Mindful in 5 Podcast

I Have a Confession

• Spiwe Jefferson • Season 5 • Episode 177

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Pre-order your copy of Phoenix Rising - Ignite Your Job Search

If you are dealing with a voluntary or involuntary transition, this episode is for you. 

And today, I'm getting vulnerable with you with a surprising confession.

And it is my intention to lift your spirits and you might even laugh:)

Have you ever noticed how your brain treats job loss like it's being chased by a predator? That's because your nervous system doesn't distinguish between a saber-toothed tiger and a severance package. Both trigger the same survival response, even when you've voluntarily left your position.

Core Psychological Insights: 

  • Your emotional complexity during transitions isn't a character flaw—it's your psyche processing significant change
  • Research shows professionals who thrive develop psychological flexibility rather than suppress difficult feelings
  • Career transitions activate a unique neural pathway that most employed individuals never access

Identity Disruption as Catalyst: 

  • The question "Who am I if not my title?" represents a powerful pattern interrupt that can catalyze transformation
  • Between professional identities, you access unprecedented freedom to experiment without organizational constraints

Strategic Emotional Processing: 

  • Create intentional space for your complete emotional spectrum—disappointment, anger, relief, excitement—without judgment 
  • Practice a daily five-minute morning reflection to decode emotional patterns without suppression 

Transformation Opportunity: 

  • Career transitions offer a rare window to rewire limiting professional beliefs and align with your authentic self 
  • Your brain is literally creating new neural pathways for professional growth during this pivotal moment


More Links and Resources

Summer Zen Series Introduction

Speaker 1

Welcome to the Mindful in 5 Summer Zen Series , your hub for thriving leaders . Here we will explore actionable insights to support resilience and success as we navigate the unique chaos of summer , and success as we navigate the unique chaos of summer . I'm Spheer Deverson , certified mindfulness practitioner , lawyer and author of the Mindful in 5 book series . I believe we all deserve a bit more balance and peace , especially when work and life get a little hectic . When work and life get a little hectic While you're enjoying the sunshine and this vibrant season , I'm excited to share insights and practices that can help you integrate mindfulness , balance , peace and a sense of purpose , whether summer's just beginning or winter's at your door . Grab a comfy spot and let's explore these practices together . Elevate your work , empower your life , work higher , live stronger . Let's go . Do you know what today is ? What a fox ? What today is ? Well , it is my day to be vulnerable with you because I have a confession . Keep listening

Career Transitions and Nervous System

Speaker 1

and I will tell you . Today . Our title is I have confession and we are decoding something powerful .

Speaker 1

If you have recently experienced a voluntary or involuntary job transition , there is a good chance that your nervous system is processing this as a threat , a threat . You might be feeling angry or sad or scared , like what did I just do ? This is completely normal and before we go on , let's talk about those voluntary transitions for a minute , because if you have gone through an involuntary one , you might be thinking who is she talking to ? I'll give you a few examples . In the book Mindful in Five , there is a character named Sengita who , after a lot of soul searching , decides that she is going to quit her job because she wants to go to law school . Everybody , I think , who's been in college may remember a group of college students that , at least when I was in college , were called non-traditional students . These were people who had gone out into the workforce for a while and then come back to college or , in my case , to law school , to get either another degree or maybe even their first degree . This is not unusual and it takes , in my opinion , courage and huge intentionality to stop your life in mid-career to go back to school and do something even better that you want for the rest of your career journey . That is an example of a voluntary transition . Or I have known people who have quit their jobs because they recognize that the role that they were in was not right for them , or maybe they had a terrible boss , or maybe they just wanted a change . I have a very brave friend who left a perfectly good job in a perfectly decent situation because she wanted to take time out to think about what she wanted for her career journey .

Speaker 1

There are lots of times when people may choose to quit a job . You may have heard during the pandemic , people were quitting jobs left , right and center because they wanted

My Confession: Career Hiatus

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to go and get a different job , or maybe a better job , or maybe a higher paying job . So there are many times that people have voluntary transitions from one job to maybe just space , or from one job to the next . This , as I said , is completely normal . So , whether you have chosen to leave a job or whether your job disappeared , whatever your situation is , I am talking to you today Because your brain's ancient wiring does not distinguish between a saber-toothed tiger and a severance package .

