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    Home » Personal

    Finding the Courage to Quit

    Published: Dec 2, 2019 · Modified: Feb 2, 2022 by Laura Reigel · This post may contain affiliate links

    Finding Courage to Quit | foodologygeek

    This story is very personal, and I only share it with you because I know that I'm not the only one. I hope you can find your courage in it. This is the story of how I found the courage to leave everything in my life that I had planned to follow my dreams. 

    Finding Courage to Quit | foodologygeek

    I spent a really long time following all the rules.

    Certain things in life are just expected. So I did them. I think we believe that these are things that make us happy. We follow blindly step-by-step. Well, at least I did. 

    • I've owned a business.
    • I went to college.
    • I earned a graduate degree.
    • I got married.
    • I had my daughter.
    • I supported my family financially.
    • I planned.
    • I worked hard.
    • I became an expert in my field.
    • I presented my research at major scientific conferences.
    • I instructed others in crime scene investigation and cold case hommicide investigation.
    • I testified in court as an expert witness in the field of forensic DNA.
    • I solved many cold cases and felt great about it.
    A to do list of what society expects us to do. | foodologygeek

    Then life happened

    I could say S#&% happened.

    • I got divorced.
    • I made a major career move that was extremely stressful.
    • I spent some time figuring my life out.
    • I met the man that would become the love of my life and my best friend.
    • We got married.
    • We had some really challenging times – because blending a family can be hard and soul-crushing.
    • I was diagnosed with PTSD after 16 years of working in Forensics and seeing alot of things: crime scenes, cold case homicides, fatal crashes, and child pornography cases.
    • I was stressed, not sleeping, gaining weight, drinking way too much, working out way too hard while I was under all this stress.
    • It finally left me broken, and I had to make some tough choices.

    I quit everything!

    • I quit measuring everything I ate.
    • I quit eating paleo.
    • I quit the gym.
    • I quit drinking every night.
    • I quit weighing myself.
    • I quit measure myself by the labels and values that I was previously attached.
    • I chose to leave a career that I loved because it was no longer serving me.

    My job was no longer feeding my soul.

    My career was destroying my soul and damaging my mental and physical health.

    I was suffering. My family was suffering. So, I thought long and hard about what leaving this job would mean for me.

    I decided for myself that life is too short to spend that much time just grinning and bearing a job that wasn't adding anything positive to my life anymore.

    Many people had opinions about whether I should stay with my job that had a guaranteed pension. Some people supported my leaving and even highly recommended it. Some people questioned my sanity.

    What if I pursued my passion?

    I started to imagine what life would be like if I were to invest all that time into what I have always been passionate about. Cooking.

    I started to imagine what life would feel like I pursued my passion fearlessly, not for money or gain but strictly for the sole purpose of sharing my love with others.

    What could my life look like if I was able to invest my time and love into the things in my life that are most important to me?

    Everything in life takes hard work and commitment.

    I looked around and saw so many successful food bloggers. Why could I not be one of them?

    • I can cook! I mean I can cook really well.
    • I can take pictures sure there is a little bit of difference in photographing crime scenes to beautiful food pictures.
    • I can learn.
    • I can work hard.

    With effort and work, my food photography will get better.

    Writing about food and life –  I can do that!

    It's going to take practice to get good at it. It took me 16 years to build a career.

    It will take time to build this into a career. But that is okay. In the meantime, it is more vital for me and my family that I spend time investing my time in things that make me healthy and happy.

    I recovered

    After some treatment and some counseling, I recovered from PTSD, for the most part. I think there will always be a few things that I can never unsee. 

    The important part is, I can sleep again. 

    I hope this article finds you well and if you are reading this and you or anyone you may know has suffered from PTSD, get help! EMDR saved my life! Literally.

    I cannot tell you how fortunate I feel that I had the right people in life that helped me get the help that I needed to recover from PTSD. There were a few years there that got pretty rocky.

    • What is PTSD?
    • Treatment for PTSD

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    About Laura Reigel

    Laura is the owner and CEO of Foodology Geek. She holds a degree in Physiology and Neuroscience as well as a Certification as a Nutrition Coach. Laura uses her love of cooking and science to create healthy real food recipes that you'll love eating.

    As a certified recipe hoarder, and meal prep maven Laura is passionate about sharing her love for cooking easy from-scratch recipes. She also shares the occasional family recipe and all of the technical details.

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