Stop ignoring the sense that it’s time for a change and start listening for what you’re really here to contribute.
In July of 2012 I walked away from a fifteen year career in banking determined to have my professional life reflect a greater sense of meaning and purpose.
The specific words that I shared with my husband were, “I would rather live in a cardboard box than continue this way.” I was going through the motions of my career deeply unfulfilled and certain there had to be more to life.
With four children, a newly formed aka not yet profitable family business, and a mortgage. I left the bank.
I was brought to my knees and couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t do the paper pushing. I could no longer get excited about sales goals held by one of the largest global financial institutions. I just couldn’t do it.
I was desperate for meaning, purpose, and contribution in my life.
I had an insatiable pursuit to understand why I was on the planet, what my life was all about, and how I could be part of something greater than a grind.
Without a plan and without enough money in the bank, I was determined to find a new way of living and working.
I now understand that I was experiencing divine discontent and that doesn’t often allow you to perfectly calculate your transitions.
Divine discontent is the sense of irritability and dissatisfaction that stirs or nudges you to make a change when you aren’t living in alignment with who you are here to be. It can be very uncomfortable and often it can last longer than preferred. But when listened to, divine discontent is a great informant that guides and directs new choices, adventures, and possibilities. It is what leads you to increased aliveness.
When you stop ignoring your intuitive sense that it’s time for a change, you can start listening for all of the direction you need to move toward what you’re really here to contribute.
Leaving the bank in 2012 was the best move I ever made. Within six months I found my life’s work where I then spent eight years leading Bodhi Center. I had the extraordinary privilege of becoming CEO and Spiritual Director of one of the most innovative non-religious communities in the United States. In 2015 our work was acknowledged and studied by the Harvard Divinity School.
In 2019 I had the honor of speaking at TedXChicago on what I titled, The Future of Community in a Post-Religious Society. My work at Bodhi enabled me to speak on some of Chicago’s greatest stages and collaborate with some of Chicago’s most brilliant thinkers.
In 2020 I resigned from Bodhi determined to support a broader audience in gaining access to a life of meaning, purpose, and contribution. My commitment is to support human beings in accessing a sense of aliveness and realizing that we are each part of something much greater than the perceived limitations of our human experience.
Statistically, human beings are suffering from a severe deficit of community. There are fewer and fewer places to ask the big questions and clarify what really matters. In many cases the suffering of human beings is not a function of material need but rather a suffering of the soul. As a species, we are lonelier than we have ever been. Our lives have become less connected, less purposeful, and much faster. We have designed a society that has us racing to nowhere.
The lives we are living today are frequently not designed around soul fulfillment. We’re realizing that though we’ve developed a society based on wealth accumulation and status, those two things become deeply unfulfilling and empty on their own.
If you are in a moment where you are questioning everything and asking the bigger questions of your self and this world, I welcome you. That inquiry is a sacred place to be. We need more of that on the planet. Your thoughtful inquiry of meaning, purpose, and contribution is provoked by an internal nudge for a more deeply connected and satisfying existence. You are not off track.
I am glad you are here. Consider me your partner in uncovering what more could be possible.
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