I quit.

Not only my job, but my lifestyle

Last week I had a few friends reach out to me. The message read, “we want to see you.” They knew I had quit my job in March, and they had no inclination of what that looked like for me at this point, five months later. Luckily, the week before, I had just finished redecorating my living room. I wanted to feel more at home in my space for this next part of the journey, a call to my inner child to truly feel safe in this space and at home again. I was determined to create space for her in my new life.

But anyhow, we gathered.

The ultimate elephant in the room came up - so what are you doing now? Translated to, girl are you okay and are you working yet?…

Somehow the stars aligned, and I had a good enough answer to satisfy their concerns because I had just received a part time opportunity that I was excited about.

But I thought to myself, most of that time alone, I had no answer. I had things I was working on, dreaming up, healing through and hoping for. And for a good bit of it, I was not okay. Or I didn’t believe it even when I was. But at the same time, I knew I’d be okay. I remember so many conflicting and contradictory feelings I had during that time. I’d met new, genuine people. I’d gotten a real glance at what an ecosystem of community was and could be. In that time, I had received confirmation after confirmation, and all the synchronicities I needed to reassure me this was my divine path and there was no need to turn back. I’d prepared responses for the people who would ask these same questions and readied my spirit for the ones who wouldn’t get it. All of this so I could remember my why with as few distractions as possible.

But you can never fully prepare for the dissatisfaction of what was seemingly a lack of progress, the not knowing of what exactly is next and the debilitating doubt of how you of all people can do this. And so s

till, I questioned it.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Why did I quit?

It was simple. I did not want to be there. Contrary to popular belief I did not hate my job. But I did know it was not in alignment for me any longer. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And the spiritual path that I’d been on asked me to honor my alignment over and over again. This would be no different. Would I settle for convenience and what I thought was comfort or choose again? I would tell myself to be grateful for this life you have and look at how far you’ve come. Was I willing to sacrifice my stability for my divine assignment or calling? For a long time, the answer was no. I can do both.

Until I couldn’t. I started my spiritual herbalism apprenticeship in March 2023. When I applied, I was not concerned of if I was getting in. I was just curious of when I’d start and what it would be like. I remember a year or so before then, I had felt this BIG push in my gut. I kept describing it as a change or a big explosion within. My therapist called it The Shift and sent me a video to watch. Something within me was changing and something big was about to happen. This was probably 2021. She was what I called my soul-therapist. I moved to a new position within the same company that same year. After a while, she moved practices and was unavailable.

My journey continued.

I sold my house in search for more space a year after that and never found it. I ended up in a smaller space, but it was cozy. And in that space, everything changed. I was in my chrysalis, undergoing metamorphosis, praying and hoping that I’d emerge as a butterfly.

As I got into my herbalism classes, I begin to feel closer to myself, closer to God. I begin to know myself in ways I had dreamed of. It was a longing that words may never truly be able to describe. I found a space that was speaking to my values, my desires, and my soul commitments. This journey was one that I would not want to repeat if I’m being honest, but it was so necessary. Intense loneliness plagued me over and over again even when I was surrounded and supported. There was a spiritual liberation needed at each new commitment to the journey. I did not leave one prison in my mind to enter into another. I had to balance doing this spiritual journey in ways that sat well with me even in these new healing spaces. Truth kept unfolding and the walls of illusion faded. The reality I was living in was not the truth that my heart knew. My soul, my spirit and my body were existing in separate spaces, worlds apart. This was the journey to bring them back together.

The common theme discussed was that any dis-ease we felt in our spirit or on a soul level could manifest disease in the body. Soul care was the first step in truly caring for my physical body. And that is what I had to do.

Choosing to continuously abandon myself was causing my soul to become even more distant from my body. And of course, the disease enters. The thoughts and the fears and displacement turned into physical pain, discomfort, headaches, weight gain and even panic attacks. I’d go as far as to say one of my diagnoses right before this season of learning was directly related to a lifestyle I was holding onto that no longer worked for me.

The tower moment was happening. The walls were crumbling down. I needed to surrender the castle, jump ship and save my soul.

That was the only way to rebuild myself. Rebirth myself. My life. A life I desired. I had to break the conditioning of a lifestyle that I had adopted from a society that couldn’t see me and damn sure didn’t know me. But I did. God did. My ancestors and all of the beautiful spirits that guide me, they did. They knew me. And they wanted me to remember me. I had to break free of the fears that had been ingrained in me that kept me further away from my truth and made me distrustful of that which could heal me. I feared myself so deeply, it was killing me.

I reflected on how at peace I seemed to be in the illusion I existed in before. But the more I learned about myself the more masks I realized I had on. As I removed them one by one, there was pain, so much doubt, self-abandonment, and even a lack of self-worth.

So, breadcrumb by breadcrumb, I began to follow the trail. In the midst of my fears, I wondered if I was being led into the prison gates of hell. But it wasn’t what people said it would be. My spiritual journey was freeing. It was a garden. It was a community. It was whole body healing, and I desired to be healthy. My energy began returning to my body. The passion began to burn in my belly. My heart began to feel warmer and whisper to me in ways I’d never heard. Everything around me came alive. I grew a new appreciation for the people in my life and found myself surrounded by people I didn’t have to translate my heart to.

