A year in the wilderness

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I quit my career over a year ago. Completely burned out after ~14 years of constant high-pressure journalism jobs, deceived and bereaved by workaholism, and fully undone after trying (and failing) to hold together my team during the first year of the pandemic, I was barely functioning. 

It’s hard to say which was worse, my physical health or my mental health. At some point, it’s a choice between your money or your life. And I chose to liiiiiivvvvvvve! 

​So I walked away.

​The Big Answer(s)

And now, after more than a year of deep reflection, healing, rebooting, remaking how my brain works and how my actual nervous system functions, I have been preparing to share great wisdom for others braving this same wilderness–how to come back from burnout and re-enter the world and uncover what it is that you’re put on this earth to do, buoyed by the promise of peace, contentment, and fulfillment on the other side of this terrible, terrific adventure. 

Ready? 

ARE YOU SURE?

I. CAN’T. HEAR YOUUUUUU, I said ARE. YOU. READYYYYY????

Okay. Here it is:

[cricket sounds]

...k, so, I don't actually have much for this. 

I'm not being coy. I really don't have the clarity or insight you would hope for after all this time. I have some ideas, and some notions, and some suspicions, but little in the way of helpful, broadly applicable, repeatable advice or wisdom.

And I don't mean to sound agnostic. My conclusion is not that this stuff is unknowable, nor necessarily that it's so subjective and individualized that every single person has to reinvent the journey for themselves.

But I don’t have the Big Answer(s). 

Perhaps it's simply that all of this is so complex and inexact. As much as I would love to offer a pithy catchphrase that encapsulates and summarizes it all, the Big Answer doesn't fit on a bumper sticker or an Insta post. 
How do you know when to walk away from toxicity? How do you heal–like, what are the steps and component parts? When do you know you’ve healed enough? In the process, how do you know when a feeling is informed by your maladaptive former self or if it’s the truth you’ve discovered with your newfound clarity, or or or or or? And when will you know it’s time to try again? And how do you decide what you’re going to do with yourself forever after?

​I still do not know. But below is the best I got for ya.

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