What’s this for?
I knew when I was laid off that it could take a year to find my next role. I hoped that it would be faster, but I knew the possibility was there. Disoriented and shocked as I was, I had already adopted a mantra of “lemonade cocktail”. Meaning, this latest challenge - like all the others before it - had to have a purpose. I would make not just plain ol’ lemonade, but a celebratory lemonade cocktail, embracing and celebrating whatever that purpose turned out to be.
But what WAS it??
I knew I could get better at staying positive through uncertainty. (Who can’t? Some people, no doubt. I would like to meet them. For real… I don’t know enough people like this, yet.). But I had done it before, even recently, with the move from CA to Atlanta, at that time accepting a severance package from my employer and then landing the role I was recently laid off from. So it couldn’t just be about that.
After the first phase of practical challenges (getting health care, buying a laptop, updating my resume, taking a hard look at my finances, telling select friends and family, etc) it was time to kick off my search. It started slow, with sluggish momentum in January 2024, a broken heating system at home, low temperatures (turns out there is a short, crisp winter down here in the South) and some negativity about the market from people in my network. (My first opportunity to learn not to take in the emotions and perspectives of other people, or better said, not to “take them to heart”, a phrase which has new meaning to me now. )
Fortunately there were a few small wins and by late February I had a job offer with a company I had previously targeted, outside my traditional industry, doing interesting work. But at a level (or more) below where I had left off, with a compensation structure less than what my direct reports in my past several roles had made. Not a terribly difficult “pass”. Not a complete layup of a decision either, though, given my role as breadwinner for our family and monthly committed expenses (mortgage, tuition) at a level that is steadily draining our savings.
Spring brought an expensive hotel stay at a Florida beach, booked the prior year, with a cancellation penalty. Might as well enjoy it! I mostly did. I directed my low levels of job search anxiety into applying for roles and networking into tech companies with offices in Atlanta. A few weeks later, in the second part of March, a long-time friend of mine came to visit from California. Also laid off (from her senior executive role at a tech company), she was eyeballs-deep in anxiety about whether she would ever work again, what she would do, what if she couldn’t find another interesting role.. except that having no kids and having been very well compensated, when she shared the amount she had been paid and would continue to be (as part of a generous layoff package), I almost fell over. She acknowledged it, too.. the numbers meant she could not work again, retire and be better off than most. Yet, there was the anxiety, nonetheless.
This struck me.. that emotions are not necessarily aligned with the numbers or reality of a situation. It’s almost as if worrying about having enough becomes engrained as a habit.
Learning how not to absorb the feelings and concerns of others has definitely been one of the benefits of this unusual year, for me. Plenty of opportunities to practice, between the ongoing, well-intended worries of family members and thoughtful, but sometimes subtly anxious check-ins from friends.
I was fortunate to be able to use airline miles to visit my daughter in the UK in April. And I got some momentum connecting with tech companies with Atlanta offices. But.. not to the final phase of right role, right fit. In a bold, perhaps naive but somehow gratifying mini-adventure, I applied to a role leading DEI at my former employer (for background, check out this post https://open.substack.com/pub/thecriticalmiddle/p/diversity-equity-and-exclusion) and had a few good conversations, which didn’t ultimately go anywhere.
May brought networking breakthroughs and some promising introductions. In June I met with a small financial services company (an intro from someone on the Board of my last company) where they indicated that they were looking to find me a spot. An in-office meeting with a local payments company felt positive.. and in July, a recruiter approached me for an attractive role in a larger Atlanta payments company.. and another intro led to lunch with multiple executives at a well-regarded regional bank. Aside from these leads, I was faced with an excess of time and the waves of emotions that come with a clear need to change the situation (savings would not last forever) and the realization that beyond doing all the things that I could, whether I got results (and when) was ultimately outside of my control.
A distinct bright spot during these summer waves was another long-time friend offering to use her design skills and time to create a website for me - about me - to help with my job search and potential interim consulting projects. The process of working together, relishing the warmth of shared history, respect and love brings tears to my eyes, even still.
