I Stepped Out of the System Today

Leaving the system. Trusting the breath. Choosing a softer path.

I didn’t know it would be today
It began like every other day. I logged into my corporate job, ready to put in my time until the next adventure called me away. I worked in-between the adventures where I could touch the freedom and commune with nature, and connect outside the structures I have built.

Today my body was shouting at me. No. No. No. So loud that it demanded my attention.

I had heard that “no” getting louder over the days, weeks, and months. Today it became real. A tearful conversation with my boss. Letting go. Stepping into the unknown.

I let go of the job. The title. The salary. The security. The structure I’ve shaped my life around for two decades. A career released into the wind.

It’s bittersweet
This work shaped me. I shaped myself around it out of the desire to help, to make an impact, to create positive change. The conversations mattered. The connections fueled me. The moments when I had the opportunity to be the person someone needed… to talk, to know someone cared, to be heard.

The space I could hold. The steady reminder to turn inward toward calm, toward grounding in this moment.

Those are the treasures I’m taking with me.

The cracks were always there
The cracks appeared surrounding the stories people told, within the help they needed that I couldn’t offer. People reaching for support and me, as a Social Worker, reaching back empty-handed. Where was the safety net? Where was the help?

Each time, something in me cracked. Another fracture in the system I had once believed in. Another truth I couldn’t unsee. The programs weren’t there. The care, compassion, help wasn’t there. The structure was hollow and the illusion was crumbling.

Something in me started to rise
I began to notice… I’d return from a trip and trying to step back into the system, something in me would revolt. I’d cry. Freeze. A full-blown internal temper tantrum. It physically hurt to plug myself back in, and my whole being refused.

Every time I stepped away I could breathe again. I traveled, left the country, dropped out of the structure for a while. The step back in got harder. I saw other ways of living. Other rhythms. And when I came back and tried to plug in again, my whole body said no. Not this again.

It’s hard to describe the moment when you surrender to the knowing. It’s quiet, but clear, it’s resolute. That clarity came in the breath. It’s in the pause, in the space… the knowing that whispered. I was holding on too long. The unknown was calling, and somehow that felt more honest than staying.

I’m stepping out
Out of the system that shaped me from my first college class to my final credential. Out of the role I thought I’d play forever. And into something I can’t fully see yet.

It’s terrifying. It’s free. It’s honest.

I don’t have a five-year plan. I have my knowing as a compass.

I’m choosing something softer. A new support built on presence from practices that live in the body, not the institution. Breath. Grounding. Stillness. Awareness.

A safety that doesn’t disappear when systems fail, because it’s rooted inside of us.

There’s still a battle between my heart and my mind. My mind wants certainty. My gut wants to move. So I’m learning to meet myself, one moment at a time.

Even if I can’t see the whole way forward, I trust myself to walk it. And I trust the universe to walk with me.

Today I chose something else
That’s where I am now. In the step.

There hasn’t been one big moment, just a series of shifts. Body-led. Gentle. Uncertain. One piece at a time. Letting go of the system.

I want to guide people to a different kind of safety net. One that lives inside the body. That steadies the breath. That comes from presence, and movement, and somatic knowing. From remembering how to live in rhythm again.

I’m stepping toward adventure. Toward Thailand. Toward integrating and becoming. To weave together everything I’ve learned and everything I’m still finding. Listening more closely. Softening. Returning to the body and building from there.

Yoga | Meditation | Body Knowledge | Energy | Nervous System Regulation | Breath