Why I nearly quit Wellness

and how a job in a cafe turned out to be the best health retreat.

Sometimes to sort things out after crisis you need some deep reflection, a change of scenery, to spend some time contemplating and feeling.

In the world I come from and have spent the last 20 years in this would look like a luxury escape, some hiking in the hills with a guide to remind you to listen to the stillness, restorative baths, $200 facials and some crystal bowls to rebalance your chakras.

Basically Self Care on steroids

And some times you just need to chop wood and carry water in less than ideal conditions and trust that those things will be happen in the process. (facial not included, unless you’re counting the steam from the glass washer)

No I’ve not had a born again moment and renounced my love of complimentary medicine nor am I suddenly looking for double blind evidence based rhetoric on chakras.

There are far too many things I have seen and felt over the last 4 plus decades of my life to go back on my famous “And And” life philosophy.

Yin and Yang have been at the heart of my life for over 20 years.

The middle path is the one I am sworn to.

It is possible however that at some point I did drink a little too much cool aid. I”m still waiting for the results of those tests to come back.

Let me explain.

So a little over 4 months ago after three plus months of soaking in the most toxic and confidence crushing workplace culture I was made “redundant” from one of those types of places I mention above. IYKYK

I know also before we head into the body of this article that you really aren’t meant to share the details of these sorts of things. Especially in this industry. You’re meant to be all, “things happen for a reason” “I’ve learnt so much” “I wish them the best” etc etc

But hopefully by now we’ve all leant the dangers of spiritual gaslighting and toxic love and lighting experiences that require a little more depth.

Depth like feeling your anger, grief and disappointment.

Anger appropriately expressed is necessary and healthy, it alerts us to a rupture in our boundaries that we might not have been aware was happening. It tells us the tale of how we wanted and worked for a particular outcome and that our disappointment is painful.

It accurately informs us that someone we trusted has betrayed us and invites us to follow the line of that pain to its source so we might create better boundaries and manage who we trust in future more intelligently.

Our middle finger attitude is wise my friends, just not when we pull it out in traffic!

So I got made “redundant” 5 and 1/2 months into my full time contract (if you’re in HR you will know just how conniving this is) after months and months of negotiating and closing up my own business.

With a few hours notice and one weeks pay coming to me I drove out the gates for the last time after being expected to console the member of staff making me redundant. (yes really)

There was uncontrollable sobbing, out right lying, on the back of months of passive aggression, triangulation (where you gossip and back stab about someone else then actively pit them against you with the same tactics) and high end manipulation.

There is a lot I’m not going to detail here, it’s not necessary, but let this little article be instructive for those of you that still have a blind spot for narcissists because that is what I was dealing with here. (It’s been a blind spot for me too despite much work around this)

There was no way after months of this behaviour and mostly standing my ground that I was going to be allowed to stick around.

(A number of positions would be advertised and filled in the coming months that covered my role and the roles that I was intended to grow into. As you might imagine that was so much fun to hear about)

If you’d like to read more on how to recognise a narcissist in the workplace you can head to this BBC worklife article.

It’s salacious but this isn’t the main point of this article.

The main point.