Career was one of my cages during the “7 Years of Cages” era. There were several I was trapped in and some I still struggle with. They were a labyrinth, interlocking, and often seemed impossible to escape.
I felt so trapped and hopeless sometimes like this was all my life would ever be.
30 years ago, I started the career I’d dreamed of. I felt like I had finally found my people and purpose. I worked for years to achieve it and went into a “student mortgage” for it.
I was finally a psychotherapist.
(TA-DAH!, cymbals crash! Cue dramatic music and imagine me staring into the distance, wearing a red cape, wind blowing it out majestically behind me… OK, that’s ridiculous, I know, but you get the gist, I was young and naive, and I was going to save the entire World!)
Helping people fulfills me and resonates with my soul. Like a drink of water when you’re parched.
And somewhere along the way, I started to hate it, too.
My jobs during those years were in corporate-run, for-profit settings. I loved working with my clients and helping them felt amazing, but the rest of the work was soul-crushing. Mountains of paperwork, long hours, and not enough staff or autonomy added up to all work and no play makes Shelley a dull (and depressed and anxious) girl.
Paperwork is a special kind of cage that I still struggle with. I tried to keep up with the demands, but my ADHD brain has a hard time focusing on things I find boring and paperwork definitely falls under that category. I would get very behind, then super anxious about being so behind, put in a ton of extra hours to catch up, stay caught up for a little while, and then get behind again in a vicious cycle. I felt like a hamster running on a wheel to nowhere.
I started to have frequent headaches and my insomnia got worse, my mental health was also getting worse and I wondered if I’d made the right career choice.
I started to dread going to work, starting on Sundays (which I began to hate, too). Because Denial is not just a river in Egypt, I decided to get a different, but similar, job.
Problem solved!
Nope, just kidding. Same problems, different office because I hadn’t changed how I was looking at the cage I was in. I thought there was something wrong with me.
One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I changed jobs again, with the same result. (Of course)
While trying to get out of my career cage, I was also trying to keep my marriage from combusting, figuring out how to parent a new baby (they don’t come with any tech support), and had a second baby. More on all of this in the next few weeks.
It was overwhelming and so damn hard, even though there were parts of my life that I loved.
With some support, I finally started to dream again, which led me to a new perspective and possibility. I’d always wanted to work for myself, but heard that it was really hard to do successfully and most people failed.
I’m rebellious, so when I heard “private practice is a bad idea”, I thought, “Says who?”. However, I also get comfortable and grow roots. These sides were at odds and the comfort side won until I got very angry. I mean red-hot, ranting for hours until people started avoiding me, volcanic angry.
Things had reached a head at my current job I tried to improve my situation there and found I couldn’t. In retrospect, I’m so glad I couldn’t.
The anger was exactly the jet fuel I needed for the Rebel to show up and get me moving. I took a leap of faith and I’ve been self-employed for almost 21 years now and still love it. I’m energized by working instead of feeling drained. When I’m snuggled in my Grandma’s quilt in bed and don’t want to get up in the morning, it’s because I’m comfortable, not because I hate my job.
In retrospect, obvious cage and, obvious solution, but it was hard to get out of. The support i got during that time helped me to get out faster than I would’ve, even with being angry.
What are your dreams? What cages are keeping you from making those dreams come true? What catalyst would you need to start living them?