Free at Last

You may have noticed the quote at the top of my blog by Rumi: Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. Walk out like somebody suddenly born into color. Do it now.

This is how it felt when I left the practice of law, almost one year ago. I felt like I was breaking out of solitary confinement and walking out into the sunlight for the first time in 18 years. I was liberated, free. And hopefully, I’ll never have to return to practicing law again.

I say hopefully because I left the law once before. After practicing about ten years, I was unhappy with the practice, with the people I was working with, with the people I was working for, and mostly with myself. I was literally sick to my stomach having to go to work each day and was a bit overwhelmed with the responsibility.

So I quit my job when I couldn’t stand it any more. I told people I was taking a sabbatical. I relaxed and got into shape and decided to become a life coach. The classes were fun, I was in school again (I would love to be a professional student, but that’s another story) and learning and loving it. Unfortunately, rather than making a go of the coaching business, I somehow became delusional and decided I should go back to practicing law.

I got a job at a larger firm than I was used to and only lasted six months. Talk about being all about the money! I was working lots of hours and had lots of billable hour requirements and I hated it. Then I found a great job working with a sole practitioner and doing contract work. At first it really was great, I could set my own hours and I was getting paid really well. It started out fun and profitable and I told people it was the best job around…if I had to be a lawyer, that is.

I knew that I wasn’t being true to myself though. I was deceiving myself and doing it basically for the money. Thinking that someday we’d be able to retire and then I’d figure out what I really wanted to do. But over the course of the next three and a half years things went downhill. My health deteriorated. I gained weight and had a few health scares that luckily ending up not being serious. I also became depressed and eventually sought out therapy (again - but that’s another story too) and went on anti-depressants for the first, and hopefully only time.

The therapy helped immensely. And during the year and half I was in therapy I discovered A Course in Miracles and it has saved me. I began studying the Course and slowly I began stripping away layers of myself that were no longer serving me.

I was able to look at my identity as a lawyer, all that it provided me over the years, the good and the not so good, money, stability, security, relationships, prestige, status, worry, depression, lots of bad jokes, lots of sleepless nights, lots of stress and anxiety. The pain of it had eaten up enough of my life. I wanted to walk away from it.

On the one hand it was an easy decision. I could for sure give up all the bad stuff. But could I give up the good stuff? So much of my identity was tied into being a lawyer. Like being a lawyer made me special in some way. What would I do with my life if I wasn’t a lawyer? What would I be for God’s sake? Eventually, the pain finally began to outweigh all the positives and I knew that I had to quit being a lawyer finally and for good. So I did. Woo Hoo!!

Now I can say with certainty that I do not practice law any more. I am not a lawyer any more. I am me and I just happened to have had a job description of lawyer for the last 18 years.

People often ask me what I “do” now that I don’t have a job and I often times feel cornered, like oh my god, I don’t “do” anything any more! Why do we constantly have to be doing something? Why can’t we just “be”? Why can’t I just “be”?

I want to be me. Whoever the hell that is. And that’s exactly what I’ve been “doing” for the last year now. Just “being” me. Taking time to rest, relax, and get to know myself and all my complexities. Now that I have taken the bold and powerful step into the light my journey is just getting started and I’m so looking forward to a beautiful, colorful, wild and fun ride!