It was around this time that my husband and I decided to get our house ready to put on the market. This with mixed feelings, but it is undeniably more space than we need, with a corresponding expense structure that I felt was raising my stress level to unhealthy heights. This created a whole new bustle of activity, with minor bathroom remodels and painters and spot repairs (driveway, landscaping, decks, wood details). The most beautiful part of this chaos was the warmth of having my husband engaged in doing what he could and loves to do, while I continued to focus my energy on the job search (and managing my emotions around it.). We were building our future, in a team effort.
In late summer, a fortuitous thing happened. I reached out to a former colleague at a large, NY-based financial services company, in order to do some recon on the smaller financial services company who had expressed intentions to find me a spot. The two companies had a partnership, and my former colleague gave them a decidedly positive review. He also suggested I meet with one of his current colleagues, who worked out of an office location I had not been aware of - near Atlanta. That meeting (in early August) went wonderfully well. At the end of it, my new contact offered to send my resume out to some of his colleagues who might be hiring. He did.. and within days I had a note from a forgotten colleague from years past who I enjoyed and respected, asking if I could like him to create a spot for me (at that large NY-based financial services firm, with an office near Atlanta). We had a few conversations in August.. he needed to do some research to figure out what roles he could potentially get funding for, and I was happy to continue pursuing roles in smaller, more tech-oriented companies. My career plan at the time was to do another role or two at small fintech companies and then hope to secure Board spots, the dream semi-retirement plan and something I felt I would enjoy and thrive at, as well.
The second half of August and the month of September were a blur of home improvement projects and fizzling leads. The small company that seemed so promising in June went silent on me, the Atlanta payments company from July chose someone with a different background, and the regional bank lost funding for new hires through the rest of the year. Another small fintech company came up on my radar in early September and interviews seemed to be going well.. my heart was all-in, particularly considering they had an office in the same city in the UK where my oldest daughter attends university. It felt like I was finally back in charge of my destiny, manifesting the perfect new job for myself. Until they went with another candidate.
In early October I said “yes please” to my friend / former colleague, with a combination of disappointment at rejection from my thought-to-be dream job and relief that the yearlong search was over. Something felt odd though - I still did not have clarity on the whole WTF question. Yes, there had been some solid lessons. But was that IT, in terms of why this was happening for me??
The funny thing about saying yes was that I still needed to go through an interview process. To meet the team, to understand what I would be getting into, confirm that the fit and chemistry were right. Through this process, it wasn’t entirely clear to me whether it was a “done deal” or still a question mark. October brought a series of informative, mostly comfortable interviews and in our other project, home staging and a couple of late-breaking additional home improvement projects. We hit the market in mid-October, and were in open house mode through Thanksgiving. Back on the job front, things were moving slowly, with a break of several weeks before a second round of interviews, right before the Thanksgiving Holiday. I remember waiting on 3 things at once: a home offer (which ended up falling through), November’s Election results, and the quiet spell between job interview rounds. It felt like a lot.
Sometime around then our lovely Apocaloptimists writer’s group was meeting, and I opted not to join as I was feeling unsettled. Katie Grace https://substack.com/@revkatiegrace reached out to me and offered a complimentary counseling session. I have thought about this just about every day since. (Deepest gratitude, Katie!). She drew three cards, and together our interpretation was that I needed to stay tapped in at a spiritual level (more about this shortly), that I needed to relax into my current reality and find ways to savor it and lastly, to let go of the belief that I needed to give something up.
This last one struck me initially as being about the house. As of today, we have not sold it. It’s off the market for the Holidays, and depending how things land, we may stay or choose to downsize. Either way, we will be choosing what’s best for our family, in pursuit of the vision of having a beautiful home with spaces we enjoy, plenty of nature (currently we are surrounded by trees), and the financial freedom to travel and explore the South and surrounding areas (how about a carefree beach trip to the Caribbean in 2025?). I think what Katie was picking up on is a fear, deep down, that somehow the long job search had defeated me and I had to surrender to a backwards slide in career or finances. Not exactly aligned with my starting point: the lemonade cocktail.
The second card was a simple, much-needed reminder to soak in the time off while I have it. Which I have been doing, particularly the Christmas break with our daughter home from university.
Ok so about the big topic - staying connected, spiritually. I made a comment to Katie along the lines of I can’t be expected to be a monk, in the context of the difficulty of keeping my cool about the job situation, consistently. I have been the kind of person who needs to rant periodically about this type of thing, and occasionally calls on a friend for support and positivity, rather than finding it from within.
