A year ago I did a year review for 2019. It was the first time I ever did it. I had heard people talk about it and read them write about it and it sounded like an interesting thing to do.

And then 2020 came!

Living in Australia, the year began with horrifying fires in my beloved country and only 12 months later, it seems so far in the distance! As if it was five years ago. Now, 12 months ago, as we were lounging in the same Sunshine Coast house as in this very moment (January 2021), the TV was constantly showing the news of orange glowing cities, mask-wearing people, dying trees and creatures, lost homes and more.

We all felt so beyond helpless.

Now, the news are all about mask-wearing people, lost lives, and changing society, creatures reclaiming cities, not due to fires but the Corona Virus.

My year was barely touched by harsh lockdowns or high numbers of Covid cases in the city that I live in, but we did have a number of restrictions and month-long working-from-home arrangements. And I am beyond grateful to only have experienced that! I see friends and other people struggle and having to live through horrendous times and my heart goes out to you if you do too.

What impacted my life instead this year was a deep dive into my soul and a number of external circumstances.

That, combined with Covid context, made things go pretty wild.

But let’s begin with an observation I had made a while back. In many places - blogs, podcasts, articles, etc. - people tell their transformation story which often includes some kind of life epiphany, a breakdown, a burnout, or something else dramatic. But I always thought to myself that you shouldn’t need that in order to move from your current life into your dream life, to change your habits or to understand yourself fully. I had the impression that these people thought they were more than those who hadn’t experienced hardship.

But my judgment of those people was actually a form of jealousy. They had achieved something I was too scared of.

For a long time, I had only been scratching on my surface – although I thought I had gotten beyond that already.

I am an Enneagram 7 - the Enthusiast. (In this post I talk a lot about taking personality tests). And I really identify with my type. It includes being very optimistic, always seeing a silver lining, loving fun, loving stimulation, learning, new things, travelling, curiosity, beauty. I am not a very materialistic person but I can see how this applies to me.

But one sentence in the type description really bugged me and I disagreed with it when I first read it. It said, “As long as Sevens can keep their minds occupied, especially with projects and positive ideas for the future, they can, to some extent, keep anxiety and negative feelings out of conscious awareness.”

For the longest time, my reaction to that was, “who wants to feel negative feelings anyway?” and “Well, I don’t have anything negative to feel”.

But boy, was I wrong!

So, my 2020 was a turbulent year even if not touched a lot by Covid restrictions. I still went through a lot of very strong different phases and even had to do a few mini-reviews throughout the year for myself to understand what was happening.

So, let’s begin at the beginning.

I started this blog

When I began working from home, I started noticing quite quickly that my morning routine and my many mindfulness practices helped me a lot to stay sane and happy, calm and collected. For a few years, I had already been thinking that I want to get deeper in my mindfulness practice and I thought to myself that sharing about it, writing and talking about it can be one way to deepen my own experience with it. So, I started this blog in April 2020 and one of my first posts was how to apply mindfulness when working from home. (You can read it here.) I began to understand that this was the area I actually wanted to work in, and ideas like mindfulness teacher came up. I discovered Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield and adopted them as my new teachers.

I booked a coaching call

Without any clear idea of where this blog would lead me, I knew that I wanted to change my life and that I wanted to go ahead and work for myself again. But I was very cautious about it and planned ways of fading out my full-time job gradually while working up my own work until I could take it on full time. But one thing made it really difficult to believe that this would be possible. And that was my lack of self-confidence and my recent disconnect from my intuition. So, I booked a coaching call with Gabrielle Treanor. I had been following her for a while and read some of her work in various publications and basically trusted her. She is a wonderful woman with many meaningful insights. We figured out that I had been burying my intuition underneath a whole heap of consumption. Consumption of information. At this point I was reading up to four different books at the same time about all things from environmental topics, personal development and mindfulness, I spent my walks, commutes and runs listening to podcasts on similar topics, plus that of online business. And in the process, I simply lost connection to my own intuition, my own voice, my independent opinion, which used to be so strong! (I am sharing a story about my intuition in this blog post - it is really quite stunning and I love telling that story, so have a look if you wish!).

So, I went off the informational grid for 2 months

I am the kind of person who goes all or nothing. So, on the same day that I had my first ever coaching call I put the four books I was reading at the time aside, grabbed a light fiction book instead for my night-time routine, swapped podcasts with music, and went for silent walks and runs. It only took a few days to bring my intuition up again. I made some profound realisations, some that shook me at my core and that came entirely unexpectedly.

