I have a hard time with transitional periods in my life because of the staleness of them. It’s the time in between things, milestones that I find the most challenging; the silence of them always seems to be the most deafening to me.
I was laid off recently and decided to go on a month-long pilgrimage, knowing I would feel restless. But also hoping that it would help me transition adventurously and gracefully out of this chapter of my career into the next — whatever that may be!
I found the first month of my partial unemployment (I’m still wrapping up projects) particularly uncomfortable, to say the least. What’s been interesting is that the discomfort hasn’t come from being laid off — I’ve sweated out the illusion and self-imposed shame of failure in a million vinyasa yoga classes years ago when I was going through my divorce.
It’s more been my restlessness.
I’ve been working non-stop since I was 17. I was always the one who took the additional assignment, the one who worked after hours, worked while going to school full-time — sometimes even working two jobs. Most of the time it had nothing to do with the money, I just loved to work and to work hard. I used to say that other…
