Just about every book and blog post about answering your calling, finding your bliss, or taking a Pleap (Pink leap of faith) into a happier life – including the stories of many of us here on Owning Pink – use examples of people that woke up from lives of quiet desperation and quit soul-numbing jobs so that they could go in the direction of their dreams. I've lost count of the number of stories I've heard (my own included) where an apparently ill-timed layoff led to a richer and more self-actualized life.

And yet, our jobs are our livelihoods. They feed us (usually literally) and give us purpose, goals and accomplishments. They are often key to how we view our success. Jobs are important ways in which we change our world for the better. If you believe we choose our experiences in life to learn lessons, jobs are some of our greatest teachers. Also, our employment contracts (paid or unpaid, explicit or implicit) are a commitment to our fellow humans, our promise that we'll show up and do our part. Jobs are deserving of respect; they are not to be thrown away lightly.

And these perfectly rational reasons tend to mask an equally irrational fear in some of us about who we would actually BE without our jobs.

This was my problem.

Untangling Myself From My Work

Early in my career, I actually changed jobs quite frequently, but I never didn't have a job. There's lots of psychobabble reasoning behind this, but the bottom line was that when my identity as a child dropped out from under me in my teens, I jumped on the productive-member-of-society-career-woman-can-support-myself definition of Dana.

After feeling satisfied with how I could job-change my way into more lucrative and meaningful work, (which meant that "quitting my job" wasn't so scary), I started a family and quickly found out that the same standard of excellence I'd always applied to my work wouldn't cut it when my self definition fractured into mother, wife and executive. There just wasn't enough of me to go around and I burned out fast. For a while I blamed my job – where the culture did, in fact, reward family-sacrifice in pursuit of the dollar. But I realize now, after years and many more jobs, that it wasn't the job – it was me.

I didn't know who I was without my job, and when I finally got around to even wondering about the answer to the question,"Who am I, really?" the answer came back, "I don't know, but I deserve more respect than I’m getting to be worked to death around here!"

So I quit and went into free fall.

Finding My Wings

Actually, that's not completely true. I did take a Pleap (Pink leap of faith) in quitting the first time, only to be hired back on better terms. But I had to take two more jobs and quit them before I learned the lessons I sought. I did gain respect from my colleagues and stopped attracting jerk-face bosses and clients, but after the third Pleap trying out my little wings, I was strong enough for the floor to fall away completely and leave me without work for close to a year.

But I didn't fly right away. I'd never experienced an anxiety attack before this, but I found myself gasping for air almost daily as cold waves of fear closed over my lungs each morning when my kids left for school and I had "nothing" to do. I filled my time and looked for work, but deep inside I realized I didn't WANT the work. I wanted to find out who I was without it. I'll spare you the details, but I credit meditation and yoga with helping teach me how to calm myself enough to hear thoughts that wanted to be written and ideas that wanted to guide me into the next phase of my life. And they did. I got work and began a journey that I'm still on to find happiness and success through my work.

Why Aren't You Happy?

For me, I had to quit my job to find happiness because happiness couldn't come through until I realized who I was – my jobs were just getting in the way. They had become crutches to my self-definition and they kept obstructing my wings when I tried to fly. For a while I thought that I didn't want to work ever again, but that also turned out to be false – which I realized once I'd recovered from being so burned out and learned what it felt like to get a good night's sleep on a regular basis.

The result? TODAY my work is once more integral to my self-definition, but for different reasons than it used to be. Today, I don't let myself get burned out and I seek work that helps me find meaning and joy in life. Today, I love my work and don't imagine myself ever quitting again. After taking the time to figure out who I was without work, I can truly own my work as a part of who I am.

But you? These may not be your issues. You may have other things to overcome, which your jobs can help you with just like mine do now. Your job may be the problem or the answer – or both. It’s not what we do that dictates who we are; it's who we are as we do the things that matter most. 

The Value of Retreat

Regardless of whether or not you stay in your job on your journey to happiness, I do believe that our culture significantly undervalues the importance of retreat. Since my free fall, I've experienced many different kinds of retreat – self inflicted and otherwise – that removed the stimulus of my daily activity and gave me space to reflect on my life. On Owning Pink we call this "waiting and becoming". After each period of retreat, my life takes off with a burst of energy and I always find I've jumped ahead into a better place. Much of the benefit of the retreat tends to be on subconscious level, but the pattern is so clear now that I can't deny that these periods of withdrawal, even the painful and scary ones, are key to my happiness.

I have found benefit in the month long withdrawals, and from the weekends away, and the nights off too. I suppose you can have too many of them, but I haven't found the unproductive limit yet!

Yes, time away from friends and family can seem selfish – especially to those around us whose lives become complicated when we are away – but that guilt is precisely a reason to leave. It forces us to confront the question of whose life we’re living. That's a tough question to answer when you're in the middle of living it. Don't worry about taking a year off to get the benefit, just take the time you can and let it work its magic on you a little at a time. And give your friends and family the gift you want from them in return – invite them to go on their own retreats away from you to rejuvenate.

Does your job contribute to your happiness or deplete you? Have you Pleaped your way into happiness without quitting your job? What's the best retreat you've ever been on? Do tell. I love your stories.