The Hidden Gift Behind Job Loss, Friendship Breakups & Unexpected Life Changes

What if losing the job, friendship, relationship, or opportunity you desperately wanted to keep wasn't a failure at all?

What if it was life doing for you what you couldn't do for yourself?

In this deeply personal episode of The Femme Cast, I'm unpacking the uncomfortable truth about why the rug sometimes gets pulled out from under us and why those painful "ejection" moments are often the catalyst for our biggest growth, alignment, and transformation.

We explore why we cling to people, places, and situations long after they've stopped serving us, how self-worth becomes tangled up in jobs, friendships, titles, and external validation, and the subtle signs life sends before it forces us to let go.

From friendships that turn catty and unsupportive, to workplaces that slowly pull you away from your strengths, to the burnout, anxiety, and exhaustion that come from abandoning yourself just to keep something alive, we're diving into what happens when life starts asking you to move and you refuse.

In this episode, you'll learn:

🎤 Why life sometimes ejects us from situations we're desperately trying to hold onto
🎤 The hidden cost of self-abandonment and resisting change
🎤 How externally sourced self-worth keeps us stuck
🎤 Common signs it's time to release a friendship, job, or chapter of your life
🎤 Why burnout, stress, and exhaustion are often important messengers
🎤 How to heal the wounds these losses trigger
🎤 The process of rebuilding your confidence and identity after a major setback
🎤 Why the next opportunity often requires you to become yourself again first
🎤 How to trust that something more aligned may be waiting on the other side

If you're navigating job loss, friendship breakups, burnout, a life transition, or simply feeling like everything is falling apart, this conversation will remind you that sometimes what feels like rejection is actually redirection.

The chapter ending may not be punishment.

It may be preparation.

Done abandoning yourself for everyone else?
It's time to come home. Download The Unbecoming Ritual free. Your unbecoming begins here: https://thefemmecast.kit.com/ritual

Want to go deeper?
Come find me on Substack at The Femme Cast Diaries. I'm sharing my own unbecoming in real time -- the mess, the magic, and the chapters of my memoir Girl, Unbecoming. For the woman who is ready to stop pretending and start coming home to herself. Come unbecome with me: https://thefemmecast.substack.com/

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Idea

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey you guys, what is up? Welcome back to the show. I am so excited and grateful to have you guys here. Welcome if you're new. I wanted to talk on something or touch on something that we talked about a little bit like what we touched on last week. Can I get the words out properly? I want to touch on something that we talked about, or no. I want to talk about something that we touched on last week, is what I'm trying to say. And we just kind of, you know, just briefly mentioned it and kind of moved on. And I think it deserves more time at the table or a bigger space in the conversation. So I wanted to talk about the truth about why it is that so often the rug literally gets pulled out from under us. And why I almost want to say congratulations every time I hear a story that this happens to somebody. And people look at me like I've got like eyes on the back of my head when I say this, but it's true. It's a congratulations. Life just did you a favor. It got you out of a situation that you were not going to be able to do for yourself. It took, it took a harsh hand at getting you out of something because you, my dear, are meant for something better, something bigger, something more aligned for you, something that's going to bring you more fulfillment, more joy, more prosperity, more expansion, but you needed to get the hell out of Dodge first. And there's no way, no way you would have done that for yourself because you were too comfy, too cozy, and too afraid to disrupt the status quo to do it. So oftentimes when we are in situations where we're too attached, feeling too comfortable, feeling like we can't leave. Life will literally come down with an iron fist and say, Hell, no, we need you to move. We need you over there. But I know literally, literally, this is like energy, all powers that be, whatever. We need you over there, but we know you ain't leaving, so we're gonna make you leave. Right? Now, we've talked about this before on the show, right? We've talked about kind of like, you know, the life blow up, and you know, before you blow up your before your life blows up, you know, you always kind of get clues, right? Things start to not work, things start to fall apart. We can start to see the growing pains in the situations that we're clinging to, right? Where we're starting to outgrow our environments, our relationships, our circumstance, and yet instead

