Be careful what you ask for because you might just get it

I left you on a bit of a cliffhanger last time. Let me pick up where I left off.

Two weeks ago, I was auditioning for a choir. A lot of things hadn’t gone right that week—my shoulder was messed up, I didn’t get a lot of sleep as a result, I messed a few times during my auditions—so I leaned into the idea that if I was meant to get it, there was nothing I could do that would mess that up. I said this prayer a bunch throughout the week while I waited to see if I got in:

Open the doors that are meant to be open, close the doors that are meant to be closed, and keep me in the center of your perfect will.

And then on Thursday morning, I got an email. I had gotten in!

All my mistakes hadn’t mattered. My brain fuzziness from pain and lack of sleep hadn’t detracted from my performance. I cried tears of joy at being accepted into this group which feels like it could become a wonderful community for me to be part of, and I thought, Wow, that prayer really worked!

The next day, I practically skipped to my 1:1 with my boss (as much as you can skip onto a Zoom call) to talk about all my awesome wins for the week, including getting into choir. And just before I started in, some random lady I’d never met jumped into the call.

As I listened to this random HR lady tell me I was being laid off and watched my boss try not to hyperventilate, my mind went back to that prayer and I thought, Wow… that prayer really worked? ...???

It's been a very strange experience. Because as much layoffs are incredibly dehumanizing even when a company tries to make them as humane as possible, as much as it sucks to get rejected for literally zero reason other than they felt like it or they wanted more money for themselves, in this particular case it was also getting painfully obvious that this job was no longer serving me.

Most of January, I had been filling my time with more and more life-giving things. I made a commitment to take better care of myself with exercise and better food, to invest more time into my creative projects and herbal education, to stop putting myself last. And the more I followed that commitment, the more the question came up for me of how I'm supposed to show up for my meh job when there are so many much more amazing things happening in my life.

And then when this happened, it felt like the universe was saying: you don't. You get rid of the meh and you only embrace the things that are life-giving. It felt like a spiritual insistence that I live a fuller life.

Of course, there are still a lot of questions on my end. Like, why me? What did I do to deserve being tossed out the door? Am I really investing my time correctly? Am I really ready for this? Are they going to regret letting me go? Is it possible they might come back to me and tell me they made a mistake? Would I want to go back if they did? Where is the money going to come from???

Being laid off, even from a job you were hoping to leave sometime this year anyways, is complicated.

I don't have answers to any of these questions nearly 2 weeks later. Right now the closest thing I have to an answer is this:

Open the doors that are meant to be open, close the doors that are meant to be closed, and keep me in the center of your perfect will.

Similar to what I spoke about in my last post, this whole experience is a trust exercise. I asked for doors that were meant to be closed to be closed, and now it's my job to believe that was exactly what was supposed to happen. Those doors were meant to be closed. Period. And now it's my job to continue forward into whatever door opens next whether I get my answers or not. Because the answers don't really matter.

My ego hates this. It wants to rage. It wants them to know how much this hurt. It wants them to hurt as much as I hurt.

A lot of the last two weeks has been me loving this part of myself, letting her know that she's still worthy of love despite the cold and calculated rejection she faced. That answers and closure might seem like they will prove something, but in reality they aren't going to change anything. If anything, putting too much attention on getting something that is probably never coming is, at best, a distraction from moving on to something better. At worst, it's a poison that eats into everything I could be building right now in this moment. The best gift I can give myself when this desire for answers comes up is a big self-hug and a reminder to move on.

At the moment, I'm still in the mess. I don't have a nice, happy story of triumph to share or top tips to get a fulfilling job or anything like that.

What I do have is this advice for anytime you are in a messy, painful situation such as being laid off:

1. Lean on community. One of the things that saved me was not being ashamed of this. I was told I could tell people one on one whatever I felt comfortable with, and what I felt comfortable with was the truth. My coworkers were not only fantastic in supporting me and being outraged on my behalf, they also provided a beacon of hope at a time when doubt could have dragged me down. Almost everyone told me that they were shocked because they thought that me and my role were critical to the company. It confirmed for me that no matter the reason for my abrupt departure, it had nothing to do with my performance or the value I added. The people I worked with on a daily basis felt my impact. That boosted my self-confidence immensely and helped me feel love during an incident that is incredibly isolating by its very nature.
2. Let any emotions that want to come up do so and don't try to suppress them. Yes, even the ones that scare the shit out of you or make you think you're a horrible person for having them. Emotions don't say anything about the type of person you are, they are merely signals from your body. The more you can be with them and work through them—whether that is through journaling, talking to a trusted friend or therapist, screaming into a pillow, crying when you feel the urge to, maybe even celebrating even though it seems like you should be miserable—the more you can give yourself what you need and let those emotions go so they aren't eating away at you. This step is critical to your mental and physical health. And if you're in a situation like me where you are going to need to interview soon and seem like a stable, not bitter person, fully processing your emotions in safe and non-judgmental spaces is the best preparation you can do for that.
3. Have something outside of work that gives you meaning. When I quit my job four years ago and went on a seven month spree of desperately looking for a new job, the most defining thing I had in my life was my illness. It made for a really painful and lonely seven months. It was difficult to feel hopeful when I spent hours on the couch staring at the ceiling wondering if I was totally screwed. This time feels very different, and a large part of that is because my life was full outside work this time around. The things that make it full aren't necessarily going to pay the bills (and of course, that is a reality that needs to be addressed). But they do give me something to feel hopeful about. They give me momentum, creativity, courage, and stability at a moment that could very well be stagnant, lifeless, fear-driven, and chaotic. They are reliable even when work is not, and that is a powerful thing to have.

Beyond that, you'll need to stick around to find out what happens next because I know about as much as you right now.

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you'll notice things are a little different. One of the projects I'm undertaking over the coming weeks while I have some spare time on my hands is to give my blog an upgrade. There will be more on that in the coming weeks as well. But for now, please forgive me if a few things on here are a little wonky.