live with regret.

So here I am, 37 years old, no idea what the future holds but full of hope and excitement. I want to feel as if I should have left my job a couple of years ago, that this feeling of relief would have been best served back then but the truth in the matter, I wasn’t ready. Life has a way of revealing itself at the right time for the right reason.

Let’s get a bit of a backstory going on because let’s face it, to take such a big risk must be fuelled by something even bigger or else I wouldn’t have done it. 5 years ago, my world started to fall apart after my husband took his own life. Before that the relationship had been quite turbulent and I was in a continuous state of fight or flight. After his passing, I then encountered another nine bereavements and if that doesn’t force one to stare mortality dead in the face, I’m not sure what will. I was processing grief, the trauma of finding him, raising a daughter and keeping a roof over our heads, all at the same time. Over the past 5 years I have been relentlessly crawling my way out of a deep pit of despair and grief, piecing myself back together and forcing myself to confront parts of myself I didn’t like and memories I never wanted to surface again. To stare our own truth in the face and embrace our flaws is a very powerful thing and despite the knock backs I have never stopped moving forward. Christmas 2024 was the turning point. It had been a year since the last devastating phone call had come in, allowing me to sit with grief, give space to the emotions and move from fight or flight, to a sense of calm and safety. I spent Christmas on my own, a choice I made and recognised I needed. I had grown to enjoy my own company looking forward to the moments I was free to be myself and allowing my thoughts to go where they needed. Being on my own lifted all demands, and allowed me to choose what I did next, rather than the pressure of what I should do next. However, when the Christmas break came I felt deeply unhappy, uncomfortable with the life around me and the nagging feeling that something, was very wrong. I had conditioned myself to not see what was in front of me, instead searching high and low for the answers and finding discomfort staring me in the face. My body ached, I was tired and low on energy, disengaged from activities and people. I had placed myself in a prison of my own doing and naively saw it as a safe haven serving me respite from the world that had only caused me pain. I believed if I limited the amount of people and things in my life, I might be spared future grief in their abrupt departure. This is until it served me no more, and I had to find a way out, unshackling myself from the chains of disdain that had been around my neck for 25 years. I spent the Christmas break searching for answers and looking at my lifestyle through a microscope and identifying where changes needed to be made. Through the pain came clarity, although slow, time is a great healer when we allow it space. The chains became lighter day by day, finding the positives and gratitude in the life I have, rather than the one I lost.

“As if my heart was my very own Kintsugi, repairing it with gold thread and embracing the imperfections to make something beautiful in its own right. Through those gold slithers light was able to shine and my heart began to feel whole again.”

I started to eat healthy, fueling my body with foods that nourished it rather than poisoned it. Why make it work in overdrive when it already has so much to do just staying alive? I introduced stretching into my daily life, releasing the tension I had held for years and setting it free. I journaled and mapped out my dreams asking myself over and over, who am I and what do I want from life. I evaluated the people in my life, old and new and asked what purpose they served. Did they bring me joy in their company or leave me feeling drained and empty? I focused on the now and harnessing the feeling of content with everything I have, releasing the past and the future for which I cannot control. I moved silently, not telling anyone the new found comfort and solace I felt in my own company and the life skills I was learning. In the moments I was at one with my thoughts I started to feel power in my own company, laughing and smiling at the joy of simply being alive. Reflecting inward and healing my heart that had lay bare, in shattered pieces for years, allowed me to rebuild and embrace the flaws. As if my heart was my very own Kintsugi, repairing it with gold thread and embracing the imperfections to make something beautiful in its own right. Through those gold slithers light was able to shine and my heart began to feel whole again. Everything around me started to shift and I was seeing the cruxes that were holding me back, the vampires in my life sucking my energy and bringing me down.

At my core, I love helping people. It is as natural as it is breathing, and over 19 years, I had helped many, but I could only work with one person at a time. For the past year I had been facilitating a community group to support men and their mental health. I loved the work I was doing and over time my passion and dream of what the group could become grew but nagged me that I didn’t have the energy I needed to put into it. A huge reason for leaving my job was to give me back time and energy so I could start pursuing what I felt was my purpose in life: creating change through conversations. On my own I cannot remove the stigma around mental health, nor can I change people’s lives, but together, as a community of people driving change, we can do the impossible. I left my job with no plan, but I have a purpose and that’s my navigation point.

It’s been a week since I left and the week that has passed has been one of the best weeks I’ve had in a long time. I’ve taken myself out on dates, going to London, swimming and lunch. I’ve had new experiences, met strangers and had powerful conversations. My life is now an echo to how I feel inside, and it looks and feels beautiful. I am full of hope and comforted that I will always have my back, as long as I am standing centre stage in my own life. There is drive to always feel fulfilled and satisfied. Life has taught me I can weather the storms and on the darkest of days I have always pulled through. I’m surrounded by people who love me and are cheering me on, and while I may not see them, I feel it. This is a far cry from where I was 2 years ago, or even 6 months ago. Taking the leap, taking the risk and putting myself first was a scary decision to make, and while I have no idea what the future holds, where I am going and what will happen, I know that whatever comes my way I am strong enough to stand up in the glory and in the fight. Life is too short to play by someone else’s fiddle, we must play to our own tune, however that looks, do so with unapologetic authenticity. Life rewards the authentic.