In 2025 alone, there were over 1.17 million layoffs in the US — the highest number since 2020. Estimates show that more than 450,000 of those positions were held by women. That's a lot of people hitting an inflection point they didn't choose.
But what I keep hearing from clients isn't only about the job loss itself. It's something underneath it. Something like: I did everything I was supposed to do. I played by the rules. And for what?
That question is worth sitting with. Because I think a lot of our exhaustion and frustration with work comes from the fact that most of us have never actually stopped to examine our relationship to it. We've worked, overextended, said yes to more — without ever asking whether any of it aligned with who we actually are.
This is the question I open with in season two of In Her Words. And it's the question I want to explore with you here.
The practice:
Grab a piece of paper. Before you read further, take a few minutes to reflect on these:
What roles do you play in your life — mother, artist, caregiver, coach, friend?
What did you inherit — where you were born, your family, aspects of your identity you didn't choose?
What have you chosen for yourself — where you work, where you live, what you do with your time?
What do you feel confident about?
What brings you joy?
What do you want to be or do?
Look at what you wrote. Notice the themes. Notice what's missing.
Work takes up a third of our lives. Most of us have never questioned it.
The average person will spend over 90,000 hours at work across their lifetime — roughly one third of their entire life. More time than most of us spend with our families.
And yet, for most of us, work isn't something we chose consciously. We fell into it, followed advice, took the safe route, climbed the ladder that was in front of us. The first question most people ask when they meet you isn't about your values or your relationships or what you love — it's what do you do for work? Work isn't just something we do. It becomes the way we identify ourselves.
For me, as a transracial adoptee, work filled a void of identity for most of my life. I identified with titles — instructor, researcher, manager, coach — more than almost anything else. Work was how I proved my competence, built self-worth, found meaning. I didn't fully understand how much it was defining me until I was laid off in 2023.
The open calendar was suffocating. If I wasn't working, who was I? What value did I provide? That discomfort was clarifying — it showed me how unhealthy my relationship with work had become.
Most of us are chasing higher-order needs. The system wasn't built for that.
A useful frame for understanding what we want from work is Maslow's hierarchy of needs — adapted for the workplace. At the foundation are physiological needs: salary, stability, food on the table. Then safety: freedom from layoffs, budget cuts, political volatility. Then belonging: relationships with colleagues. Then esteem: feeling like your work matters and drives impact. And at the top, self-transcendence: a sense of calling, of contributing to something larger than yourself.
For many workers in developed countries, the lower-order needs are largely met. What people are hungering for now — what I hear from clients constantly — is the upper levels. Esteem. Meaning. The sense that this work is actually theirs.
I grew up hearing that good work meant a stable salary, a retirement fund, a house someday. Fulfillment wasn't part of the conversation. But I always knew I wanted more — and I suspect you do too, or you wouldn't be here.
Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we thought we ought to be. - Parker Palmer
Here's something I say to clients that tends to land hard: work is the only form of addiction our society actively rewards. You get praised for having no boundaries. For doing more. For always being available. There's always another thing on the list, and you're never quite doing enough.
But that's a story we've been handed, not a law of nature. And the fact that so many people are hitting walls right now — through layoffs, burnout, identity crises disguised as career transitions — suggests the story isn't working for us anymore.
So this season of In Her Words is about reclaiming it. You'll hear from women who questioned what they'd been told, made shifts even when the system was pushing back, and designed something that actually fits their lives.
Before any of that can happen, though, we have to start with the question most people skip: what is your relationship to work, really? Not the polished LinkedIn version. The real one.
That's where we begin.
If the reflection questions from this episode resonated, you can purchase the full exercise set at learnmindfully.co/resources. Season two of In Her Words is available now wherever you listen to podcasts.