Healing

On the one-year anniversary of my emergency abdominal surgery I turned in my resignation. I am not sure if I believe in fate, but that felt cosmic - symbolic of all of the unexpected change I have been through in the last year and the healing I have done to allow myself to feel confident enough to make change on my own terms. The past twelve months have brought enormous traumas and challenges for me, but also massive amounts of growth - probably more growth than I have ever gone through in such a short amount of time.

Back in the fall of last year, I was struggling both physically and mentally. If you missed information about my surgery last year, check out my earlier blog post "Reflections on Surgery and Recovery." Even though the pain passed fairly quickly (I say "fairly quickly," but really it took about a month and a half for the soreness to really dissipate), the physical discomfort lasted for a few months as the scar tissue in my abdomen formed and smoothed itself out. I was weak, having lost weight and strength while in recovery. It felt like every week I would find a new lump or bit of uneven tissue or place that hurt to touch under the surface of the scar, and I started worrying about hernias and seromas and any number of other hypothetical post-surgery complications. I would sit in my office with one hand running over the scar, feeling for something wrong.

I have had trouble with anxiety before, but never anything quite like this. One night in mid-September, I woke with stomach cramps and nausea and had my first honest to goodness panic attack. Toni was there with me that night, and it was hard in the moment to figure out what symptoms were physical and what was happening in my head. We wound up in the emergency room and (sorry TMI) I vomited and thankfully felt immediate relief. After a CT scan and blood work they released me with the assumption that it might have been something I ate. Still, the episode brought the memories of being in the hospital rushing back.

The anxiety in the surgery's aftermath was persistent. In my journal I wrote, "it feels like tingles all over my body that make my hands shake and my feet tap and tighten my chest and stomach...It's affecting my work. I have a hard time focusing and executing..." I felt shaken out of alignment with my internal sense of self. I was making mistakes - forgetting my key to the office in the morning, showing up late, losing track of things. And I was tuning out - ear buds in all the time, exhausted coming home.

As December and January rolled around, work also started to get really intense. I won't go into too much detail here, but some of the projects I was working on were incredibly challenging - much bigger than I had expected - and some of my close colleagues left. With all of that on top of the aftermath of the surgery, I found myself nearing a breaking point, and I realized that I needed to make some changes in my life if I was going to get past this.

I started by seeking therapy, and I am very grateful to my Mom for referring me to her therapist after my second big panic attack while on vacation in January. With the help of my therapist, I started to unpack what I had been through. I like to think of myself as someone who is generally somewhat emotionally mature and intelligent, but there are some things that are hard to work through on your own. Over time, we massaged the emotional scars from what had happened to me - facing my own mortality, feeling betrayed by my body, being in a prolonged state of survival-mode - and we worked on strategies for coping with and overcoming the challenges I was facing in the moment - setting boundaries, and focusing on finding joy in my life outside of work.

Spring was when the healing really started, and I am proud of how intentional I was about focusing on myself. I took a nice staycation with Toni in February. I deleted Teams and Outlook from my phone. I started going out more. I made a ton of music with my friends (peep the Edward Glen YouTube). I did my best to cook more. When the weather got warmer, I started biking to work, which did wonders. I journaled more and read some fantastic books. I got more on top of my organization, making sure I blocked out time to take care of myself. I downloaded Headspace and started doing daily meditations (which I was terrible at keeping up). And wouldn't you know? I started feeling a lot better. I of course still struggled at times, and it didn't happen overnight, but I made it out the other side.

When I was deepest into my anxiety and stress, the last thing I wanted to hear about was silver linings. I honestly did not believe that I would grow from what I was experiencing in any way. I had a deep fear that I was suffering a harm that I would not be able to heal from. In some ways that is true. I am scarred from this past year, physically, mentally, and spiritually, I will carry those scars with me for the rest of my life. At the same time, going through what I did forced me to learn how to care for myself and keep afloat during difficult situations and how to heal. I know now that I can survive challenges - even ones that I don't see coming - and I am so grateful to have been through this and to have made it to the other side.

I was sad to leave my job at Northeastern. I will miss the students. I will miss my team in Cultural and Spiritual Life. I will miss the wonderful programs that I had the opportunity to work on. That said, I am so excited to open up this new chapter in my life and proud to be leaving on my own terms rather than at the deepest pit of my stress and burnout. I feel good about the work I accomplished and the relationships I formed and I have absolutely no regrets about how I have spent this year. After I turned in my resignation, I wrote down this list of goals for myself as I navigated this transition (cheesy as they are):

• I want to leave my current role gracefully with full confidence in my decision.
• I want to feel good about the relationships I have made and to make sure that I express my gratitude toward the people who have helped me along my journey.
• While I don't expect perfection, I want to feel good about the state of the projects that I plan to leave behind, wrapping up what I can and leaving as much information as possible to the rest of the team.
• I want to remain in a mindset of gratitude toward the growth I have experienced here.
• I want to remember to celebrate this career change as the closing of a chapter and a profound act of self-care.
• I want to commit to entering my new workplace with an open heart and mind, ready to learn and establish new relationships.
• I want to commit to doing my best work while also preserving my work/life balance and boundaries in order to find greater fulfillment in both work and life.
• I want to remember to not always sweat the small stuff and get stuck wondering whether I am doing everything right. It is more important to bring my whole self and just try my best!

I am really proud to say that I feel I have been able to accomplish most of these goals already, and I am excited to accomplish the last few as I enter my new role in early September (more on that soon). Right now the weather is crisp - it feels like September - and I am in the middle of a fantastic two-week break. I have been sitting out on the porch drinking coffee every morning, playing guitar, catching up with friends, and getting ready to take this next step.

If you had asked me in January where I thought I would be come September, I would not have dreamt that I would be where I am right now. Despite all of the challenges that this year has thrown my way, I can say confidently that I have come out the other side more confident, more mature, and more in touch with my internal compass than ever. 

May the next year bring health, peace, joy, laughter, and (with any luck) an album~

With love,

IJ