Pretty sure the WTF is to stop with all that. Or, put more clearly and in the positive, to find my own faith.
A few days after my session with Katie I stumbled on a virtual seminar on Kabbalah, which piqued my interest because I collect inspiring quotes that I come across. Over the years, a fair number of them had been from a source called “Lights of Kabbalah”, which is apparently affiliated with Jewish religion. The Kabbalah content (titled Kabbalah One, should you wish to look into it) was interesting.. non-denominational and focused on interpreting life’s challenges as learning opportunities, and uncovering the specific “spiritual baggage” or to use their term, “tikkun” (pronounced tea koon), that each of us brought to this life and is here to address. I took some time to make note of the most challenging periods in my life to date, how I felt, what I learned, what in retrospect I may have missed learning (Kabbalah believes that when life lessons are not learned, they keep coming back to you until you master the lesson), and what my “tikkuns” might be.
Oh F, when you look at it THAT way, things become somewhat obvious:
I feel unsafe in the world
I feel overlooked, undervalued
and secondarily,
I have anxiety about money
Ok I imagine these are not all that uncommon. Still, the call is to rise above these emotions and get to a better level of day to day experience.
How does one feel safe in a world that is inherently not in our control? The only answer to this is faith - whatever that means to you. Faith in the universe that things will work out in a way that’s good for you, or faith in a religious figure who ultimately assures you of the same. Money can’t buy safety - even a billionaire building a doomsday bunker is acting out of fear, not buying true peace of mind.
Faith says that I am here, precious, one-of-a-kind, with my own destined place, mission and purpose.
Translating back to this current life chapter, I am not cast off, wandering aimlessly in the dark, hoping to be seen and be found, rather, doing my part to bring about a fate that is coming and will make sense, and will put me in the right places, somehow.
Another insight, which came to me while re-reading my annual vision notes (artsy vision boards are not my thing) from the last few years, is that I have been looking to my jobs for affirmation and recognition, despite knowing that the corporate world is as much politically motivated as it is merit-based.
2020: “Job where better utilized.. visible, seen, appreciated”
2021: “Seen and valued - job ”
2022: “Job doing what I am best at, with… visibility”
If you are laughing at the folly of looking to corporate jobs to be “seen”, I don’t blame you. When I look at it this way, it’s on the wrong side of the borderline of absurd.
WTF - I am reminding myself daily that there is a place for me, I am not forgotten or abandoned by what I refer to as “the universe”. And my faith, positive beliefs and sense of value and belonging can - and do- come from within.
As of this moment, I am waiting to receive the official offer for the position I said “yes” to, months ago. Am I worried about it? I do occasionally have flashes of worry. But overall, I am building the habit of reassuring myself that good things are coming to me, that I am needed, and that all is - and will be - well.
I have mentioned my wise yoga teacher in other posts. And I will close with one of her insights: at first, and for a sustained period of time, growth looks like… nothing. Like nature, she says, having grown up in the coastal lowlands of the South, through late winter and early Spring, everything is growing under the surface. Well before we see seeds sprout up and finally, break ground.
There is such honesty and newfound wisdom here, CM. Thank you for sharing it with us. It's not easy to do that. I love your yoga teacher's quote. Fear and anxiety can take over our lives, and it seems like such wasted energy. Money worries are especially a biggie for so many of us. I'm curious if you have much Taurus in your chart. I'm glad Katie could bring the fear level down with her wisdom.
I think 2025 is going to rock our world(s). Hopefully, in good ways! Best of luck to you with whatever job ends up finding you.💗
Hi CM, I'm totally impressed by what you've shared here. I originally admired you for the courage it took for you to just leave CA in the dust and find a new location, a new job, and new life. And for the way you took a stand regarding covid with the women you regularly socialized with. I had no idea what you did for a living, but after reading this, all I can say is, yikes! All that financial and tech world is beyond me and going through that networking process that you describe was completely "other-worldly" compared to my life as a teacher. You really had to create something unique for yourself. Be proud, be very proud. Your efforts will be rewarded, I'm sure. Wishing you "peace and every good", as all those "monk-like" folks like to say. Take care and keep us posted.