She says sometimes you need those spaces of rest. As someone who is a recovering achiever, she says she has to think about how to prioritize her time. Shannon Sawyers has been laid off twice. She says she savors the moments of transition.
Rosie Nest: I was just wrapping up my journaling that I tried to do every. Monday morning. She says sometimes you need those spaces of rest. As someone who is a recovering achiever, she says she has to think about how to prioritize her time.
Shannon Sawyers has been laid off twice. She says she savors the moments of transition. Just savoring that in between time, she says, is transformative.
Andy Cohen has been on the end of having to lay people off across his career. He says journaling is something that's really helpful to him and creating playlists brings him joy. What do you do in an in between season to find gratitude?
Is there anything or any practice that helps you stay present or centered or focused in times of transition? If you're in a time of transition, lean on those rituals and those practices and those habits. What is this time teaching you?
Foreign. Hey, Cadre. Happy Monday to everybody. I hope that you are having a good Monday morning and that you had a good weekend. I'm Rosie Nest, and I talk to you about life loss and layoffs. So today what we're going to talk about is I was just wrapping up my journaling that I tried to do every. Try to do it every Monday morning. I don't do it super consistently, and I don't beat myself up about that. But whenever I do it and really set up my week in that way, I feel a lot more focused. I feel like I have a road map.
I feel like I just have some center in my week. So I just am wrapping that up, which has been good. I've been. I've had kind of a, I guess, like, busy week, and then I had a really not busy weekend, which was lovely. And sometimes you need those. Those spaces of rest. I am somebody who is go, go, go. And I definitely prescribe myself as, like, an Enneagram 3 achiever and test that way. If you're familiar with Enneagram. Hi, Andy. Hi. Speak Wonder. And it's been a real journey for me to learn how to rest and how to just be present and not feel like I need to achieve, achieve, achieve.
And so this weekend was one of those weekends where my family and I didn't have very much going on, and I've just learned to love it more. I think a past version of myself would have been like, why don't we have. Why aren't we, like, meeting up with people? Why aren't we going out to eat? Why aren't we, like, packing in everything before the end of summer? And this weekend we saw one group of friends and then we just had family time. And that was incredible. Like, it was just really nice to have, have and be in a slower season.
But it also has to be intentional. I feel for me, as someone who is a recovering achiever, I really have to think about how I prioritize my time. I really have to think about my intentions and, like, why I'm doing something so that I don't feel like I'm not doing enough, if that makes sense. So the theme for August, as we're wrapping up August is savor. And so with savoring, I've been thinking about savoring times of transition, like a layoff. And that's a really hard sentence to say to try to savor a season of layoff.
I was laid off. I've been laid off twice. So the first time I was laid off was when my husband and I had just gotten married, I was working at a marketing agency, and my husband was not working. He was going to business school full time. And we didn't have any children. It was just the two of us and our dog. And I got laid off. I didn't get any sort of, like, padding or severance or anything like that. It was just done that day. And it was incredibly stressful. And the wild thing about that moment was it was a job that I knew wasn't right for me.
Like, it was kind of like butting heads with who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. But I needed a job because I was the only person in my family working. And so I was pushing through, and I wasn't going to leave because I needed that job. I was looking for other opportunities, but hadn't quite synced anything up yet. And the next morning, like, the day after I got laid off, the next morning I woke up and I went for a walk, and I felt a bunch of sun shining on my face, just like, kind of coming, peeking through the clouds.
And I started crying because I was so happy. I was so happy because I was no longer in that role and in the opportunity. And so it was like, oh, my gosh, I'm savoring this moment because I'm really grateful for it, even though I need to find a job and I don't have an income, but I'm just, like, grateful in this moment. And so I think of that moment often because that could, and for a lot of people and in a lot of other moments in my life, might have been, you know, the worst. And I think had I been listening to some of the signs and signals around me and really listening to what I really wanted and needed, I would have come to the conclusion sooner and pushed myself into really leaving that role and leaving that opportunity.
But the fact that I was forced out and then had this day of clarity, really gratitude and instant clarity, was really telling. And so I went into that next chapter really savoring and really thinking about and really being cognizant about, like, what is it that I really, really want and what sort of work do I really want to do? And if I go into this next opportunity and I haven't learned or haven't, like, taken enough space to find some peace with what has happened around the layoff, then I think I'm going to start it on the wrong foot.
So just savoring that in between time, I think, is transformative. It's really hard, but it's really valuable. The second time I got laid off, which was more recent, was a little bit different. So I had been working at this organization for about five years, and it was a role that I loved. And I was responsible for really building and creating and imagining the function and building, creating and navigating the team that did it. And so I was leading a lot of people and I was. I thought we were doing a lot of really good work, and I was really excited about it and was getting really good reviews and praise.
And I went on my maternity leave for my daughter, who's now two and a half. And I remember reading a lot about how to go on maternity leave the right way, meaning, like, have these things prepared and make sure that you're at the top of minds of other people's. Other people's minds, so that when you come back, you're like, put onto projects and make sure that you, like, you shouldn't be working, but, like, you could just send a few emails on your maternity leave to make sure that you're top of mind for people.
And I was doing all those things and really felt like I was following the rule book. And honestly, I was excited to go back to work after my leave. Hi, Shannon. Saw you joined. I was really excited to go back to work after my leaves and kind of learn this new phase of, like, motherhood and working and like, what is that like? And I know that it's a lot of things, but I was genuinely excited about it. And so when I got laid off over my maternity leave, my daughter was five weeks old. Not only was it a shock and a disappointment that would have been true no matter what season of life it came to me in.
