On the day I handed in my resignation, my hands were shaking and so was my voice. I was nervous and thrilled at once, and my body didn’t care which one won. I heard myself say, “It’s time for me to move on and use my training.”
I didn’t see that day coming, but the question behind it had been following me for years.
I got sober at 52 after the worst night of my life. At 58, on my birthday, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a beautiful gift.. Six rounds of chemo later, the attention faded and life went back to normal, and normal showed me something I couldn’t unsee. My values and my career had stopped speaking to each other. Is this all there is? had moved in and put its feet up.
I was still working at the corporate job when the answer finally came out of me: “I didn’t get sober and survive cancer to be fucking miserable.”
I said it to myself first. Then I said it to anyone who would listen.
At 60 I started looking into life coach training. At 61 I spent my birthday at a Martha Beck workshop in the California redwoods, and I enrolled in her Wayfinder training when I got home. I knew life coaching would be my new career. Then I trained as an Equus Coach®, and a woman who expected to spend her days on Zoom with clients also found herself in a round pen with a thousand-pound animal who could read her like a billboard.
The “miserable” line got an audience. “Watch me” stayed inside me.
I’m closing in on 70, and “now what?” still shows up occasionally, and I don’t hide it. What I’m embracing now is “watch me,” because I’m doing this work, too.
If you’re the one everyone counts on
You’ve been quietly asking “now what?” or “what the fuck?” Good. That question has a job to do. It can show up at 50 or 60 or later, and it camps out until you answer it. Your answer is yours, and it may surprise you. Mine involved a resignation and a lot of f-bombs.
When we work together, I’ll help you trust that inner desire for more and build the tools to act on it. She’s in there. Let’s go get her back.
My private 1:1 coaching is six months, with the option to add an equine upgrade, because a horse notices what you haven’t said out loud yet. If you’re ready to find out what your “watch me” looks like, book a clarity call and let’s see if it fits. I’ll tell you straight either way.
P.S. The BRAVE Circle is a free lunch hour on Zoom for women who are done performing fine. We meet the first Friday of every month at noon Mountain. Bring your lunch.
