The Butterfly Witch

Happy Monday, Wonderfully Witchy people!

How was your weekend?! Mine has been filled with some much-needed rest and relaxation – the constant fog and drizzle were a wonderful reminder to slow down.

As I mentioned in my last post (Things I Love Thursday, if you missed it!), I recently made a major life decision. It was scary: it required a leap of faith in both myself and the Universe. But in the words of Spock’s father: “What is necessary is never unwise.”

So: I put in my notice at work.

This is a HUGE thing for me. Sure, I’ve left jobs before, but this was different. I wasn’t quitting to go back to school, to move across the country, or because I had something else immediately on the horizon.

I left for my own self-care.

I started this job back in October, moving into a position that seemed like a solid career move. It was the Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 life I’d always associated with “success”.

Friends, I’m going to be real: it was awful pretty much from the outset. At first, I figured it was just a period of adjustment: isn’t it always hard for the first little while in a new job?

I was under-trained. My working relationships quickly became strained due to errors and my lack of knowledge, and no matter how hard I worked to improve, to hold myself accountable, to fix everything, I was running into challenges and resistance. This lasted for months, and I was becoming exhausted, bitter, worn out. I’d made the Toxic Workplace Tarot Spread in order to help me navigate the major bad vibes.

The cards gave me some good advice, but things kept getting worse.

And it wasn’t just me: we had major turn over in the span of just six months, with over half the office moving to new positions elsewhere in the organization. My workload doubled.

Now I was staving off regular panic attacks. This job had me feeling hopeless, stuck, unable to improve, and completely overwhelmed by everything being demanded of me. My hard work, dedication, and long hours at the office to deal with the increased workload didn’t seem to make a difference: I’d been labeled a fuck up from the very beginning. I now realize that I was being gaslighted on more than a few occasions.

I’d made all kinds of justifications to stay: wasn’t this all just the ego mind? Wasn’t it good to be humbled? Isn’t work meant to be challenging? Shouldn’t I be able to just let go of my emotions?

But my intuition nagged at me. If I’d tried everything and things didn’t improve, what more could be done? I’d done things both practical and witchy: gotten more training, implemented suggestions from management, engaged in constant self-care, did affirmations, laid out crystals on my desk, used different communication strategies. Nothing was working.

I started to wonder if maybe this was a challenge, an important lesson in seeing how far I’d let myself be pushed.

Take the leap, my Inner Wise Self urged me. Love yourself enough to take this leap and just leave.

It came down, simply, to this: if I wouldn’t accept these behaviors from a partner or friend, why would I accept them from a workplace?

I couldn’t find an answer for that. So I put in my notice.

Gratitude is important to me, and in my soul-searching about this decision, I’ve been working hard to be grateful. Don’t get me wrong: my spirit was suffering from giving so much of my time and energy and meeting with more challenges, more resistance, more toxicity. But I firmly believe in the value of gratitude, even for hard lessons.

So I put it out to the universe: I now release this job with gratitude.

And I am grateful. I’ve learned a lot of skills, both practical and personal. I know that my dedication to work can – must! – also serve my highest good. Most importantly, I know that I can let go of something not meant for me.

And I sincerely hope that the next person in this position has a lot of success and support in their journey.

May we all prosper and thrive in things that serve our highest good.

Thanks for listening, lovely people! ❤