“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
When I lost meaning in and for my life while questioning my career path as a surgical resident, I lost motivation to eat and isolated in guilt and shame. Looking back, I had given up the very things that I now realize give life meaning in the pursuit of my career: relationships (including friendship and community connection). This realization, along with a life-threatening illness, led to my multiple pivots that include my current training pursuit in marriage and family therapy.
As a biased aside, I think our educational curriculum would strongly benefit from infusing marriage and family therapy courses. But I digress.
In 2016, when I was on an FMLA from oral surgery residency and admitted for treatment for anorexia nervosa, which helped numb me from my existential crisis at the time, I watched my heart rate tick in the 20s on the hospital monitor with apathy and detachment. I greeted the clinicians who ran into my room every now and then to verify my status, and I observed my life as if it were happening to someone else, feeling asymptomatic and disconnected from the world. Trauma has a fascinating way of helping us to survive.
That same year, my ex-boyfriend who I cared for deeply passed away suddenly, six months after I had returned from that hospital stay and re-entered the medical school portion of my oral surgery residency after an eating disorder treatment center could not keep me due to my low HR. We are taught that self-sacrifice is noble, and I completed medical school while navigating the understanding and awareness that my heart may stop in my sleep at any time at the rate I was going.
Fast forward to today, it’s been eight years, nearly to the day, since I resigned from oral surgery and was discharged from the military for the very thing I thought was noble: self-sacrificing to the point where I was not well enough to continue. I was discharged on the same day as my ex’s birthday, a day that I saw as a sign and put trust in the process while feeling lost and empty without my military and surgeon identities.
Finding ourselves after major life and career transitions is often a turbulent ride as we lose stability and security in our views of ourselves and our worth. Things admittedly got worse before they got better after I left surgery, and the last time I nearly lost my life on the road to stabilization from identity loss and anorexia was 2021. However, that particular rock bottom catapulted me into a recovery journey that freed me from the societal pressures that were drowning me, that are drowning many of us and maintaining this constant inner, toxic shame feeling of “never enough.”
Since July of this year, I have been an unpaid marriage and family therapy intern. Based on societal valuation of income and finances, I should feel less worthy, and sometimes my ego does win that battle. However, what I learned is that my life has meaning when I am helping others to know that they matter: to feel seen, valued, and appreciated in life, detached from societal markers of “success.”
There were never enough academic awards and there will never be enough money that could fill the void within my heart, and the chase for individual success led me to run further from the very things that my heart was craving: genuine connection with others and cultivating a life of meaning with a supportive, loving community.
Humans are made to live in community and support one another. In her book, Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It, Jennifer Breheny Wallace speaks to how children may develop better mental health outcomes if we focus on their contributions to the family unit in the form of age-appropriate chores over the hyperfocus on achievements. I value her push to have us rethink our approach to helping our children and ourselves to reclaim the narratives on what’s important in life. My achievements were not there to save me on my near-death bed, and the loneliness was a painful reminder of all that I had given up to achieve them.
The recovery journey over the past seven years after losing myself and my “why” has constantly reminded me of the importance of community and how trauma and shame heal in connection with others who provide compassion and non-judgment. May we reclaim the narratives and ground ourselves on a “why” that aligns with our own values (what truly matters to us), detaching from the societal narratives that often push us further and further from the peace, connection, and fulfillment we crave.
When I shed the layers of who I thought I needed to be to have worth in this world, I found my way back home to myself. I do not know where the future may lead, but I am more grounded in my “why,” and I trust that my “why” will help me figure out the “hows.” I trust the same for you.
If you are struggling to figure out the “how,” I invite you to step back to check in on your “why.” Does your “why” align with your values and heart’s desires? If so, how may your “why” become the compass to help you figure out the “how”? If your “why” is not authentic to your values, what do you need to do? What could it sound like to reclaim the narratives around what is important in your life? What may it take to give yourself permission to pivot?
If you are reading this, it is not too late to take back your life and refocus your attention. However, I know all too well that tomorrow is no guarantee. What may you do, today, to prioritize what matters most to you and connect with those who help make life meaningful for you?
Jillian Rigert is a physician coach and a marriage and family therapy graduate student.
