What Quitting My Job to Rest Taught Me About Fear, Regret, and My Body
- Feb 27
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Written by Yolan Bedasse, Writer | Coach – Helping high-achieving women to exhale in the messy middle
Yolan is known for helping high-achieving women craving more than titles. Her coaching and writing are rooted in over a decade of corporate experience and a deep understanding of identity shifts, career transitions, and what comes after ambition.
What happens when the break you longed for and sacrificed identity and stability for doesn’t give you the rest you were hoping for? During the nine months after walking away from my corporate job, I learned rest isn’t guaranteed, my body is one of my most valuable teachers, and sometimes the bravest thing I can do is surrender to rest.
Last year, I did the unthinkable: I quit my job, on April Fool’s Day, no less. My six-figure, benefits included, the reason I’m able to support my SINK life, job. It wasn’t a rash decision. But it was a decision made from a place desperate for relief. I had no idea what came next. I just knew deep soulful rest was on the agenda, or so I thought. Here are the lessons I learned the hard way after nine months of going without a 9-to-5.
1. Time off doesn’t guarantee rest
Have you ever woken up in the morning after getting 8 hours of sleep and feeling more tired than when you went to bed? That was my life for two years leading up to the day I quit, and I honestly expected that some of the sweetest sleeps of my life were in my very near future. But what I learned was that by leaving the very thing that was causing me stress and anxiety, it didn’t create space for rest. It created the perfect conditions to deal with everything in my life I’d suppressed and ignored for years. And trying to make sense of them while suffering from bone-deep exhaustion made for the emotional and mental extreme sport that was my 2025.
2. You don’t have as much control over your body as you think
In this article, “When Lingering Became A Whisper From My Body,” I spoke about what led to the decision on that fateful April Fool’s Day and how my body screamed at me that it was time to go. You see, the Friday before, I started my workday feeling great with plans to fit in a boxing class that evening. But after 8 hours filled with every trigger you could think of in the workplace, I ended the day with a relentless headache, sinus issues, and huddled in bed shivering. By the following morning, I made the decision, and within hours, I was feeling much better.
Just like my body whispering for me to go, it sternly reminded me in the months after that the priority was to recover. I had so many plans to write, coach, and travel. But what I spent the majority of the time doing was taking long afternoon naps. Your body will tell you what you need, and if you choose to ignore it for what you want, you’ll lose that fight.
3. My fears turned my break into another full-time job
I had plans for my time off. Immerse myself in learning a new language, focus on my writing and building my coaching practice, and travel. Oh, how I wanted to travel. I wanted to spend the summer in Europe, renting an apartment in Paris, and just exploring different countries for a few weeks. But once I left and realized I really had no idea what was next, my priority was maximizing my savings. The fear of running out of money and not figuring out my next source of income in time ruled how I spent my days. Now listen, I’ll never be the person who tells anyone to throw caution to the wind and “everything will work itself out, so do what you want”. But looking back, I wish I’d booked that trip before I quit. Instead, I planned my budget and made sure I’d be okay for a little while without income. But it’s very hard to spend money on “wants” when you’re living on a fixed income. I was so afraid of financial instability that it guided every decision I made, even if it made me unhappy.
4. Planning ≠ recovering: Rest and recovery require surrender
There’s no amount of planning that I could’ve done to prepare for how the nine months unfolded. It’s as though things in my life waited until I stopped bracing and surviving to be like, “okay great, she has time to pay attention to this now”. In those nine months, I dealt with a close relationship fracturing, my dog having health challenges, and bone-deep exhaustion that just wouldn’t quit. Last time I napped this hard, I was 2 years old. I had to learn to listen to my body and surrender to it. Sometimes, we have to go through hard things, and the only control we have is how we move through them. Resistance prolongs the process. Surrender to your rest and recovery.
5. Regret can be a teacher
I do have regrets about how I handled things last year, and sometimes I let it get the best of me. But this experience has taught me a lot about self-trust and giving myself a lot of grace as I move through this world. I’ve never been here before.
If I had to do it all over again, I would take the trip, stop trying to solve my life in a week, rest without guilt, and give myself permission to be human and surrender to the journey even when it’s hazy and filled with uncertainty.
Conclusion
Choosing to rest is the bravest choice, especially when the world we live in rewards productivity, ten-step plans, and resilience. If you’re in a season where you’re tired, craving rest, and trying to figure out the best way to navigate that messy space between burnout and clarity, please hear me: You’re not behind, you’re not failing, your body is simply asking you for what you deserve: surrender to rest.
The rest is where the journey begins to lead you to clarity. If you’re on the verge of a decision, in the messy middle of a transition, or exhausted from carrying too much for too long, you don’t have to navigate it alone.
I coach individuals exactly in this season. Those who are tired of performing rest and are ready to actually experience it without guilt or fear of being left behind. If this is where you are, let’s chat.
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Yolan Bedasse, Writer | Coach – Helping high-achieving women to exhale in the messy middle
Yolan is a writer and coach for high-achieving women who are ready for more than titles. After a decade in corporate, she now guides women through career transitions, identity shifts, and emotional sustainability with clarity and care. Through coaching containers and writing spaces, she invites readers into a life that invites an exhale you didn’t know you were holding. One shaped by resonance and honest reflection.
