On small changes and letting go…

I often have a hard time negotiating between my heart and my head. The part of me that seeks security and comfort leads with my head. That voice says that I need a solid pension, that I need security to retire at 55 and be safe for the rest of my life. That tells me there’s something wrong with me and that I am failing somehow because I don’t own a home right now.

I read the Reddit personal finance subs and feel bad about myself for not adhering to the “guidelines” and wonder if I should be saving more money, making more money or maybe doing more of something else. This part of me that fears financial insecurity has driven my career choices, though, despite the restrictions of my bureaucratic job, I have been able to be innovative and make significant change. And I am proud of what I’ve done.

However, there is an insistent ping of questions that emanate consistently from my heart: Could I be doing more? Could I be making more money doing something I am more passionate about? Should I be running my own business? Could I be making an even bigger impact than I have already made?

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This need for safety kept me on a team for too long that was toxic. I was surrounded by other women who were deeply unhappy in many aspects of their lives. They found empowerment through their leadership roles and instead of building others up and cultivating them to be more expansive and impactful, they kept others small, like how they felt. These picayune women forcefully extinguished the lights of others so that they themselves could be the brightest women in the room.

I had a very hard time in this office and allowed aspects of myself to be diminished by their toxic behavior. I fought to stay bright for quite a while, but at some point, it nearly broke me. I remember holding it all in, not crying, not talking about it and getting angrier and angrier until one day I went to an acupuncture appointment, which cracked open what I was holding inside and I exploded. I had what I though at the moment was a total breakdown. But, I released an incredible amount of tension that I hadn’t realized had been building up. It was a lot of tears, screaming, panic stricken breathing, just some sort of emotional eruption. I honestly thought I was going to have to go to a mental hospital that day.

I had been trying to get pregnant and, because I was unable at the time and did not want to do medical interventions, I had begun to do acupuncture regularly. I was hoping that regular treatments would help me balance my hormones and get whatever was stuck unstuck. I had started trying to conceive when my first daughter was 18 months. We had gotten pregnant with her within a month of trying. I had a crazy internal urge to get pregnant and then, poof, I was pregnant. This was despite working an incredibly challenging, hauntingly stressful job at the time.

Fast forward to 18 months after giving birth to my first. I had transitioned to a less stressful truly 9-5 job and wanted to start trying for the second. Not soon after my husband and I began that journey, I contracted Lyme Disease. I was still nursing my first and, after consulting with the pediatrician, continued to nurse through the course of antibiotics. I lost nearly five pounds in two weeks after taking the antibiotics and they absolutely destroyed my digestive system. Because I caught the Lyme very early on, the antibiotics seemed to work well to treat the Lyme, despite murdering every single good bacteria in my guts. After a few months, I began to experience significant aches and pains, particularly after working out. The pain was a much deeper pain than muscle aches. It felt like something electrifying the fibers of my body. It was something I hadn’t experienced before. At the time, even that far along after giving birth, my body had not recovered from having a baby. Compounded with the Lyme disease, I was in very bad shape.

My body was stiff and inflexible; I could barely touch my toes. It’s not like I was overweight (I was a size 6 or 8), I had just not been caring for my body. I had been nursing a child for two years, had not been taking vitamins, did not work out or even move my body enough, was not eating nourishing food, was exhausted all the time and overcompensating with caffeine. I drank alcohol regularly and was eating mexican delivery food late after the baby went to sleep. I was not well. I was probably also suffering from the untreated remnants of undiagnosed post partum anxiety and depression, which were also making things very, very difficult.

I decided that after a day of sitting on the couch in so much pain that I thought I needed to go to the emergency room, I needed a change. I was physically stuck in a rut and needed to get myself out. One of my friends gave me the book “10% Happier” by Dan Harris and another, who has been. steward on my journey to wellness, recommended “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read both and was sold on meditation and realized how much I needed to connect with my creativity again.

My work situation at the time was beginning to become more difficult. There were signs that I ignored that things were not great, but it hadn’t yet begun to directly impact me. I was still in a key leadership role. I was well-liked by the person in charge and had some key workstreams supporting agency leaders and was very visible with external partners. Things were not bad, just getting a little more politically complicated.

I realized that I first needed new routines in my life. The ones we had sunken into after the baby first arrived were not ideal. We focused on her entirely until bedtime, then, because she was napping too long during the day, wouldn’t fall asleep until 9:30pm, then dinner would arrive from the delivery guy and I’d eat a greasy chicken quesadilla. I’d be simultaneously exhausted, but also wired because I had fallen asleep waiting for her to fall asleep. It was not ideal.

