In 2019, I bought a condo, as growing up with the image of the American Dream told me to buy a house as soon as I could. I loved my little condo, but I felt trapped.
I decorated the rooms and made it a home, but it wasn’t me.
In 2020, I sold it and nearly everything in it, minimizing my belongings. This was not the most economical decision when it came to house selling, but I felt free.
At the time, I knew I would not be staying in my job, but I had no idea what was next.
Admittedly, I wasn’t in the best mental health space given that I had never taken time off to recover from burnout, moral injury, and grief from all that was 2014-2017 for me, which made it easy for me to sell everything—but that’s only part of the story.
A month after I sold the condo, I met my future boss, who lived across the country, over Zoom (a new tech for me at the time, thanks to, well, you know… 2020). The sequence of events leading to this encounter was far from what you’d expect in a job search. I had let my oral medicine community know that I was seeking a new position and was given a lead to a post on Twitter (now X).
When I got the lead, I did not have Twitter—so I got it, messaged the human who posted about a position that fit my interests, and bam, I was interviewed the next day. We went for it.
I did not realize at the time the caliber of the institution where this job would be—thankfully, as I would have likely told myself that I wasn’t good enough to pursue the opportunity at that time. I also didn’t think I’d want to be at another top institution, as I grew to question the culture of most.
My future position was grant-funded by the NIH/NIDCR. This was my first experience with NIH grant writing, and I was not well-versed in the delays you may face in being notified whether you will be funded and when. I’m also glad I didn’t know the acceptance rate. My future boss was confident, so I trusted his optimism.
While we waited, I applied and interviewed for a local faculty position, a community health center role, and at local grocery stores—anything open during COVID’s shutdown. I minimized expenses as much as possible.
Numb and full of uncertainty, I held onto a sliver of hope.
Facing a gap in employment and the stress of the world at the time, I was unsure if I could dig myself out of the hole of anorexia that helped me to cope while nearly costing me my life once again.
I was getting a bit desperate for a lifeline and seeking solutions to my predicament.
In June 2021, despite judgment from outsiders and my own inner skepticism, I signed up for Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Life Coach training. I had heard about the positive impact of coaching in Dr. Sunny Smith’s Empowering Women Physicians Facebook group, and it resonated with Martha’s book The Way of Integrity. Coaching was something I hadn’t yet tried, and it gave me hope.
Skipping over details, I ended up being awarded the NIDCR grant, moved to Houston, started my new role, and went to a Burnout Committee meeting curious to hear the proposed solutions. The chair of my department helped to lead the meeting, and I emailed him afterward to ask if there was a role for coaching. He was a huge advocate (I was unaware of the coaching culture well established at MD Anderson) and put me in touch with a contact in the Leadership Institute. I was fortunate to gain her support, and there happened to be openings in MD Anderson’s upcoming CoachRICE cohort, a professional leadership coaching program at MD Anderson in affiliation with Rice University.
Thus, I embarked on two coaching programs nearly simultaneously and devoured all the lessons like my life depended on it—because I believe it did. My enthusiasm was noted, and I was selected to speak at graduation and then was featured in MD Anderson’s annual report for my coaching in 2023.
While I wish I didn’t rely on external validation, the recognition was huge for me, as I felt hollow inside and had lost meaning in my life. Though I am an advocate of seeking meaning from within, sometimes we aren’t in the place to truly feel it. Other people’s beliefs in me and having evidence that I didn’t suck at life (what my mind was offering me at the time) helped me to keep going.
Coaching (in addition to therapy and proper nourishment) helped me get back into the driver’s seat of my life, challenge the narratives that led me on paths that did not fuel my soul, showed me the importance of living in alignment with our values, and saved me—mind, body, and spirit.
After recurrent rock bottoms and life-threatening stages with anorexia and SI, I started living differently. Over the past three years, I’ve shared my struggles and processed them out loud, which helped me to release the guilt and shame, no longer hiding in isolation.
I started to create a life true to me and allow myself to fully embrace all parts of me.
While this has not magically made anorexia go away or put me into a constant state of bliss, it has helped me to be well enough to ask myself what role anorexia, anxiety, and depression serve in my life and learn how to intentionally respond to each moment of each day—how to live in alignment with what truly matters to me.
Living in alignment with our values doesn’t mean we are constantly happy, but living out of alignment is a recipe for distress of the mind, body, and spirit.
Accepting that my near-death experiences were indeed my life, after years of dissociation, has given me a sense of urgency to live—and detach myself from societal pressures and false senses of urgency that often distract us from what matters.
I faced the inner pain caused by the beliefs that I had to be someone other than me, that I didn’t matter, that it wasn’t enough, and that I needed to sacrifice as much as possible to the point of exhaustion each day to prove my value. That pain fuels my fire to help others escape the societal pressures that lead us astray, reducing life fulfillment and increasing our undue suffering.
It’s time to live a life true to ourselves and focus on what truly matters to us.
As I step out from my employed position after my grant funding ended, without a well-polished “plan,” I leverage my story shared above. If I were to have created a plan in 2020-2021, it would never have turned out as well as the one above.
Trust yourself and lean on your supportive community. Count on me to believe in you and always be here with love and support.
I know what it’s like to feel lost and empty inside. When you step out and are true to yourself, I trust from experience that you will find fellow seekers and explorers who support you—the real you—every step of the way. You are never alone.
Jillian Rigert is an oral medicine specialist and radiation oncology research fellow.
