The Body Doesn't Lie: Kick Up Wellness to Vibrate Higher in 2024

"Your body can't lie to you," my new therapist reminded me last week. Around the Winter Solstice, my body had told me to start using the lengthy PTO I have earned and saved by faithfully working for the same organization for 17 years. I've been an essential part of the organization's significant growth into the 2010s and transformation into a hugely positive force for good in the local community--and I've witnessed the pandemic years devastate our entire industry and strike some potentially fatal blows to the near future of my beloved workplace. Despite our magnificent accomplishments and the value we have contributed to our community, I have been forced to reckon with the harsh reality that there seems to be no sustainable path forward and nothing more that I can do to help effectively as we enter a fifth year of decline, along with faith-based nonprofits around the world and specifically in our denomination across the U.S.

I may be the only millennial in the land who has demonstrated a 17-year commitment to a single employer, so it was hard for me to admit that it might be time for a full stop, long enough to completely decompress and consider alternatives for myself. Not a holiday or even a vacation, but something on the scale of a sabbatical from which I may never return. It literally, physically has made me sick to think about, but there might not be anything to return to by the time I have completed my critically urgent period of wintering to recover my health and prepare myself for long-term thriving and productivity. I have earned and saved a lot of PTO for just such a rainy (or snowy!) day, and I know that now is the time to use it or lose it.

The good new is, three weeks into my leave of absence, I feel a decade younger. I can sleep easily at night without medication and without waking up before dawn worrying about work. I'm strength training five days a week, and I feel stronger than ever, like I've never worked a desk job at all! My family and I are cooking hearty, nutritious dinners that take all afternoon, like chicken stew from scratch and complex Indian curries. I've caught up on the medical appointments that I had been putting off and finally shaken that lingering cough from last season's nasty flu. I'm reading more books and doomscrolling less and getting reacquainted with the girl I used to be in my teens and 20s, a clever, fearless, and high-achieving creative who was always leaping full-force into the next adventure. Her spirit is still alive and kicking, as documented in this hilarious photo from last summer, when I spent time reconnecting with some high school AP English classmates!

It is astonishing how my quality of life has transformed in such a short period of time since I left my office in mid-December. In the evenings, when I used to ruminate about work, I'm now getting beat down in dominoes by my brilliant daughter or watching standup and laughing with my husband or frolicking in the snowy (or mucky and mossy) woods with both of them. Or even, wow, spending time with friends--friends who are all rethinking their work lives and looking in different directions. I guess it's that time of year! But I'm in no hurry to grasp at the first shiny new offer, because it has been profoundly healing to invest most of my time and energy in myself rather than in systems I can't control. Where I used to have stomachaches, I already have visible abs. Where I used to have headaches, I now have dreams!

And I'm continuing to see that new therapist, who specializes in work stress and has a much more informed perspective than I do on what's normal or acceptable in the workplace, what isn't, and how long to pause the grind to focus on real, vital self-care. 

This has involved a whole lot of listening to my own advice too. From the financial crisis of the late 2000s through the pandemic, I blogged about learning to live well in troubled times. 

And, oh yeah, I published two novels about women who gather the power to follow their own instincts. One of my most enthusiastic readers of Leirah and the Wild Man, who devoured the book in a week even though the middle gave her a sincerely creepy folkloric nightmare, asked me, "Is it about landing in the body?" 

I had never heard that phrasing before, but yes. Yes, it is. 

This winter, I've taken a leap of faith in myself and landed in transformed physical and mental health. Every week, I feel less worried about the future and more excited about meeting new people and trying new things in 2024. Whatever happens, I'm becoming better prepared every day to rise to new challenges and bring refreshed energy to valuable endeavors.

My body is already thanking me for moving in the right direction at just the right time. What is your body telling you in 2024?