I realised that I crave community

For example, I asked myself - when in my life was I the happiest, the most me, had the strongest intuition? What was the situation like, who was I with, what did my days look like? And quite quickly I realised that it was whenever I was tied into a strong community of friends. I had moved a lot in the past ten years (after I finished school in Germany, I went to Australia, lived and studied in Norway and Sweden, lived in Brussels, and again - Australia). But I always had a strong community, except for recently, say, the last three years or so. Life started to get serious, uni was done with, work-life had to begin. And in the process, I had let go of community. I had started in quite an isolating career, thinking I need to do everything on my own and alone. And over a few years I accidentally isolate myself. But now I realised that I needed to undo that. In his book The Blue Zones of Happiness, Dan Buettner shares that people in the happiest places on Earth (or where the most centenarians are found), people commonly socialised six hours a day!!! Removing ourselves from the community can foster unhappiness, decrease mental and physical health, and similar things. Apparently, it can also reduce the strength of your intuition …

I found that coaching would be a perfect fit for me

With my second call with Gabrielle, I noticed that coaching would be an amazing fit for me for various reasons and I decided to make this part of my upcoming adventure of working for myself again. In this way, I would be able to apply all the knowledge from the reading I had been doing for years, I would create meaningful and deep connections, I would be able to help and guide others, be of service, have purpose and do meaningful work.

But I wanted to begin my new adventure with a clean slate, and from a good healthy place. And I knew that there were some things within me that I needed to talk about with a professional. There were memories that I needed to work through, memories that I had never before told anyone about but that kept influencing my life in a negative way. I was finally ready and had a great motivation to face my trauma.

I began seeing a counsellor

This was my third attempt over the years to see a counsellor/therapist and this time it stuck. Without going into the nitty-gritty detail of my discoveries, I can say that it has literally changed my life to talk about my trauma, to analyse it and learn about it. I learned that in my teenage years, there were things that had happened to me that were not normal. That I had experienced behaviours and treatment that was not normal. That was unacceptable. There were some very dark days for me, sitting with this realisation. Somewhere deep down I had always known this but I always rejected that as my reality. So, there was a lot of journalling, watching YouTube videos by psychologists, more counselling sessions… Until a cloud began to lift. An inner cloud that I had suppressed for many years. The relief and freedom are nearly impossible to describe.

Awareness always comes first. When there is awareness, you have the chance to make changes in your life - big or small. It is up to you.

I took the Myers Briggs Test

Having started on my personality test journey a few months earlier with the Enneagram test, I decided to take the Myers Briggs test as well. I had taken away so much from the Enneagram test and was sure that another test would add even more; another perspective and nuance. And it did. I am an INFJ (Advocate) and this result opened up a whole new and deeper understanding of myself. It also overlapped with what I had discovered with my counsellor, it explained why I struggled at my day job AND it even confirmed my new dream of coaching: “People with this personality type tend to see helping others as their purpose in life. Advocates can often be found engaging in rescue efforts and doing charity work. However, their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people need not be rescued at all” and “Combining a vivid imagination with a strong sense of compassion, Advocates use their creativity to resolve not technical challenges, but human ones. People with the Advocate personality type enjoy finding the perfect solution for someone they care about. This strength makes them excellent counselors and advisors”.

Moment of enlightenment

A little while later – still without reading non-fiction or listening to podcasts – I had an odd moment. I felt like I had cracked the code. It was a strange feeling. I had so many thoughts based on my reading, learning, experiences, practising presence, stillness, meditation, and talking about it with good friends. Everything seemed to suddenly make perfect sense and to be deeply interconnected in a self-sustained, complex network of correlations, interdependencies, causes, effects and conditions of empathy, time, ego, feminine & masculine energies, nature, food, rest, seasons, agriculture, intentions, inner body wisdom, anxieties, mind-body alignment, fear, freedom, attachment, slowing down, mindfulness, presence, consumerism, memories, time affluence, businessmen turned monks, mindset, senses, and more, all circulating around love, peace and happiness for us as individuals and as part of a magical, gigantic ecosystem of people, creatures and life. It was a fantastical moment and it is the foundation of my future work.

But unhappiness at work intensified

With all of those positive and deep experiences in my personal life, I was still working a full-time job from home, trying to write blog posts and study before and after work (I was studying the Science of Wellbeing course by Yale University at the time). The situation at work became quite grim and unhappy. I tried various things in order to improve my situation at work - from rethinking my tasks, my approach to work, to talking to my manager and other people, but nothing worked. I had been unhappy with it for a few months but stuck with it hoping it would only be a phase. But it wasn’t. Instead, I was waiting in high anticipation for the weekends that I had booked at the coast, which I spent writing and planning. And yet, my unhappiness at work had started to impact me mentally and also dripped into my relationship and into conversations with friends to an extent that I didn’t like.

Week in depression

That wasn’t okay but I could still stick with it until I reached a point where I would wake up and be unhappy and go to bed and be unhappy. I was so confused about that because usually, I am a very enthusiastic, driven, curious person. But nothing I tried and nothing that usually makes me happy would make me happy during this phase. I was honestly scared. I started to realise that I was heading straight for depression if I was not already in it.