It called me to surrender. I was being led to my destiny, my divine seat of authority. We all have one. We just have to say yes. We resist the necessary changes that bring us the healing we desperately need. The healing is the hardest part even as we commercialize it like a spa day, but it doesn’t have to be hard all the time. It is the conditioning that leaves us stuck and confused. We are healing the condition of our understanding of the world and how we thought it had to be. Decolonizing your mind is a phrase used so often now that I sometimes skate over it, but it is deeply necessary for our liberation.

Liberation in my mind always looked like activism on the street. Loud. Clear. Liberation looked like people starting organizations for the people, by the people and leading them with a goal in mind to get free of societal shackles. To obtain basic rights.

But I’m learning it exist substantially in the mind, in the way we do money, in the general way we choose to live. We liberate ourselves by saying no to one thing and yes to our thing. There is no liberation without first being able to realize that you are in chains. Anywhere you don’t want to be, living a life you don’t want, has you in a prison. Most of us live in the prisons of our mind. This relearning or revolution of the mind does not happen overnight. I thought it would happen after a month or two and I’d be okay. Five months later and it is still happening every day for me. Like grief, some days I am well, and all is right with my soul. Other days are just heavy. Then there are ones in the middle. And you are still okay in all of those days.

But you will make waves. And when you do, you will not be able to go back. You will see things, people, and systems as they are. My hope is that you will begin to see yourself as you are and as Jeida K. Story says, you will begin to “see yourself rightly.”

Our bodies are speaking to us, trying to keep us alive, mind body and soul. And it is working way too hard. We were not born to suffer, to live silently waiting on small moments of marketed joy. We were made to exist as joy. Embody the essence of life. We live and we die over and over again. We rebirth ourselves and our lives as many times as we need to.

My soul-therapist reached out in that season and let me know that she was now available again. Synchronicity, right? She reminded me that I in fact was not losing my mind, and I had mentioned before that this wasn’t the work that I wanted to do and there was something else for me. She was proud that I had come to this moment of clarity to take the leap. One giant leap followed by many more, but I did it.

Reflecting before I made the decision, I had considered where I was in my career. This year, I had just received a raise, my highest rating ever in the 10 years, 8 years full time I had been there. I had been offered an opportunity into the leadership program and my next role was a team lead. We had prepared for this moment. And still, I told them in February that I was leaving in March. I’d finish as many projects as I could. But this is where I’d hop off the rat race.

Question: So how do you quit when everything you’ve worked for is right in front of you?

Answer: You realize that it requires you to leave your true self behind. Your heart. And you cannot live without your heart. It is your life source.

How many days can you go without a heartbeat?

I walked out when I couldn’t find the rhythm of mine anymore.

-Marasia Simone

cont’d reflections below:

The story doesn’t end at a new job or a new opportunity. We keep building on to it. I didn’t quit my job to get a new one. I quit my lifestyle to rebuild a new existence that embodied my truth. So, there are no right answers, no one path, and no guaranteed wins. Belief empowers action and that is how it changes for you. You have to believe it can. And surround yourself with people who know you will succeed. And if you don’t know those people, it may be a good time to reconnect to your spiritual practices because taking care of the spiritual body will always direct you to your people. Always. You cannot do this alone. You need community. It leads us home.

I encourage those who are ready for a new existence to move at a pace that works for you. It may take you months or years to make the leap. If you have the time, prepare yourself and surround yourself in community. But if you’re like me and something walks into your heart and tells you to go. Now. You have to listen. It will work out. That presence is something beyond you, much more powerful than you, and it’s guiding you to your divine place. We all have free will and life will work out either way. But liberating your heart and freeing yourself isn’t just for you. It is for all of those you will meet in the process, for those who will support you, and for those who are destined to walk into your life in the next chapter.

Are you willing to miss out on that life by holding onto a life you do not want, that just doesn’t fit right?

I’m thinking of the friends who came to visit after I had just redecorated and made myself cozy in this new existence. A new opportunity ran alongside this change and a new energy of acceptance that I was not going back, not to quote Madame VP Kamala Harris.

But what I witnessed in that moment was the depth of preparing the space and readying your heart. Plant the seeds and the flowers will grow. Nourish them into full bloom and the butterflies, bees, and birds will come. Create a garden and the animals will come. Some will help you to mutually maintain what you have built. Some will be pest and that is just the reality of life. Have the event, start the community, build the business and the people will come.

This whole time I’d been laying the foundation for what was to come in this next season. The next season is here. And the people are here. And even more people and opportunities are coming. So, what had I been doing in the last five months? I’d been preparing space in my life, in my heart, and then physically in my home for myself. Because change is here. A new existence is happening. And I remember a prayer I had earlier this week. God, help me to make space for my dreams. And by the end of the week, I received a response. I already did. Look around.

And so now I ask you, what is your spirit readying you for?

Click the link to find my NEW podcast episode about this write up on Spotify. This creating thing has been quite the adventure itself.