Breakdowns and Breakthroughs

In my late thirties, I was fired from a high-profile job as Worldwide Marketing Director for a software company just as it was trying to go public. It’s taken me years to be able to share this story because I was seeing it all from the wrong angle before, from the perspective of ego.

Not too many people will admit such a fall. In the days after it happened, I was in shambles. Quite literally, I would lie on the floor in a puddle of tears, begging for answers. You don’t get to that level in your career without extreme sacrifice and dedication. I was a hard worker and someone who prided herself on never doing a job just well. Years prior, I had worked at arguably the most successful ad agency in New York City, Chiat Day, where the corporate motto was, “Good Enough is Not Enough”. I drank the Kool Aid! So why had this happened to ME? Why had I been stripped of everything I had worked so hard to build?

The answers wouldn’t come for some time. The point of this story is to share a perspective that saved me. In the midst of being fired, loosing my identity (yes, I literally thought what I did for a living identified me), I was forced to begin to do things a different way. Sometimes it takes a brick wall to make us change our trajectory.

I can tell you that it wasn’t about me. The truth of this story was that I, as an officer of a US company, was eliminated with the rest of my US colleagues when the Swiss owner realized he had a different idea of how his brainchild should be run. I can tell you that many people consoled me and shared that ‘Everyone gets fired at least once in your life or you’re not doing your best work”. All this and more was said to stroke my ego. None of this advice however gave me great comfort because it didn’t solve the problem of “Who am I if I’m not this?”

This loss, this bring-me-to-my-knees moment was the beginning of my transformation. It was the window in time when I was forced to stop living a life I didn’t love. It was the period when I knew I had to look beyond my ego to find happiness. There is no true happiness dependent on external forces.

For the first time in my life I began therapy. Someone had to help put my broken pieces back together again. I was fortunate to find a progressive female counselor who used energetic tools as part of her practice. Discovering how to heal my own wounds was like crack for me. One taste and I was hooked.

 I’ll save the rest of my healing journey and discovery for later.

What I hope you’ll take away from this story is just this: We all have stories of being broken - things are going to happen in our lives that take us to the ground, humbly begging for reprieve. How you deal with the ‘dark night of the soul’ times is what makes all the difference. For me, traditional methods of therapy wouldn’t have been enough. I had no desire to sit and tell the story over and over again. (I call that ‘marinating in the story’). What I received was a journey to healing, at the hands of many wise and wonderful teachers. I learned that, it is in these darkest moments, a window opens and we can receive our greatest lessons and gifts. This time woke me up to my purpose. I became fully aware and ready to do the real work I’m here for.

There is NOTHING you can experience that can permanently break you, unless you choose to let it. Remember this! 

I hope you’ll choose healing. There are too many success stories to doubt that even what YOU are experiencing can’t be flipped to your advantage. Trust this! I found my way back and better. I’ll show you how.