Journaling Rest

Entry One - Out of Office, Into Myself

For someone who prides herself in her gift of self-expression, I’m a bit lost in how I can balance the raw truth within, and a more polished version that I’m accustomed to sharing with the world.

The raw truth is bitter as it’s said, though I think of it more like an acquired taste, yet could still be familiar for most people. The polished truth carries more spice, palatable, but it runs the risk of making dessert the main meal.

I’ve been practicing Public Relations for over a decade. There’s nothing I write that’s not polished, presentable or ‘twitterble’.

As part of a coaching session, I’ve been having with my mentor, sponsor, and now coach, part of what I need to be doing to make sense of my next phase is to journal what I’m now referring to as my sabbatical. Even before our session, I had also thought about the same thing, making my journaling public, sharing it on Beyonce’s internet. Terrifying, but I can’t explain why I think of it as necessary. Showing what I consider the most sacred bits of me, the garden of my thoughts, in an unfiltered way.

Like any other millennial who grew up with parents who instilled the fear of a flourishing corporate job as the beginning of a good life, I adored my career. I not only pegged my whole identity on it, but it was also the only ticket that I had to a life of meaning and purpose.

Everything I dreamed of as a child; a happy family, dressing fashionably, travel, respect and influence, were all pegged on the gospel of a good job. So, I don’t blame myself for my naive and misguided expectations on holding on too long on that vision. My whole life, I had been programmed to be a diligent worker.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) for me, my corporate journey has been tumultuous for the most part. Still, I look at my past 8 years as the days that made me. Hopefully, with my reflections I get to unpack what exactly was being revealed, and what it would mean if I loosened my grip on what I had prayed, hoped and manipulated to work for my benefit.

I’m leaving my job, (though if you ask a hater, they may say my job left me). Anyway, not that it matters for this entry.

What I’m truly leaving is everything that the ‘gospel of a good job represents’ - all the promises, dreams and ambitions that came with the corporate baddie package.

I have one month to sign off my severance package, and hand over my work to whoever is next. Then I have a whole other season ahead to rest, recover and re-imagine a different way of being, working and living.

Now, I’m doing my first entry of what I hope will be many more entries. A chronicle on journaling rest, as simple as it is complicated.