I started by buying a yoga mat and downloading a yoga app. I would start doing ten minutes of yoga and stretching after she went to bed. I also needed to stop being so dependent upon caffeine. I had begun to notice that after drinking coffee, I would feel light-headed and anxious. If I didn’t drink coffee, I would get severe headaches and become incredibly irritable. I decided

that I needed to quit coffee; so I did. I remember going cold turkey at first, switching one morning to decaf when I picked up a cup at my local coffee shop. I was on the way to an off-site meeting and I was so incredibly angry just walking down the street. I remember showing up to the meeting and letting everyone know that I was quitting coffee and that I wanted to apologize in advance. I gradually weaned myself off and replaced it with strong black tea. I got a nice to go mug for my tea and sadly packed away all of my coffee supplies - the french press, the pod coffee maker, the Nespreso - and pulled out my electric kettle. And there I was, coffee free.

I noticed that I had a harder time focusing on document reviews when I need to do a close read of things, but my brain eventually rewired itself to be able to function on black tea without the electrified jolt of coffee. My overall nervous system seemed to begin to settle down a bit more. I was also still recovering from working an incredibly stressful job. My nervous system had been rewired to be constantly in a state of fight or flight. I was continually interpreting everything that was incoming as a threat - emails, phone calls, comments from my husband. Easing off coffee helped bring all of those responses down a few clicks. Meditation and the study of Buddhist readings and reflections helped me to also rewire my brain to be less reactive and more responsive.

The next thing that had to go was alcohol. The Buddhist monk Thich Nact Than was one of my favorite authors when I led a small organization. He writes of needing to feed the body postive nutriments. Alcohol is not one of those positive nutriments. After cutting back my drinking significantly, I did become significantly more boring, but I felt more energized and was less angry, so that was good for everyone.

As I began to do nightly (or as much as I could, but never more than 15 minutes a night) yoga, my body began to be more flexible. I was less rigid, more able to go with the flow of things. I started acupuncture and had some pretty incredible experiences. My first session was in Chinatown with a lovely gentleman. He asked me an array of what, at the time, seemed like bizarrely specific health questions (“What does your poop look like and how often do you poop?” or “What is the color of your period blood and how heavy is your flow?”) and then asked me to stick out my tongue. He said to me, “That is a very stressed out tongue.” He was right. That was a very stressed out tongue. Obviously, I was not in prime physical shape to conceive.

As the acupuncture continued, I became more interested in how it worked. I read many books recommended by my acupuncturists and even contemplated becoming an acupuncturist. (My head stepped in and said no, look at the cost-benefit of the tuition at acupuncture school versus the payout on the other end. Why are you always so practical, head?) And I began to feel better. I researched natural ways to track your cycle. I took my temperature every single morning (driving my husband crazy - that certainly did NOT help anything in the conception department) and tracked my basal body temperature on an app. I got to know each phase of my cycle and when it was the most ideal time to conceive. I remember going on a work trip and taking my temperature, anxious that I was alone in a hotel room, many states away from my husband, at the most ideal time to conceive. I had been approaching the process of conception as I approached all other things in my life - from a type A, “I do not fail at things” approach. It was heart-breaking and created a real sense of cognitive dissonace. I was always a straight A student; I literally did not fail at things. It shook my sense of self and the things I thought true about myself. My identity was grounded on the fact that I did not fail at things.

At one point, the acupuncture worked. There was a visiting acupuncturist at a place I went to regularly and she put three needles in my stomach and gave me a specially formulated herb with chinese yams to help balance my hormones. And I became pregnant on that cycle. It was quite unbelievable. The baby would have been due in August 2019. We were thrilled. We kept it quiet because it had been a while trying and I didn’t want to tell anyone until we hit 12 weeks.

Soon after, my husband, my daughter and I went out to brunch on the Upper West Side with our friends. They had recently had a son after years of heartbreaks. I told my friend because I could entrust this secret with her. We left brunch, all smiles, elated and headed to the playground. At the playground, I remember feeling dampness in my underwear. I still remember the jeans I was wearing, the belt, the boots, the top…

We headed home and by the time we got back to Brooklyn, I was bleeding. I sat on the toilet and passed something and then I flushed. I had no idea what else to do. I put on a pad and called the ob-gyn I had been seeing. They asked me to come into the clinic the next day. I have a rare blood type and required a Rogam shot during my first pregnancy. Something having to do with potential issues related to antibodies attacking the baby if they had a different blood type from mine. Anyway, I traveled to the lower Manhattan clinic on my own because my husband had to stay with our daughter. Without family nearby, there wasn’t a big support system at the time.

