Hey friend,
The questions you submitted for this month’s Q&A revealed something I see constantly with driven and ambitious women: the excruciating paralysis of wanting to leave something that’s harming you while simultaneously terrifying yourself with every possible worst-case scenario.
Questions about how to distinguish between burnout and self-sabotage when you’re considering leaving. About managing reputation concerns around high-profile exits—especially when you know women’s departures are scrutinized differently. About the crushing guilt of leaving your team behind, even though you’re drowning. About not knowing who you’ll be outside your role after years of building your identity around it. About anticipating the regret and nostalgia that might make you doubt yourself later. About feeling completely blank and exhausted when people ask “so what’s next?”
Your questions weren’t asking for career transition advice or networking strategies. They were asking something much more fundamental: How do I trust myself when leaving feels both absolutely necessary and potentially devastating? How do I know if I’m honoring my needs or running away? And most urgently—what if I’m making the biggest mistake of my professional life?
These are the questions that keep driven women awake at 3 AM, mentally rehearsing resignation conversations while simultaneously talking themselves out of it—because leaving something you’ve built your identity around isn’t just a career move. It’s an identity crisis with a performance review attached.
In this month’s Q&A, I address the real mechanics behind professional endings and what actually helps you trust yourself through the disorientation.
Here’s part of my response to the reader asking how to know if it’s really time to leave:
“The nervous system can’t distinguish between actual existential risk and the ’emotional death’ of staying somewhere you don’t belong. If you’ve tried to set boundaries, asked for changes, reflected honestly with every intention of staying—and yet your body keeps registering dread, I think it’s wise to stop questioning whether this is self-sabotage and start trusting your somatic signals.”
The complete Q&A goes deeper into what I call “emotional weather”—expecting and normalizing the regret, nostalgia, and doubt that come even with good endings. I also address the reality that your first job after leaving in severe burnout is recovery, not reimagining—and why that blankness about “what’s next” is actually your nervous system’s wisdom, not failure.
These conversations are too nuanced for surface-level career advice and too specific for generic transition support. They’re for women who understand that leaving isn’t the hard part—it’s trusting yourself while everyone around you projects their own fears onto your decision.
The full 30-minute recording and complete transcript are below, including practical frameworks for managing guilt about leaving your team, handling pushback from people who think you’re making a mistake, and specific rituals that actually help metabolize the grief of professional endings.
If you’re not yet a paid subscriber and want access to the complete monthly Q&As, upgrade below to join this ongoing conversation about building lives where leaving something harmful doesn’t require you to have all the answers first.
Looking for more?
You’re reading part of a larger body of work now housed inside Strong and Stable—a space for ambitious women who wake up at 3 AM with racing hearts, who can handle everyone else’s crises but don’t know who to call when you’re falling apart, who’ve built impressive lives that somehow feel exhausting to live inside.
All new writing—essays that name what’s been invisible, workbooks that actually shift what feels stuck, and honest letters about the real work beneath the work, and Q&As where you can ask your burning questions (anonymously, always)—lives there now, within a curated curriculum designed to move you from insight to action.
If you’re tired of holding it all up alone, you’re invited to step into a space where your nervous system can finally start to settle, surrounded by women doing this foundation work alongside you.
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Click play on the video below to listen to the full 55-minute Q&A, or scroll down past the video to read the complete transcript at your own pace.