But it was this, like, sacred moment and window of time that is that newborn cuddle phase. And. And for me, I was learning to be a mother. This is my daughter, my only child. And there was an interruption. And so savoring that moment was harder is harder. I think I'm still maybe learning how to learned from that. And in the same sentence, what's come out of it is, I think, a lot of transformation for me, personally, emotionally, spiritually. I think it's had me focus a lot on my intention. So the clarity came later.
It didn't come immediately. The car just drove by. Sorry about the interruption. I'm outside of my porch. But the clarity came later. It didn't come immediately, but it did come. And I. I don't. Again, I don't think I would have gotten there had I not been laid off. And had I not had this in between season. So I'm curious for you all, like, if you find yourself in an in between season, how do you find gratitude in that? Or what brings you back to the piece of gratitude or savoring or maybe just leaning into the in between.
I guess as a prompt, I would ask you to consider. I think even just writing that out can be really valuable. You know, something that I have found in my seasons of transition is journaling is something that's really helpful to me and. And like actually journaling. So here's another. This is my personal belief, but I find typing to be work. So if I'm trying to be creative, I mean, I. I definitely am typing things, but I think that writing in a journal with a pen and paper can help you process things more.
That's my experience. Yeah. I think. Thanks for sharing, Andy. I think harboring labor, harboring anger around a layoff is valid. And, you know, my layoff was in 2023, early 2023. And if I think about it, I don't think I've. I don't think I fully processed it. I don't think it goes away. I don't think that feeling goes away because the feeling of a layoff is so jarring. And whether you're one person who's been laid off or if you're part of a team of a hundred that's been laid off or whatever it is, it's really jarring.
And I find personally that I don't want to be desensitized to it. Right. Like, I've been on the end of. Like I've been laid off. I've been on the end of having to lay people off across my career. Both of it's terrible. All of it's horrible. And I also recognize that it completely blows up your life. You can have clarity. You can be in a job that you hate and be grateful that you're not at that company. But it blows up your life. It isn't like a easy thing to navigate. Yeah, self talk, saying things out loud.
Like I'm talking to someone else, but I'm just talking to myself. I love that I've been. I have a journal of. Of those, Shannon. Of just letters to myself. Letters that I would write to a friend that I would probably never say to myself, but reminders that I need to have. I appreciate those. Those insights because I think that those things really can help just process. But I don't know. I don't. I don't know if I personally like have completely, like, let go of those layoffs for myself. Because when I think of those seasons, while there was clarity and some calm, there was also chaos.
There was also anxiety and fear about what the future is going to look like for my career and for my family. And those things are hard. Yeah, those things are hard. Those things can be hard. So with all that I've been in these seasons of transition and these seasons of uncertainty, and in between, I've kind of shared that journaling is something I go to. I've been trying to gather from other people what other practices that they have. And I have a friend that has and who likes to type and write, and that's their creative process.
And so they have an email address that they have to themselves. So, you know, I've heard of people doing this for, like, their children, and they'll grab a Gmail, and it's like, you know, when my kid turns 18, they'll have all these emails that I've written to them over time, which I think is an incredible idea, actually might steal it. But I have a friend who has an email that are notes to herself. And so she writes to herself as if she's writing to a friend. They say, like, we're going through something tough, and here's some things you should know, and here's some reminders about yourself and the goodness that you bring in the good person that you are.
And then when she has a rainy day, she reads through her emails, and I think that's lovely, because it's kind of like, you know, she had this idea you're talking about, like, talking out loud and saying reminders to yourself. So that's one idea that I had heard of. I'm also someone who loves playlists. Like, I, back in the day, had a. Was it not Zanga Kaza? I think it was called Kaza, which was like a music download system. And I would burn CDs, and I took so much pride in those playlists I would put together.
I recently found a few of my old burned CDs, and I've been listening to them in my car, and they've been bringing me the utmost joy. But I really love creating. I still really love creating playlists. That's something that brings me a lot of joy and helps me keep centered, especially in times of transition. What I find interesting in this moment is I have all these playlists from these different times of my life, and a lot of them are from those times of transition. And so when I listen to them, you know, years later, it Brings me back to that moment.
But then I also have this added or changed clarity or perspective that I can listen to these songs and think about different things than I did in that moment. Something that's really helped me. But what else? Is there anything or any practice that helps you stay present or centered or focused in times of transition? If you're in a time of transition, which I think maybe we're all, all always in a time of transition in some way, shape or form, lean on those rituals and those practices and those habits.
They don't have to be perfect. They don't have to be fancy, doesn't have to be like a beautiful notebook. It can be, you know, whatever notebook you have lying around that becomes your journal or your note taker or your insight and inspiration notebook. But just documenting this time, trying as much as you can to find the bright spots in it if it feels really hard, and navigating it with this sense of awe, maybe, like, what are you learning? What is this time teaching you? There's this great quote that Oprah.
I've heard Oprah say. I don't know if she's the person that penned it, but she says there's no such things as mistakes. They're learning opportunities if you're paying attention. And I think about that a lot. Like, what is this moment teaching me? Am I paying attention to this moment? What can I learn from it? How can I change? So I'll leave you with that. I hope that you all have a really wonderful week ahead. It's getting a little chilly here in Minnesota, so I'm leaning into the chilliness with a cozy sweater and making some soups, making some broths.
And I'm gonna finish journaling for this morning and get my week off to a wonderful start. But it was lovely, lovely to spend my Monday morning with you all. And I hope you savor the rest of this day. Talk soon. Bye.
