Happy, Healthy, Free

On The Other Side - Part 1

Sheri -

This post was written in August 2021, about one month after I quit my career as a full-time engineer. If you are considering making a big life change, this shares some insight into the emotional roller coaster that is making a big life change or in my case, several big life changes all at once! The second part to be published next week, is reflections from (the oh so wiser) me in January 2024 on what I've learned about navigating change.

Written on 08/09/21. Republished on 01/31/24.

Freedom

I thought a lot about what it would feel like after I quit my job. I fantasized about the first morning I could wake up and not have work looming over me, to finally be able to do whatever I wanted and not worry about when my next conference call was or what client requests I needed to deal with. I couldn’t wait for the day I would finally be free of a job that I was not passionate about and yet somehow let dominate my life.

Unfortunately after I turned in my work laptop, there was no instantaneous feeling of elation like I had fantasized about, no overwhelming rush of relief. Instead what followed were weeks of stress, anxiety, sadness, sometimes panic and many tears. Emotionally, my first day without work felt just like the day before - full of anxiety.

To be fair, I made several big changes in a short amount of time: I sold my condo, my car, and as much of my furniture as I could and put the rest in storage. Then I bought a camper van, and moved into said camper van, all while simultaneously trying to learn (read: agonize over) how I was going to live and travel in said van and where I was going to go. Never mind, trying to explain to all of my friends, family and co-workers why I would choose to even do this.

For weeks after quitting my job, packing my things, and driving away, I felt constant waves of panic. I would then stress about the fact that I was still feeling stressed. Over and over again, I kept questioning myself and my choices. "Why was I feeling stressed when I removed what I thought was the primary source of stress from my life i.e. work!?"*

Change is hard

First, change is harder than we think it will be. And I decided to make a lot of big changes in a short time. Although I voluntarily chose to uproot my life, that doesn't necessarily make it easier. No amount of planning, mental preparation, or visualization could completely prepare me for the life disruption I was about to undergo. I knew that making the drastic change of living in an 800+ square foot condo with all the luxuries I needed and wanted to living on the road in a space < 1/10th the size would be tough, for example. And it inevitably was. What I didn't realize was that a) we're really bad at predicting how we'll deal with change and all of its side effects, but also b) just how long it would take for me to start feeling the positive effects of not working.

Learning to Not Work

I've worked a corporate job with 24/7 access to work email via laptop and/or phone non-stop for the last 11 years. (I still remember being issued my new iPhone as an Engineer 1 and feeling oh so important.) Constant access to phone and email meant my co-workers and clients had unlimited access to me. On every vacation, my work laptop and phone were always by my side. From presenting at a virtual conference from a campground in Utah to deciding I needed to cut a vacation in Mexico short due to a client meeting, I always put work first. Unfortunately, I've now learned that vacationing while working in corporate America can hardly qualify as an actual break.

I’ve since realized it takes a fair amount of time (4 weeks to be exact) for my work brain to turn off - to unlearn and un-program myself from the constant thinking of work I had become so accustomed to. It took four weeks since I turned in my work laptop for me to finally feel the ever-present anxiety and stress dissipate from my body in a significant way: for my whole self to understand that I didn't have to wake up and go to work or for me to stop having that sudden wave of guilt rush over me when I realized I hadn't checked my work email in the last hour. For the first time in a very long time, I felt like I could breathe, unencumbered. (I will not soon forget the literal moment I felt the feeling of no anxiety in my body, for what felt like the very first time in my life.)

Who is She?

This ability to achieve a fully relaxed state after several weeks of not working confirmed my suspicion that my job had been a major source of stress in my life. Knowing that it took a month of not continuously working for the stress and anxiety to significantly leave my body also confirms that I’ve never been able to take an effective break from work in the last 11 years.

This realization makes me really sad. I haven't been showing up as my best self and instead, to a more stressed high-strung version of myself , which was becoming more and more apparent to me as time went on. I’ve been pondering (read: stewing) long and hard on how this has negatively impacted my quality of work, my relationships, my mental health, and so on, for years. Until I reached a breaking point and decided enough was enough. Knowing this also makes me really curious about the future.

Who am I in the absence of all this stress and anxiety I've lived with for so long? What's underneath this shell I've surrounded myself in for so long because I never felt like I could be my true self at work? Who is she? What does she like to do for fun? What brings her real joy?

Hiking in Glacier National Park

Turns out, it's really nice to be able to explore the answers to these questions. Understandably, progress towards this non-work self hasn't been linear; I've had my ups and downs. But overall, I'm extremely grateful for this time to stop and reflect. Now that earning money and being "successful" is no longer the primary objective for myself, I feel like I finally get to explore who I am and who I want to become. Am I connecting with the person I was before I started working or am I now growing into the person I was always supposed to be?

Annie Mac describes this transition to non-work after retiring from being a DJ in a recent article:

"Knowing what you want involves casting aside all of your inhabited identities and laying yourself bare. What really excites you? What drives you? What makes you feel alive? Finding truthful answers to these questions is the most difficult part. After that, all you have to do is put the steps in place to get that thing that you want."

I'm excited to do the work and see where the answers to these questions take me.**

*Work hasn't always been a cause of stress for me. Unfortunately in 2021, I found myself in a job/industry that I felt didn't allow me to be my true self and didn't make use of my character strengths. Facing that type of work environment will inevitably leave anyone depleted.

** It's wild that I now have the answers to all of these questions. And that kind've makes me feel more successful than any job has.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I'll share what I've learned about navigating big life changes.

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