Why We Resist Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 3:05

of just going with it and trusting that we're outgrowing that space, we continue to try to cling. We can change, we continue to cling, we continue to adjust, and by adjust ourselves, I mean self-abandon to try and keep these people and places and things in our life that are meant to leave. And what ultimately ends up happening is they get literally whipped out right from under us under us. The problem is a lot of times when we do resist, we've self-abandoned, we've forgotten parts of ourselves, we left parts of ourselves behind. Now there's this whole unworthiness attached to the whole story, right? We've created this whole like conundrum of beliefs that we now have to like address. When had we just let go of the damn thing, when it was starting to ask us to let go of it, everything would have been just fine. But we resist, we resist that change. Why do we resist it? We resist it because we get attached, we resist it because we get comfortable, we resist it because we are again somewhere in there, we're externally sourcing our self-worth to that thing, that person, place, or thing that is now being pulled out of our lives. And we're resisting that. So we're clinging to it, right? Because we don't, we don't want to let it go. Because if I let this go, I'm not gonna feel worthy anymore. It's devastating, right? And then when that thing leaves, we have to, oops, tap my mic, we have to face that unworthiness. We have to look at it, we have to actually move through it, and that is disgusting. That is gross. Nobody likes to do that work, okay? That is the worst work, but it's all it's happening because A, like I said in previous episode or the one before that, we cannot externally source our self-worth to anyone or anything but ourselves. Okay, our self-worth has to be an internal thing. It has to be internally sourced. Number one. Number two, we're meant to do other things. We're meant to do bigger things. We're meant to grow, we're meant to evolve, we're needed places, our our energy is needed places, our wisdom is needed places, our vibe, our our our presence, our our thought process, our tips, tricks, techniques, whatever. Our love, our capacity to hold, our capacity to nurture is needed someplace else than where we are. And usually those places are going to bring us more fulfillment. But we've gotten so attached to what we've got because it's feeding that self-worth, it's it's it's masking those self-worth issues. And it's probably also, you know, there's also probably a benefit. Like we're getting, we're getting love, we're getting comfort, we're getting support, but it's from a lack mentality because we don't realize that there's so much more love available out there, right? Like when I think of, you know, when I think of, you know, so many times that this happened for me in the last couple of years, you know, I was attached to my friend group. I didn't want to let them go because I got so much support from them, you know, laughs, socializing, cool things that we did together, right? And I felt like I don't want to lose that. If I lose that, like who am I gonna hang out with? What am I gonna do? Like, how am I gonna have fun in the world? Like I'm just gonna feel I'm gonna feel so alone. I didn't realize that there were so many other more fulfilling friendships and relationships out there that truly saw me, that truly supported me, that were waiting for me to let those relationships go.

When Self Worth Gets Outsourced

SPEAKER_00 6:35

When I lost jobs, I didn't realize that there was bigger, bolder, better opportunities for me and bigger things for me to do in the world, right? But I needed to let go of that job first. And I wouldn't because I, in my head, I loved it, even though. And let's talk about the part where they're starting to send us signals that it's time to let them go. So, how do they send us signals? They start sending us signals by suddenly taking away the things that we loved about them. Well, my friends, you know, were always, you know, very supported. We already we always had a good time together. Well, now they were becoming a little catty. You know, now I kind of I suddenly felt like I couldn't be my felt myself around them. You know, when I got the promotion, instead of them cheering for me and celebrating me and saying, cheers to you, babe, like you've been through, like you've been through the ringer. And look at you now. Like, look at you. You've gone from, you know, struggling financially to, you know, being in the leadership role you always wanted, making the money that you've always deserved. We're so fucking proud of you. Like, cheers to you. Do you think any of them did that? No. They were actually,

