By Stacey Brake
In February of 2020, I began to get this feeling. It was quiet at first but it grew quickly and I wasn't sure why this feeling, these thoughts were coming.
I was feeling like it was time to move on from my job.
To give a bit of context: I had been a school counselor and was completing my 7th year at the same elementary school. I was comfortable. I had a best friend, I knew the children, their parents, my colleagues. I loved this little school. Both of my children had been partially raised by the teachers in the building. One of my boys was still going to school with me. He rode with me to and from school every day. It was 4 minutes from my house. On paper, it was the perfect place for me.
So, I couldn't explain why I was feeling like it was time to move on. I couldn't even quite understand it. Where would I go? What would I do? There wasn't another option that seemed reasonable or logical.
BUT this feeling kept growing. Since it didn't seem rational, I needed a way to process this feeling. I needed a way to gauge whether or not this was just a February slump or an intuition that I needed to follow.
What I knew from experience was that NOT paying attention to this kind of feeling would not make it go away. It would continue to nag at me until it grew so big
that I COULDN'T ignore it I've seen how this feeling can grow into something that causes distress and even ... anxiety. The term in psychology for acting one way but feeling another is "cognitive dissonance".
I needed to move this feeling from the emotional part of my brain to the rational part I needed to take some kind of action.
I wrote my resignation letter. To be clear, I didn't give it to anyone. I just needed to see what it would FEEL like to write it. I needed to see if putting it on paper would make me realize that this feeling was just passing through, Maybe I just needed a break or a reality check.
When I wrote the letter and read back over it I felt something inside of me shift When I read the letter, I could feel a sense of great peace. I didn't feel afraid to let go at all.
Knowing this, I assumed that it would be a couple more years before the right opportunity came along. I assumed that I would wait until my son was off to middle school. I really didn't have a plan for what to do next and I didn't feel that I needed one. But I did begin to entertain the possibility of doing something different.
Little did I know that, just a month later, the whole world would shift When COVID meant that our kids would go 2 days a week, but I was expected to be there 5 .. I officially resigned ... started my next chapter ... and stepped onto this new path. When it was time to make this decision, it was not hard. I had already worked through the feelings of moving on.
If you've ever felt that you wanted something different, you needed a change. I wanted to share this one strategy that worked for me, that you can use too.
Maybe you've felt that you wanted to let go of something or someone in your life. Often, we don't allow ourselves to entertain these ideas because of what we SHOULD do, think, or feel.
You can write a letter and burn it. It doesn't have to be something that you share. But writing it down forces you to use your pre-frontal cortex, the rational, planning part of your brain. Don't just stay stuck in your feelings.
This one action can prepare you for a big change ... one that you might not expect!
Do you have something in your life that is nearing the expiration date? Tell me your story! Write your letter and if you want...send it to me to read and delete! Don't keep it inside.