Silver Linings
As most of you know or maybe some of you don’t, I was fired from my job in October of 2022. It did not come as a shock for me, I saw the writing on the walls for months leading up to it and even years prior. Although I believe there was an injustice that took place, I am here to talk about the positives that came out of that situation as it was a time of immense spiritual and personal growth for me. As we go through our youth and early adulthood, we are taught or at least shown that getting fired is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. I am not saying that it was fun and that I had the time of my life (although I did get to do some amazing things with some amazing people during the last year and a half), but rather the challenges I had to overcome during this time were painful but worth it to feel how I do today. During that time, I had space to reflect on where I have been, who I am, who I want to be and where I want to go without too many outside influences so that I could focus on what I really wanted not what anyone else wanted for me. Below I cover three of my major takeaways and learning experiences over the course of the last two years.
The most important lesson that I learned during this time was that caring what other people think is robbing you of what you deserve. I am not saying go around and be an asshole and be terrible to people but everyone has a different set of life experiences and those experiences shape their core beliefs and approach and views on life may be way different than yours. People love to offer their opinions, unsolicited, often from a good place most of the time but they are only able to comment on the depth of their own understanding, not yours. Discerning this context was important for me when it came to learning how to not take things personally and what things to take in and what to let bounce right off. I am an empath and a highly sensitive person so I do feel things intensely and I am very in tune to small nuances, change in body language, change in text tone. I had to learn not to take these things personally and once I was able to strengthen this skill through yoga and meditation things started to get a lot easier for me. That doesn’t mean go live in a cave by yourself and only listen to yourself 100% of the time but rather go internal when you need to and seek advice from a supportive group if you feel like you need guidance which brings me to my second silver lining.
There were a lot of shake ups in my personal life when I got fired as well. At the time, it felt like I was losing a lot of people but what was really happening was that space was being made for the right ones to make their way in. When you have people and mentors in your life that you can trust and that you feel safe with, information flows more freely and less confusion ensues. When you can openly talk to someone about a problem you are having without any fear of judgment, you are more likely to get to the root of the problem because there is no space for shame. I am very grateful to have some incredible women in my life who have guided me through this with grace and love. These are your people.
The last thing that I think that grew through this experience was my capacity to handle harder more complex challenges has increased exponentially. I’ve played elite hockey my entire life and I have had my fair share of challenges but something like this is different than anything I have ever experienced. It’s isolating, you know people have made assumptions about you that you know aren’t fair but as much as I hate to say, this our parents are right, life is not fair and those probably are not your people. Sitting with this has really helped me realize that no matter what there will be people in your corner and people not in your corner and that’s part of the challenge. Standing alone is hard but through the pain and suffering, my self esteem, self worth and belief in self has become more solid. I trust my gut and my intuition more now which is something that I have struggled with my entire life. I’ve enjoyed taking this time to spend time with family and friends and really slow down to focus on what really matters in this life.
I plan to use this platform to speak authentically about my experiences in life, hockey, work and personal life. I hope that most of my entries will be positive and uplifting but sometimes the truth doesn’t go that way. I urge you if you have any questions or are struggling with anything, especially young female adults please reach out. You are never alone.