Friendship Red Flags And Envy

SPEAKER_00 7:40

one of them was purely pissed, and she made it blatantly obvious every time because she mocked me every opportunity that she got. Oh, you're a big leader now. Oh, you're a big project manager now, you're this, you're that, right? And totally mocking my success. And the other one was trying to like conceptualize it in her head and make sense of it. So, how did you get that role? What did you do to get it? And literally at one point almost insinuated that I was like sleeping with my boss in order to get it. And so, and through all this, I'm still trying to hold on to these friendships. Until finally, I was like, well, why am I holding on to these friends? If they were truly my friends, if truly if they were my friends, they would be busting open the champagne. The fact that I went through all that hardship, finally found a job, even though it was below my pay grade, even though it was below what I wanted for myself, made the best of it, brought my positivity to that role every single day, did what I had to do to make a difference, to make an impact, to create positive change in the organization because I truly loved it and I loved the people that I was working with. And then literally overnight moving into a leadership role and like expanding my pay 10 times from what I was making when I first started. Instead of celebrating that, it was like they were taking digs at that. Now, if that wasn't a sign that it was time to leave those relationships behind, I don't know what was. And then also, let's talk about the workplace, right? Doing the job that I love, getting the pay that I wanted, working with amazing people. And then all of a sudden, oh, we're gonna put you in this role. But I hate that role. I'm not qualified for that. I don't, they put me in a fine role. I'm not qualified for finance. I know a lot about finance, and I can hold my own when it comes to finance. And I can, there's a lot that I can do, but being in a finance lead role, that was not where my strengths were. That was not where my passions were, that was not in my interests were. And I could do it if it was a little bit in support of my role, but my role had become a full-time finance role. I was pulling my own

Job Stress Signals And Burnout

SPEAKER_00 9:50

hair out. I actually, I think I was actually, I wasn't even pulling, I was losing my hair. I was so stressed out. I was putting together these monster spreadsheets with these monster formulas. Like I was practically like, I was practically a developer with the with the complexities of some of these formulas that I was creating in Excel. And God forbid, and then I actually at one point I think my my my boss was going in and like changing numbers on the spreadsheet, and then the whole thing stopped working because he broke the formulas. Oh my, and then I had to like put it all back together, and then I had to lock the documents so that nobody would change them. Because God forbid. Anyway, all that said, I was literally losing my hair. I wasn't sleeping, I was breaking out, like I just was the worst I had ever been. I was so burnt out. And it was because I was trying to do this job because I kept trying to do it in the hopes that eventually one day I'll be able to go back to doing what I was doing before, which is what I loved. And eventually I had to say, listen, I can't do this for you anymore. I've taken this as far as I could, I take, I've taken the finance lead role as far as I can take it. I can't do it anymore. I need to go back to doing what you actually brought me in here to do, which is the strategy work. And that was literally when I lost my job. But the all that being said, was that job asking me to let it go a year before I was actually let go? Probably. And that's why everything changed. And then so slowly after the dynamics changed, the team dynamics changed, things got weird. I was like, I knew there was a voice in my head saying, dude, it's time to go. Like, you gotta get the heck out of Dodge. But I didn't. Because I was there was a part of me that was really hoping that things somehow would miraculously turn around and go back to the way that they were. But I do believe that every time that we go through these situations, it's because there's something bigger and better waiting for us on the other side, something better with better alignment, with more that's gonna really speak to our soul, that's gonna elevate us in ways that we never even dreamed possible, that is gonna bring us more joy, more fulfillment, more abundance. And I'll be honest, like having been let go of that role, I haven't gotten to that, what's it called? That moment, right? Where it comes around and you're like, oh, okay, this is what was supposed to happen, this is where I was meant to be. I'm still on the journey there. I also had to do a lot of healing around what I lost, right? Which is the job that I loved. But, you know, and maybe that's why I am so much calmer this time around than I have been in other times where this has happened, because I know that big shifts like this, the rug does not get pulled out from under us. Unless we're meant to be somewhere that's better for us. Things don't start to fall apart because we're meant to cling to them. They start to fall apart because we're meant to let them go and make room for bigger, better, more aligned things. And so this has been the process that I've been in. And even though it's been scary, even though there's moments where like, shit, like am I gonna like, am I gonna like make it financially? Like, God forbid, like, am I gonna have to like like give up my apartment and go back in and move in with family again? Which I love my family, but living with them is a totally different thing, especially when you don't have your own like space, like my own nook to find like some privacy. Because I am a very I love being with my family, but I also need a lot of time alone. And when I don't have that time alone, I tend to go a bit skittish. Just saying, I don't know how I'm ever gonna go habitate with a man again because I do need so much time alone. We'll see how that works. I figure he has to give me my alone time and he also has to not he cannot have a peanut allergy, you guys. I eat so much peanut butter, I fucking love peanut butter. He cannot have a peanut allergy. If he has a peanut allergy, it's literally like, I'm sorry, I can't like date you. I just can't. I will kill him. But anyway, all that aside, where was I going with this? So I had to, you know, really look at, you know, being in the space that I'm in right now, and no matter how hard it got, I had to look at and remember, okay, this happened for a reason. I didn't get like ejected out of that role for nothing. I didn't get rejected out of those friendships because there weren't better relationships on the way. I didn't get ejected from that job because there wasn't something more purposeful that I meant to do in the world. You know, I didn't get ejected from any of these circumstances because the universe didn't have a soft place for me to land on the other side. Does the transition there sometimes take a while?

