My childhood friend, we’ll call her Jane, always had an easy answer to that classic question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” From an early age, she’d wanted to be a nurse. She did the work, earned her nursing degree, and she still loves being a nurse today.
To me, knowing her path at such a young age was impressive, and her clarity made me more than a little jealous. Being curious about a lot of things, I hated trying to answer that question. I just didn’t know. But I felt I had to try.
I discovered my love for animals when my aunt’s cats came to live with us, so around age seven I started saying I wanted to be a veterinarian. This seemed to be a suitable answer to that classic question, even if my heart wasn’t really in it. By junior high, the pressure from teachers and family to have a career goal was beginning to mount, and since I was good at science and math, getting into vet school was the logical choice.
In high school, I loaded the weight of advanced science and math courses onto my shoulders, knowing I was only going through the motions. But, vet school was the thing that sounded responsible.
I remember the feeling of relief in my body when I tested out of my college’s math requirements. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding so much tension in my jaw and shoulders. As good as I was at math, I didn’t really enjoy it, so I ditched the goal of being a veterinarian. I looked for a degree that didn’t require math, chemistry, or physics classes, eventually settling on sociology.
At family gatherings, I started telling my well-meaning aunts and uncles that I was working to become a Social Worker, not only because it sounded professional and responsible, but because through my classes I was learning that we don’t take very good care of each other in this world, and I wanted to be part of creating something different.
I settled into a job as a caseworker for our local public aid office after graduation, helping folks access food stamps and medical assistance. It wasn’t long before I discovered that our social service systems, while desperately needed due to the way our society is structured, aren’t really helping people to thrive.
I felt itchy and limited, like this work was an ill-fitting wool sweater. And everyone was so stressed. I needed to escape.
When I felt the pull to go to massage school, I ran with it, even though it felt like I was throwing away so much schooling and work experience. But, my current path felt like a dead end. I wasn’t making the difference I’d wanted to.
So I went to school… again. I opened up a massage business. When that wasn’t the right fit, I studied yoga and coaching and lots of other ways to help folks with their stress. I was all over the map, all in the pursuit of wanting to live in a world where we take better care of each other.
Each time I felt called to switch paths, I’d feel like a total flake, like I’d been living my life in the “career store,” trying on a bunch of random things and finding out they didn’t fit. How would I ever get anywhere if I couldn’t stick to ONE path? And what would people think?
Which brings us to the fall of 2020.
Like so many others, it had been a rough year for me, but things were beginning to look up. My goal of helping people with their stress had gone online—I had just signed my first virtual coaching client!
But once again, that itchy, ill-fitting wool sweater feeling was back. This time, thanks to my BodyMind Coaching training, I knew it was a signal from my body. An invitation to explore:
What’s truly important to me?
If nobody else gave a hoot what direction I chose, what would I do?
How is this shift actually part of my path?
Stress, I realized, is the symptom. I wanted to be part of disrupting the systems that create the stress. I knew what I had to do, but the idea of telling people I was up to something new—it made me sick to my stomach. Especially after I had literally just announced the new online business.
One of my core values is social justice. I want to live in a world where we take care of each other. Where we all thrive. Where what author and activist, bell hooks, calls “the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” doesn’t exist.
And while I fully believe in the power of coaching people to shift their relationship with stress to move us toward this vision, it no longer felt like the best way for me to contribute.
During the events of 2020, it became crystal clear to me that people and organizations have been using the principles of marketing and persuasion to drive people to take actions that are counter to their interests… and our collective wellbeing. This includes our businesses and entities outside of business, like education, politics, and religion.
Over my life, I’ve been gathering the tools, knowledge, and skills to be part of disrupting that, so we can create that world where we actually take care of each other. And the ripple effect of that work? I get chills.