Week in helplessness —> burnout

Physical pains started to emerge, too. I had horrifying headaches for a week and a half, tinnitus, icepick headaches, dry mouth, and extreme fatigue. I took naps whenever I could but I was never rested. I sleep 8 hours a night, but during this phase, it didn’t help. I was always tired. I started to get frustrated and desperate to feel happy again. I didn’t understand why I was so unhappy and how to get out of it. It was two of the most horrible weeks of my life and I am not exaggerating. I was TERRIFIED to get real chemical depression, lasting effects - mental or physical. There were moments when I was afraid my ears would pop from the pressure I felt in my head due to stress. I realised I was having a real burnout. And that scared the crap out of me. I had heard that people can end up in the hospital due to burnout and I wanted to avoid that with all my might.

Final breakdown & decision to resign

I had started to talk about my experience on Instagram. I wasn’t really thinking about it because my brain was too tired to think ahead or even doubt myself. Usually, I never posted negative things but something was different at this moment. And the response was overwhelmingly supportive from so many friends and even strangers. Even an old friend from high school years got in touch when she read my post. I felt so held and heard. With that, I thought I would be okay. Everything can get better now, I thought. But then I had one final breakdown. I couldn’t hold my shit together anymore. I was so desperate to feel better again. I was so deep in tears and hyperventilation and fear and pain and exhaustion. Luckily my partner was with me when it happened and together we decided that I needed to quit. Work had become too toxic and now affected my deep mental and also physical health. So, it was the only way out.

Professional support

The week after I went to the doctor. I told her about my experiences and she immediately recognised that I was under extreme stress, going through burnout and after doing some questionnaires about my previous week, told me that I was at high risk for developing depression and anxieties. But at the point of the appointment, I already felt so (!) much better from the decision to resign. (Sometimes making a decision can change your world.) The doctor still seemed genuinely worried about me and talked about sending me to psychoanalysts and putting me on medication. I refused both. I was scared seeing how worried a real doctor was - it showed me that I was not making things up. But I knew I had my counsellor and I knew that things would get better now. And they did.

Reawakening

Although this experience was about 9 months in the making, I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t expect it. I never would have thought I would go through something like this. Since I had already been meditating for ten years and had a pretty solid mindfulness practice, I thought I was immune. But there are external circumstances that can make life hell on Earth. But sometimes such is life. And we ought to learn from all our experiences. Over a few days after my decision to resign, I coached myself on this situation during my commute to work. I talked myself through it, asked myself deep questions and also applied a technique for making aligned decisions. I wanted to explore if this decision really FEELS right. And, oh boy, it did! (I describe the technique that I used in this post). I also gave myself a few days and weeks to recover. I was entirely wiped out but my spirit was back. I started to feel rested again after sleep, the headaches disappeared, all pains and worries disappeared. I knew I would be out of my situation very soon which lit me up at work, too. But most of all, I began looking forward to the next chapter.

I tried out Human Design

My third and last personality test for 2020 was Human Design. This one is not really a personality test, it is rather a system based on astrology, I Ching, Kabbalah and the Chakras. It is quite spiritual. And it encourages you to come home to yourself, to unlearn your conditioning and to embrace your true self. This was another tool that helped me see that turning my back to the career I was in was not a bad thing. It may just be me unlearning what I thought was the right thing to do and now I am giving myself permission to be unapologetic myself. I am a Projector and the type explains so eerily well why I was so unhappy in my job (in a different way than the Myers Briggs). A Projector sees things. They see ways of doing things differently, better and more efficiently. But they must be asked for advice. If they give unsolicited advice (which happens easily because it is so natural for a Projector to see through and understand an entire system or person quickly and project outcomes), they will not be heard which in turn leaves them bitter. That had been my every day at work.

Follow-through

2020 offered me more ups and downs and sad hiccups, for instance, a few days after my visit at the doctor, my grandfather passed away in Germany, and in December – two weeks before my Christmas break – my beloved pet bunny had an accident which was just horrifying. Luckily, it all worked out well after 2 weeks of running in and out of the vet, a surgery and nights and days of feeding but it definitely took a massive toll on me. These experiences nearly tipped me back into my dark place. But they didn’t. The decision to leave my job had made all the difference and I was able to deal with life again. And I stuck with my decision to leave the job - there was no way back - and on my last day before the Christmas break, I gave notice. The way this meeting went wasn’t golden either, but it was a spot-on representation of my experience with the job over the past few months. I knew – and friends and colleagues said it too – it proved that I had made the right decision.

Hope & excitement for my and your future

And now I am filled with excitement for what is to come in the new year, 2021. I am thrilled to explore different work. My work. My work of good. Myers Briggs explains about the Advocate: “They need opportunities to learn and grow alongside the people they are helping and contribute to the well-being of humanity on a personal level”. So, that is what my work will be. To design my life and that of others (maybe yours?) for more happiness, mindfulness and purpose.

Thanks 2020, you were insane, but I learned a bunch.