unknown 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

You know, I find that sometimes the more we cling to these things, like I've like I've said before, the

Healing After The Ejection

SPEAKER_00 14:55

more we cling, the more we try to hang on, the more stories we start to perpetuate about ourselves and what our own worth and what we deserve, right? The more we start to abandon those parts of ourselves that make us amazing. And then so we have to rebuild a little bit before the next thing can come in because the neck, the next thing was designed for the person. Think of it this way. Whether we're talking about a relationship, a friendship, or a job, let's focus on a job for right now, right? Let's talk about a job. So you're at your job that you love and that you're thriving in and you're doing so well, and you're the most confident that you've ever been. You love going to work every day, you love the people that you're working with, you love the projects that you're working on, you love the outfits that you're putting on in the morning, you feel like you feel really confident in who you are, how you look, and who you're being, right? And all of a sudden that gets, you know, that starts to pull away from you. And what do you do? You start to give up some of that stuff that's making you feel so good. You start to give up those parts of yourself. You start to not care so much about what you're wearing because you just want to get to work and make sure you prove your you earn your worth, you prove your worth to the organization. You go back on the things that you know that you love doing, the things that you're passionate about, and start doing what people want or need from you in order to keep your job and keep your paycheck. You start to do things that don't feel right to you, that don't feel good to you, that feel forced, that are draining you of your energy, your life force, right? All to make sure that you don't lose that job, you don't lose that paycheck, you don't lose that thing that was giving you so much purpose and belief and confidence in yourself. And so what you're doing is basically you're starting to erode yourself a little bit, a little bit. You're eroding those parts of yourself that this next phase was designed for. So the universe is like, oh fuck, she's not gonna let this go. What are you gonna do? What should we do? Should we pull the plug? Let's pull the plug, pull the plug, yank it out of your life. It's gone. Well, now we can't give her the thing that we had planned for her. She's look at her, she's a mess. She said her hair is falling out. She's like wearing yoga pants every freaking day. I'm literally in yoga pants right now. She's wearing yoga pants in a tank every day and calling it like career wear. Okay. We we gotta do something here. We can't, we we what we've got planned for her, she is not in the position for right now. We gotta we gotta bolster her back up again. We gotta build her back up. So, what what happens? You start to do the work, you start to do the healing, you start to do the clearing, you start to come back to yourself, you start to rewire all those beliefs that you cultivated and picked up along the way that aren't serving you. You start to to pick yourself back up again and start to feel like yourself again and start to feel confident again. And that's when the thing comes in that the universe already had positioned for you before it ejected you out of the last place, but you just needed to take a hot minute to build yourself back up and prepare for it. So, all that to say, if the universe has ejected you out of a situation, be it a job, a relationship, a home, a country, whatever, whatever you've been ejected out of, congratulations, because you're on your way to something truly amazing. You truly are. Otherwise, you would never have been ejected out of it. And I firmly, firmly, firmly believe that. And I will, I promise you, I will report back as soon as said amazing thing comes back into

