“I used to love my work,” she said. “I would pop out of bed filled with ideas and plans.” Her eyes looked dull. “Now I just go through the motions. I don’t know what changed. I thought it was my manager’s fault, because he’s not supportive. But that’s not it. I just don’t have the same drive to make a difference.”
So we sit a while in silence, letting despair settle. This is a tough moment. My impulse is to rescue with a strategy or solution. Instead, we wait. She takes a deep breath. “I want to love my life again. How do I do that?”
There is something sad and sweet about declaring a breakdown that we don’t know how to fix. When we admit we don’t know what to do, we drop all pretense. We reclaim our innocence…and that leads to a new beginning.
Together, we begin to wonder about what might be possible for her future. Within just a few minutes, we are laughing, joking, and imagining an outlandish destiny that is exciting and fun. Then she decides on a few small steps to shake things up — some small experiments to get things moving again.
Not much has changed, except a surge of hope and possibility. That spark of yearning is more than enough to make a new beginning.
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