Speaker 1

Both can trigger the same survival response , and that can be true . Even when you made a clear-headed decision , the day after you might be thinking oh my gosh , what did I just do ? I mean , it made sense yesterday , but does it really ? But here's the thing this same disruption that feels threatening is actually creating the perfect conditions for neuroplasticity your brain's remarkable ability to rewire itself . The uncertainty you are experiencing isn't just discomfort . It's literally opening new neural pathways for growth and transformation . Before we shift into solutions and I invite you to come back to next episode where we'll be diving into solutions let's create space for what's really happening inside of you . Maybe there is anger towards your former employer . Perhaps there is disappointment about how things unfolded . You may be cycling through resentment , fear or even relief , sometimes all the same in the same space of a morning or an afternoon .

Speaker 1

Now here is the part where I give you my confession . In my most recent role , I was the general counsel , chief of staff and corporate secretary of my company . I loved the job so much I was literally dreaming about my to-do list . I would wake up in the morning and just fight the urge to sprint to my desk so that I could make time for my morning meditation and workout

Emotional Processing and Identity Crisis

Speaker 1

In a whirlwind of great activity . In a whirlwind of great activity , we launched a lot of new initiatives , rebranded the major corporate brands of the organization , sold some significant parts of the company , sold some real estate , did a lot of merger and acquisition activity that ultimately resulted in us selling the whole company to a publicly traded parent that already had a law department , so our legal department in my company was eliminated . So , as I talk to you now , I am on a career hiatus .

Speaker 1

Now you might be surprised to hear that , but that is not even the confession . The confession is that , by the end of the day , that was my last with the company . That was my last with the company the overwhelming emotion that I had was a sense of relief and freedom . As I said , I loved my job . So you might be thinking well , how could this be that you're feeling relief and freedom ? Well , I had been working crazy hours , sometimes 16-hour days , and I didn't even realize how heavy a weight I had been carrying until it was lifted . I felt like I didn't have I wouldn't have called it work-life balance , but I was juggling and I felt like I had a reasonable amount of work-life harmony .

Speaker 1

But on the first evening that my girlfriend called to check on me and she asked me what I was doing , I told her I was walking around the lake by the gym and I asked her do you know why I'm walking around the lake ? At 6 pm , melanie ? And she said no , spiwe , why are you walking around the lake at 6 pm , melanie ? And she said , no , spiwe , why are you walking around the lake at 6 pm ? And I yelled because I can . And I literally cackled with glee . I didn't have to run home to work until bedtime , you see , and I just felt so free . Look at me . I get to walk around the lake at 6 pm without feeling like , oh , I have to go to work . And you know , to be clear , no one at my company mandated those hours . I drove myself that hard because I loved what I was doing . I was also surrounded with a lot of other general counsel who were working those kinds of crazy hours . So we essentially reinforced that crazy imbalance for ourselves . And now that I'm done with that job , my overarching emotion in this season has been that sense of relief and just expansive freedom . But I'm sharing it with you because I want you to see and hear that there are lots of different ways to process a transition in your professional life and it's not all bad .

Speaker 1

In the Mindful and Five book series , I started writing these books because there were so many professionals that I was running into who were encountering just dark seasons in their careers . Unquote ladder was a lot more work were 16 hour days , was a lot of travel , which sounds fancy , but what it really means is you're probably working on the plane , you're working in a different time zone , you don't have time for your body to adjust to said time zone . So you land at 7 am and you are in the office at maybe 9 am in the morning and you're going all day six hours different from where you left and you are just expected to navigate those kinds of just physical stressors on your body . And so I wrote the books to suggest that there is a different way to navigate those kinds of challenges . Even if your job does look like that , even if your life in this moment is not perfect , because I believe that for the most part you know , for most of us life is always a little bit crooked where you kind of say , well , it's going great , except for that one thing . And that one thing could be anything . But here is the point thing could be anything . But here is the point there is no right or wrong way to feel about your situation .

Speaker 1

This emotional complexity is not a flaw in your character . It is your psyche processing a significant life transition . Research in emotional psychology shows that attempting to suppress these feelings actually amplifies their intensity and duration . So right now , I am giving you explicit permission , in fact , I am inviting you to feel whatever you feel without judgment . I like to say that mindfulness is all about being present in the moment , without judgment and without being overwhelmed by what's happening around you . And even in this moment . Maybe you appreciate that , even though I can say that in a few words , it can actually be incredibly challenging to do , especially the judgment and the overwhelmed part .