Rebuild The Version That Was Ready

SPEAKER_00 18:15

my life, because I promise you that it will. I absolutely believe that it will. It's going to come back. I'm going to be able to share it on this podcast. We are going to celebrate it together. You're not going to be like my nasty ex-friends who were trying to like put me down for it or try and accuse me of sleeping with my boss for getting it. Right? We're all gonna cheers together. We're all gonna crack open the champagne or or have an Aperol spritz or whatever. Oh my god, I'm dying for an Aperol spritz. Anyway, it's still morning, but hey, I haven't had a drink in a very long time. So yeah. So we're gonna celebrate. And I promise you that this moment is coming. I'm already starting to feel more like myself again. I'm already starting to feel more in alignment again, even though I have no reason to. Trust me when I say this, I have no fucking reason to. My finances are like in the gutter. I'm literally living on almost, almost on overdraft at this point. I have a little bit in the account, but very little. Like, I don't know how I'm gonna make it to the next month, but I know that where I am right now is the closest that I've been to what the universe had planned for me all along when I lost that last job. And it's just taken me a few years to rebuild myself back up to where I was before that started to go south. I am feeling right now like the version of me who I was before that job started to go south. The outspoken, confident who knows her shish, who knows she has value to bring, who knows she does amazing work in the world and is ready to do it. I feel like her again, with taking with me the lesson that I learned, which is don't cling to things that are asking to be let go. Let go of them freely. Because there's better things waiting for you. Otherwise, they would not be asking for you to let go of them. And the sooner that you can let go of them and be like, okay, you know what? I'm gonna let go of the reins. If this thing, person, place, or thing is meant to be in my life, it will stay. I don't need to maneuver or sabotage or sacrifice myself or abandon myself in any way to keep any person, place, or thing in my life. If it is meant for me, it will stay with me. And the sooner you can let go and stay whole within yourself, the sooner the blessing on the other side will come in. The reason why I've been stuck in this cycle of rebuilding is because I abandon myself so much to hold on to that job. And that is a lesson that I take with me. That I that is a mistake that I will not be making again. Next time, if something is asking to be let go of, I will let it go. And I will let it go with love and I will let it go with gratitude because I know that it would not be asking to be and nothing, it means nothing about me or my worth. I just know there's something better for me waiting on the other side. And all this thing is doing is doing me the favor of making room for it. So if something has left your life, if the rug has been pulled out from under you, congratulations, you're on your way to doing amazing things. Start paying attention to what that loss is triggering in you, right? How it's making you feel, what beliefs it's triggered in you, and how you can start to rewire some of those beliefs and come back to the version of you before this thing started to leave your life. That version of you that felt confident, that version of you that felt like she was on top of the world, that she was untouchable, that she had it all figured out. And then suddenly that, you know, that moment, that tipping scale where you were at your peak, and then things started to shift, and this thing, this person place or thing started to show you, hey, I don't want to be here with you anymore. And when you started to like self-sacrifice and self-abandon and self-sabotage to keep it, right there, that's the sweet spot. That's the person you need to come back to in order to be a match for what's waiting for you on the other side. Mark my words. If you can come back to that version of you by doing the work, by looking at your beliefs, by looking at your self-worth and and bringing that back to home base to yourself, I guarantee you you're gonna collapse a timeline with this other thing that's waiting to come in. I don't care what's happening in the economy, I don't care what the job market is telling you, that opportunity is there. You just need to be the version of yourself that you were when that thing magically became available to you in your field, but you clung on to this thing over here that was asking to be let go. Okay, and that's how that whole crazy woo-woo energetic process is working behind the scenes. It was there from the moment you were at your best. She's at her best, she's ready, she's ready for the thing. Let's get it ready, let's get her there. Okay, we gotta get her to leave this thing though, but she's not leaving. Okay, well, let's start to make it uncomfortable for her. She's still not leaving. But we just no, but she's still not leaving. She's clinging, she's clinging like it's a freaking life raft. Oh, god damn it. And now you gotta do the gotta do the work to get back to where you were when it was ready for you, which was right before

Let Go Cleanly To Move Faster

SPEAKER_00 23:25

shit got uncomfortable. Who was she? How is she behaving? How was she showing up? How is she what was she doing in the world? What did she believe about herself? What did she believe about what she was capable of? Be her. Tap back into her. And I promise you, you will collapse the timeline between that and that thing that is waiting for you on the other side. That is all. I have been rambling for 23 minutes. That's not that bad, I guess. If you love this episode, please leave a positive rating and review wherever you're seeing this. It helps this podcast get out to other women who need it. Also, if I can't find now I'm losing my words. If something really resonated for you, please let me know. I love hearing from you guys. I'm not as active on Instagram anymore. I will tell you that. I've kind of ghosted Instagram. Me and Instagram are having a fight. I'm just not loving it. It's gotten so performative. But you can email me at Maria at the femmecoach.com, or there's a way that you can leave a comment actually on the podcast directly. I think there's I think there's a link in the show notes. So go check everything's in the show notes. Go check out the show notes. If you want to engage, if you want to follow, if you want to comment, if you want to get the the the one page daily rebuild ritual, all there. All there for you. So until next time, you guys, massive love.