When Staying Is Hurting You But Leaving Feels Impossible

Sometimes the danger is not in leaving. It is in staying.

This episode is for the person who knows something is not working but feels like they cannot afford to walk away. You have responsibilities. You owe bills. You are not reckless. But your body is paying the price.

We talk about the difference between panic, denial, and design. And why the most honest choice is not always the safest looking one.

🗓 Book a clarity conversation: https://kerenelijah.com/work-with-me/

🎧 Full podcast: https://kerenelijah.com/podcast/

💬 DM me on Instagram @thekerenelijah

Transcript

  We're gonna talk about something that is not said honestly. And it's that sometimes the harder decisions are not about chasing something new. They're about walking away from something that is actually hurting you. And the thing is, with decisions like this, most times you feel like you cannot afford to make them.

Now I'll give examples, but I'm not talking about something very drastic, or dramatic like career pivot or who to marry. Or, I mean those apply as well. I'm talking about you need money, you have responsibilities, you owe bills. You are not reckless, but your body is paying the price. Now think about something in your life that you are enduring because you feel like you have to, and I want you to notice how your body feels when you think about it.

Does your stomach sink? Does your chest tighten? Do you feel tired? Just imagining another week of it. I want you to take this as information. It is not a sign of weakness. It is data that your body is collecting. Information right now. I'm gonna give you an example. There was this job I took because I needed stability on paper it admits and it was a lot of money that I could make, right?

But in a reality, it was costing me, I mean, a lot mentally and physically. Yeah, and I couldn't leave because I owed money. I had responsibilities, I had pressure, so I stayed at this job. I told myself I could handle it, but my body sort of deciding for me and I found myself in the ER.

And I called my boss and the response was basically, I don't care. You should be at work. I was like, Hey, you know, a s by good, employee. I was like, okay, I'll try. Hey. In my head, I could try, but my body could not try, you know, physically I couldn't afford to be there.

Like I spent the whole day in the ER. And the next day when I should have showed at work, it was brushed up, like, you know, nothing happened.

And then that was when I knew I had to do something, not something dramatic, not something heroic, just I just knew I had to take action. If I didn't address this, my body would keep escalating. Because of the nature of the job, I had lots of expectations I had to meet, right?

So I had to have a hard conversation, and the conversation led to me losing the job, not because I was incompetent, I was good at my job. Even my boss told me, you're good at your job, but my capacity and the job requirements no longer matched. Sincerely speaking, and the truth is, I had ignored this mismatch right from the beginning for too long.

And from this experience, I've learned that when something feels risky, we think the danger is leaving. But sometimes , the real risk is in staying in that, situation, right? Staying while, your body deteriorates, staying while. Performance declines. That is no stability. That is deterred collapse.

But here's the mature part. leaving impulsively is not wisdom either

what do you do when both options feel dangerous? I want you to stop asking what is the safest choice? And I want you to start asking what is the most honest choice I can sustain? And this question changed a whole lot of things for me because I couldn't afford drama, I couldn't afford recklessness.

Right. But I also couldn't afford to deny what was happening in the situation. and here's the thing, when decisions are high stakes, i've been in a lot of high stake situations, and in that moment when a lot of things matter to you, your nervous system wants certainty, right?

Certainty actually really comes, it's really rare for you to know what to do, certainly at that moment in time. Of course, there are cases where the Holy Spirit gives discernment and prayer is important at that moment in time, but one thing that can help you and one thing you will need instead of certainty is clarity about a few things. So clarity about your actual capacity, your non-negotiables, your financial reality, and your health reality. Okay. Decisions are not made in theory.

They are made within the constraints that you have. And constraints are not disqualifications. I call them design parameters because that's what you're working with. That's the reality. And if you are listening and thinking, well, I know something is not working. But I don't know how to move without blowing up my life.

That is real. That is adulthood and that is responsibility. And this is the part where most people freeze because they're trying to choose between panic and denial. But there is a third option . There is more, you don't have to choose between panic or denying the situation.

You can choose to design, right? And de designing means that you have to have hard conversations. You have to make. Some little adjustments. you have to set boundaries, it means, building a runway and not taking flight from just entering the plane and flying off.

You need to have a runway so that you have. A path to follow and a path to come back to. Right. Design also means that you take strategic courage and not just dramatic and impulsive decisions.

Now, here's the thing. I talked about design, talked about panic. I talked about denial. One thing that makes, decisions un bearable. Is that you are too close to see it. Most times we're too close to tunnel vision to see it. We can't see what is negotiable. We can't see what's fear. We can't see what is fact.

And that usually is when a conversation helps. Not to tell you what to do, but to slow you down enough so that you don't have to decide from panic. Right? And if you ever need that kind of space. The link is in my bio. The link is in the description for whenever you're ready. Now, the next time we're going to be here, we're gonna be talking about something even harder.

What happens when you make a decision and doubt shows up anyway?

Yeah. But for now, not every risk is about jumping. Some risks about telling the truth, and sometimes the most responsible decision is the one that looks unstable . I'll see you in the next episode.