Dear Readers,
Today’s letter resonates with a familiar chord: the feeling of being lost after life shifts in unexpected ways. One of our readers shares their journey of facing career setbacks and the fears that come with starting anew. It’s a theme many of us know too well—how to move forward when the path behind feels tangled in disappointment.
In this issue of The Circadian Collective, we’ll reflect on how moments of loss might actually loosen us into deeper truths and help us uncover the gifts we never knew we carried.
In everything we trust,
Sylvia
Questions
Q
I’m very lost. I was let go from my corporate job a year and an half ago and have been searching for the next chapter in my career. I have a lot to give and need to focus my mind. I’ve tried a few different things, but I have not yet been successful. Disappointed and frustrated myself. I am about to embark in a new business venture, but I’m afraid to take the next step because I’ve been unsuccessful over the last year.
A
I am particularly touched by how you begin: “lost”. Lost, in its original etymology, meant “loosen or untie”. It is only in the 1500’s that the word began to be associated with the feeling of defeat. If you can peek around the feeling of defeat, could you instead observe what loosened inside of you? Try new language.
Instead of feeling disappointed and frustrated in yourself, maybe ask what has loosened inside yourself. Have your concepts of success, the meaning of work, or money started to loosen? Would that really be a loss? If you are not the success you thought you would be, I am here to say: CONGRATULATIONS. I am interested in who you are when success dissipates. I always say that you don’t really know who a person is until the tide goes out on their life.
Loss tempers us, ripens our gifts. I suspect what you are most disappointed in is that you ever believed that you, in any way, were a success as measured by the status quo.
True success is measured by impact. How are you making an impact? Is it tiny, big, local, global, for one family, or for one million people—we are all here to give a damn. Everyone has a gift. But not everyone knows what their gift is.
One of the most sure ways to track your gift is to look back on some of the more painful experiences of your life. Your pain and your present are two sides of the same coin. Almost always, what you have to give comes out of what we have endured. Before you embark on this new business venture, take some time to journal as free form as possible what it felt like to be unemployed, uncertain, and unsuccessful. Write until there are no more words left and it has all been offered to the page like a prayer. Maybe then, you might feel some emptiness, if you are lucky.
Inside that emptiness, see if your gift reveals itself to you more deeply. What are you here to give with your human lifetime? Don’t worry if it’s not something that seems signifiant to the outside world. It is your gift. It might be a gift for creating beauty, it might be a gift for amplifying truth in any conversation. It might be a gift to see others as they wish to be seen. I am excited to hear what your gift is, and I hope you write back here when you are ready to share.
As you embark on this new venture don’t leave that gift behind you. If you want to discover success, true success, bring that gift along for the next chapter ahead.
