Quitting / boundaries with employer

I’d like some coaching on quitting,

A voice is telling me to stop. This is partly from burnout, and partly because of my values: I want to embody permission to stop. I have no shadow of a doubt when working with my clients, friends and family that their worth is supremely untethered to what they do or achieve, by societal standards. And yet I quickly run out of steam when thinking these things for myself. When it actually gets real, I can’t bring myself to believe it’s ok to actually stop. And
I also don’t know how to.

A real example for me right now is an employer who has expressed that they can’t meet my fairly basic needs to be paid adequately for my time. I have been receiving clear messages from my body that what they expect of me is exploitative. And yet work in this area is so scarse that I don’t have another option. Although I know I am crossing my own boundaries, I don’t know whether it is kinder to make the best of it, or to cut loose, be in the huge discomfort of that and trust that honouring that boundary is for the best in the long run.

I get into a double bind, because I know that if I could get my words out, I could stand up for myself, it would do my spirit good to speak my truth, and might even have the power to change the situation. It’s the second time in two years that I am losing my ability to speak when faced with an exploitative employer. It’s like a slow-motion nervous system freeze state, and I see how it relates to burnout. I am both looking for a “self-respecting” way out, and feel unable to make that happen, because I can’t adequately put it into words.

I’m afraid to let go. How do I know when that fear is connected to real wisdom — like for example I know that I won’t be able to pay the rent if I stop, which leaves me in a more stressful position than I currently am in — or when that fear just keeps me in the same pattern?

 

Answer:

Your brain is offering you two options: stay and be underpaid and exploited or quit and not be able to pay your bills. Neither of those sound very fun. What other options do you have? Write them all out on a scale from staying best case scenario to quitting best case scenario with everything else in between. Be open, curious and use your imagination. Bonus points for ideas you’ve never looked at before. Right now your brain wants you to think you don’t have any options but that’s not true.

What if you believed in your own ability to figure this out? I would offer that you look at your story and drop the part that wants to be dramatic about what’s happening. You have a job, you get paid a certain amount and you just get to decide what happens next.