There are moments in life when you think you’re making a decision about your career, only to realize you’re actually uncovering something much deeper.
That’s what happened to me.
Two weeks ago, I left my job teaching group fitness classes in infrared heat.
For a long time, I convinced myself I just needed to push through. The exhaustion. The long days. The constant giving. I thought maybe I wasn’t disciplined enough. Maybe I just needed to become stronger.
But my body kept whispering something my mind wasn’t ready to hear.
My appetite changed. I gained weight. My stamina disappeared. I was tired all the time. Emotionally, I felt flat. Life started feeling heavier than it should have.
And the hardest part wasn’t any of those things.
It was looking in the mirror and quietly thinking, “I don’t recognize myself anymore.”
So I left.
People have asked me if it was scary. Of course it was. Walking away from something familiar almost always is.
But what surprised me wasn’t the fear.
It was what happened afterward.
Within a week and a half, my body already felt different. I had more energy and I didn’t wake up feeling like I had to drag myself through the day. It felt as though my nervous system had finally exhaled after holding its breath for months.
I should have felt relieved.
But instead, I became incredibly emotional.
At first I thought maybe something was wrong. Why was I crying so much now that I had finally removed myself from the thing that had been exhausting me?
Then I realized something.
My body had stopped surviving.
Which meant my heart finally had room to speak.
And it had a lot to say.
There was grief I hadn’t fully processed. The end of a relationship, both career and community I build, and personal, with someone I’ve been holding onto for 10 years. Old losses that still lived quietly inside me. Grief that still struggled to find a safe place to land. The disappointment of looking at my life and wondering why it didn’t look the way I had imagined it would by now.
And underneath all of that was a question that felt almost impossible to answer.
Where am I going?
For months, maybe even years, Root to Rise had felt so clear in my heart. I could picture it. I knew what I wanted people to feel. I knew why I wanted to build it.
But suddenly it felt so far away. Almost like I had been walking toward a mountain that somehow kept moving farther into the distance.
At the same time as all this uncertainty and change, another opportunity appeared.
A café.
On paper, it made sense. It was a slower environment, community, good people; a healthier pace than teaching multiple classes in infrared heat. Everyone around me could probably understand why it seemed like a good next step.
But every time I imagined saying yes... I felt this strange heaviness in my chest.
At first, I couldn’t explain it.
Until I caught myself saying something out loud. I was told by him and the friend who recommended this job to me, how much he needs someone like me.
“The owner needs me.”
The moment those words left my mouth, another memory immediately followed.
At my previous job, people would often tell me, “If you leave, the studio won’t be the same.” “People come because of you.” “The studio will struggle without you.”
At the time, I took those comments as compliments.
And maybe some of them were.
But somewhere along the way, appreciation slowly became responsibility.
Without realizing it, I had become the person who carried everyone else.
The reliable one. The dependable one. The person who stayed. The person who fixed things. The person everyone counted on.
As I sat with that realization, something else surfaced.
Almost every job I’ve ever had has involved taking care of people.
Working with individuals with disabilities. Supporting families. Teaching movement. Leading teams. Coaching. Holding space. Giving.
I’ve spent so much of my life helping other people carry theirs.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking who was helping me carry mine.
Then a thought crossed my mind that I couldn’t ignore.
The only times I’ve ever truly stopped working were because life had completely broken me open.
I took months away from work after everything came crashing down a few years ago: losing my grandmother, walking through an abusive relationship, an abortion…
Every period of rest in my life had been earned through unimaginable grief.
And suddenly I wondered...
Have I unknowingly taught myself that I only deserve to stop when something terrible happens? That rest has to be justified; that I have to completely fall apart before I’m allowed to put myself back together.
That realization sat heavily with me.
Because I don’t want that to be true anymore.
Rest shouldn’t be something we earn through suffering. It shouldn’t require burnout. It shouldn’t require losing ourselves first.
The conversation continued, and almost without thinking, I said something that surprised even me.
“I don’t want to work.”
The more I listened to myself, the more I realized that wasn’t entirely true.
I don’t think I was saying I didn’t want a job.
I think what I was really saying was...
“I’m tired of constantly taking care of everyone else.”
There is a difference.
A huge one.
Then another sentence came out. One that changed everything.
“I think I want to stop.”
Stop social media. Stop the podcast. Stop creating. Stop all of it.
For a moment, I thought I was giving up. I wondered if maybe Root to Rise wasn’t meant to happen. Maybe I had outgrown the dream. Maybe I had been unrealistic.
But instead of trying to convince me otherwise, someone asked me a question I hadn’t considered.
“Do you actually want to stop creating…or do you just not want to perform anymore?”
And for the first time in a long time, I knew the answer without having to think about it.
I don’t want to stop creating.
I want to stop performing.
I want to stop feeling like my worth depends on staying visible. I want to stop forcing myself to speak before I’ve had the chance to listen to my own heart.
I want to stop asking myself, “What should I post?”
...and start asking myself, “What feels true?”
That was the first moment I felt it.
The heaviness began to lift.
Not because my future suddenly became clear. Nothing about my circumstances had changed. I still didn’t know what job I was going to take. I still didn’t know what the next year would look like. I still had grief to carry.
But for the first time in a long time...
I felt closer to myself than I had in months.
And looking back now, I think that was the moment this story really began.