I sat in the clinic, in comfortable pants, arms folded, just numb. It was only seven weeks, I told myself. I have no recollection of what they did. I do remember getting that shot and then I went and got a manicure and a pedicure. I didn’t talk to anyone. It was only seven weeks. Not a fully formed baby.

What was weird, though, was that when I passed the baby, it felt like my body had reset somehow. I had a feeling from somewhere deep, from a place that only tells me truths, that this was the right thing. It was a knowledge from somewhere, maybe a voice, maybe just a feeling, but I do recall my body knowing that this was not an ok pregnancy, that this baby wasn’t supposed to be born and I had some weird sense of relief.

The issue with America and with New York in particularly, is that we don’t stop. We don’t rest. We don’t reflect. We just keep going. And that’s what I did. I just kept going. I returned to work right after. I’m not even sure if I took a sick day. I was back in the office and shared what happened with one colleague who had recently also had a miscarriage. We hugged and then, that was it. It was only seven weeks I told her. And I kept it moving.

In the coming months, our office would take a turn. The toxicity of Twitter and Slack pervaded our culture. We couldn’t have full staff meetings without someone getting up and screaming at

someone else or someone saying something and another person bursting into tears and storming out of the room.

I was so incredibly stressed every day at work, fearing becoming the target of this horrific call out culture that had overtaken our office. On our leadership team, I could definitely not be my full self and was constantly doing verbal gymnastics to make sure that I did not offend anyone by just being me.

It got to the point that my period would start literally when I walked into the leadership team meeting on Mondays when it was that time of the month. It was like clockwork for at least three of the months that I was trying to conceive after the miscarriage. (And I knew it because I was tracking it on my app.)

Things escalated to a breaking point when I was asked to misspend grant money and engage in a series of other improper fiscal requests. This, to me, was akin to stealing money. I wasn’t dumb and (brain stepping in - safety and pension are a good thing) documented all of these asks to my boss, in an email, requesting that we speak about them. That didn’t go over so well. I was yelled at for putting these things in writing and then, while I was on vacation in Florida soon after, was called by my boss to let me know that he needed to speak with me as soon as I got back. Super urgent.

I returned to the office and he sat down with me. Because I am me and sometimes my head can’t keep my mouth shut, I point blank asked him if he wanted me off the team and that I’d be happy to find another position. He said literally, “No, please don’t leave” and then we continued some bullshit conversation about why I was no longer able to be on the leadership team. Thank goodness for yoga and meditation, because I was able to be flexible in the moment and respond (not react), just saying yes, I am ok no longer being on the leadership team.

Now, here I am, two major life fails - no baby and basically a demotion.

It was at that point I just let go. It was either nervous breakdown or total acceptance. A forced epiphany: I cannot control these people and what they think of me, because they obviously hate me. But they need me because they can’t do the work without me. I jumped through all the fucking hoops to try to be accepted by them and here I am, kicked off the fucking team because I didn’t jump through the hoop of misspending the money. Fuck them. Fuck this. Time to just let go.

And I kept my same role, same title, same salary, same responsibilities, I just didn’t have to go to those dumb fucking meetings every Monday. It was kind of awesome.

My colleague remarked to me one day after being kicked off the team that I looked so much less stressed. And I was. I kept doing yoga, I began to start writing again to activate my creativity and I let go of the need to be perfect and on the right track and care about what some dumb assholes thought of me. I meditated every morning while my tea was stewing.

I ended up giving up on getting pregnant at one point. In August 2019 (when the baby would have been due - I only now realized), I ended up seeing a tarot card reader who said, “I don’t see a pregnancy in your future.”

And I gave up. We quit trying. I just said, well, I guess it’s done and it’s time to just live my life.

And you know what happened?

I got pregnant. Without intervention. No less than one month after that reading. A few months after being removed from the toxic leadership team and not long after I began writing and creating again.

The small changes had helped transform my body and heal it from the first pregnancy. My head had gotten better through regular meditation and study of Buddhist practices. My heart was more open than it had been in a while, thanks to a combination of yoga and meditation. And I wasn’t clinging to things that my head told me I should want, but my heart knew weren’t allowing me to be my true self.

Little did I know that 2020 would bring some other, wild and even more challenging experiences, but at that point, I was happy to be pregnant and healthy.

What more could I ask for, all coming my way with small changes and just letting go.

PS - Most of those people no longer work at my organization. One had an investigation called against her and the others that did not quit have all been sent off to the nether regions of the organization. The moral of that story, as I tell my daughter, is to always tell the truth and always do the right thing, even if it’s the unpopular thing. I have also risen to a very senior level role, driving incredibly impactful work. It all works out, it just takes time. Take care of your self, your body and your mind and good things will follow. :-)