Speaker 1

Dr Stephen Hayes , creator of acceptance and commitment therapy , discovered something profound the people who thrive during life transitions are not those who avoid difficult emotions . They are those who develop psychological flexibility . This means learning to hold both your disappointment about the past and your curiosity about the future simultaneously . Now here is the liberation blueprint that research validates , blueprint that research validates when you are in between professional identities , you have access to a unique form of freedom yeah , freedom , I said it that most employed people never experience or just don't have time to experience . You get to experiment with different versions of yourself , without the constraints of organizational expectations or role-based identity . Now I understand that many of you listening to this episode may have intentionally or unintentionally wrapped your identity in your role .

Speaker 1

Many committed and successful leaders do I remember I did that very early in my career . I was a lawyer

Phoenix Rising Book Announcement

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. If somebody said to me , sue , what do you do ? I'm a lawyer . That's the first thing . Any form of the question , who are you ? The first thing I would say is I'm a lawyer .

Speaker 1

And so when I made a voluntary transition because my husband and I moved and we left Ohio and we moved to Iowa , and I got to Iowa and I didn't have a job for a while and in fact , my husband said to me well , you know , cost of living is low enough , I'm doing well enough , you don't even have to work . And I tried that for a minute . But the thing that I had not anticipated , that I found just the hardest thing , was if I wasn't a lawyer , what was I ? So now , when people said , what do you do , I had the hardest time coming up with an answer . And I have had friends who have gone through the same identity crisis when they left one role and were really thinking about if I'm not working in this moment , who am I ? This is not unusual . It is something that many committed and successful leaders experience .

Speaker 1

The trouble with that is when you are obviously not doing the job that you were attaching your identity to it can leave you feeling untethered , lost , confused , like who am I now If I'm not ? The blah , blah , blah , fill in the blanks of your title ? We will tackle more of that topic on another day , because I feel like it warrants its own entire episode , but for now , just know that you are not alone in your struggle . So that is where I will leave you this week . I just want you to marinate in this idea that you can create space for what's happening inside of you , and also that it doesn't make you disloyal , it doesn't make you weird . It doesn't make you strange if some of that emotion is actually maybe relief or joy , or delight , or anticipation , or curiosity , or just enthusiasm and excitement about what is in front of you . And it's not weird if you experience that , even at the same time as you might have times when you feel disappointed that things did not go differently , or you might feel angry even at how things went down . And so just allow yourself to feel all of those things and give yourself the space to navigate all of that emotion . I am , on most days , just really excited about the space that this grants me and what I get to do and what I get to think about , and I'll talk more about what that looks like for me in the next episode . Join me for the next episode and let's keep this conversation going .

Speaker 1

My next Mindful and Five book is called Phoenix Rising Ignite your Job Search , and it's all about how you can rise from the ashes of shock , surprise , despair , anger , all the things , and rise like a phoenix from the ashes into the dawn and the day of your next professional adventure . Click on the link at the top of the show notes for this episode to pre-order your copy today . It is all about how to navigate the intersection of mindfulness , ai and traditional job searching

Mindful Practice and Closing

Speaker 1

capabilities , but also how to give yourself the mindful space to recover from your last role and re-energize yourself so that , if it feels like you're sitting over there in ashes and sackcloth , throwing ashes on your head because you're so in despair , how do you rise from that like a phoenix and reignite that job search ? I believe that you can absolutely do it and I would love for you to have the confidence . Even when you don't feel so great , have the confidence to know that this can happen for you , and it is my wish that it does , that it does Hold those different thoughts in your heart .

Speaker 1

Give yourself time every morning for five minutes . Sit by yourself and give yourself permission to reflect on so , how am I feeling this morning , how am I feeling today , how am I feeling about my life , how am I feeling about my career ? And allow whatever emotion to come . Just Just come and don't squash it . Don't say to yourself I shouldn't be feeling this way . Don't say to yourself oh , I should be bigger than this . You're not bigger than anything . Feel all the things that you need to feel , because that will be your fastest path through that season . If it's your dark season , that will allow you the freedom to enter into a new dawn season , a new day season . That will equip you with the mindset that you need to go out there and find your next adventure and be successful Until next week . This is Be Weigh saying , be mindful and be well .

Speaker 2

Thank you for listening to Mindful in 5 . If you enjoyed it , share it with a friend , follow and rate it on your favorite podcast platform . Pick up your signed copy of the book and journal from spewayjeffersoncom , or unsigned copies from Amazon , barnes , noble or wherever you get your books . Visit spewayjeffersoncom to download sample chapters of the book , watch videos and become a mindful ninja . Join us on the LinkedIn Mindful in 5 group and share your thoughts . Until next time , be mindful and be well .