Last week I made the decision to leave my job and go travelling to New Zealand and India for 8 months. Why? I’m asking myself that question on a daily basis as I am excited and terrified all in equal measure. I have worked for local government for over 10 years and am in a very stable job, I live in a beautiful cottage, have stunningly brilliant friends and family and am in a very comfortable place in my life right now. So why am I choosing to move away from it all?
Most people that know me will recognise me as someone who is upbeat and positive. They’ll see that I am a bit of a seeker, a striver that achieves great things. What people don’t see is that I (like many people) carry a strong undercurrent of emptiness that drives my striving procedures. As part of my life journey I have been in therapy for 2 years and have learnt an unbelievable amount about myself. I have made huge life shifts and have had both incredible and also uncomfortable insights about who and why I am the way that I am.
Over the past few years I left a career that I absolutely loved to persue a career in psychotherapy. My whole life has changed as a result, I’ve been on one serious hard working mission. I was at a huge crossroads last week and just realised that moving towards the career path was just another way of trying to fill the emptiness. It sounds quite a sad statement but it wasn’t really, it was more a feeling of gratitude for the insight that I received. I realised that no matter what job I do, what exciting project I am doing, what this or that I am doing (the list is endless) the emptiness will never be filled. The whole process seemed to flip on its head as I realised that actually it was time to make friends with that feeling and just be.
So I kind of thought fuck it. By leaving my job, leaving my career goals, leaving my friends and family, leaving romance and just being on my own, exploring a different country with myself to rely on, without searching or seeking for anything or anyone seemed like a jolly good idea. Let’s not forget, people are doing this all of the time, going travelling isn’t an original idea, going to India to find yourself certainly isn’t either!! What is unique and special to me is allowing time and space to turn the volume up on how I am feeling and who I am out of the context of my comfortable daily routine and being with the messiness and brilliance of just being me. I realise that I have boxed myself in with my career goals and have created limiting beliefs for myself. Quitting my job, being out of routine, leaving the safety of my room is so far removed from what I would expect of myself. I know that when I have finished travelling I will most likely return to some of those things and I am excited about what the future holds after I hit my reset button and break out of some of the confines that I have created for myself. Exciting, scary, wonderful, brilliant, beautiful…empty…times are ahead.
Photo by Munro Studio on Unsplash