Laid Off Into An Abyss of Empowerment

When I was laid off my identity faded and I was left with a stinging emptiness. What used to fill this abyss was the idea that being a working mom made me strong. I let my career define me creatively. The busyness was fake and forced. Busy with building myself up at a surface level because looking inside for strength and creativity was terrifying. The real void has always been inside me below what I thought defined me.

I knew I was getting laid off two weeks before it happened. I prepared myself for the inevitable unemployment keeping me up at night. I began to refresh my resume, reach out to contacts who have always been there for me, and began to set up my application log. I have been laid off before and went back to my old reliable system. The last time I was laid off I started my dream job only two months later.

What started off as a general apply, follow up, and get interviewed started to turn into something of a haunted house. Ghosts everywhere. I've never been so disrespected and let down in such a short period of time. This only made me push harder. Apply more, I thought. Send thoughtful thank you notes that take you a half hour to write, that will help.

Then the storm of layoffs began. Not only was I competing with the nation for a full-time, remote job but now my competition was coveted candidates from Meta, Twitter, Amazon, Spotify, and the list continued to grow.

I was pushing in the wrong direction.

What I realized (with the help of a good friend) was this career obsession was all a cover up. I had been pushed so hard into what I was "supposed" to do that I missed out on everything that I wanted to do. At some point in my career I was blinded by success, climbing the ladder, and making it to the top.

I stopped prioritizing what I loved the most - writing, art, fashion, and my family. I had become unrecognizably misaligned.

So I started to write about my re-alignment journey. I listed the general self help items: don't look at your phone when you wake up, go on walks, call your parents. The real work was in starting to create without limits. The real work was to pull back the layers and be vulnerable.

But I struggled. How could I be proud of something that I only create for myself? Where is the positive reinforcement? What happens to my work if it's not constructively criticized? There's no structure.

I started to write again. I researched pop and collage art to prove to myself that it wasn't as ridiculous as people told me it was. I stuck with it and it started to feel so good that doing it for myself was all that mattered. The emptiness wasn't an abyss of an absent job. The void had always been there, covered up.

In this abyss I began to write more and sit still. I listened and breathed and played with my daughter. My inner-child was able to roam free. I was able to be patient with myself. The fake busyness fuzziness was out of my peripheral vision.

I found empowerment in an abyss that has been screaming for me. I was too afraid so I made excuses.

The excuse has been removed from the equation.

I have been empowered to find that the abyss is an opportunity.