From Layoff to Lift-Off

How Losing My Public Health Career is Revealing My True Path

Leti's 4:45 PM Tuesday yoga flow class kicks my ass. Every Tuesday, after my standing 3:30 PM meeting, I change into yoga tights and a tank top and put my yoga gear at the front door so I can leave right at 4:30 PM, ready for Leti's workout punishment.

That Tuesday, I got an email from my supervisor for a 4:30 PM meeting. When this happens on yoga days, I leave home early and take the meeting from my car in the yoga studio parking lot. So there I sat in my Mini Cooper, my body aching for Leti's tantric torture. When I logged into the call and noticed I was the only one on the invite. Oh fuck. And just like that, I got laid off.

"Due to a reduction in force, effective immediately, you'll no longer be an employee here," Emma, my supervisor, said. Her face was uncharacteristically stoic. Usually, her wide smile took up the entire screen in our one-on-ones. Emma was an authentic and supportive leader and the most competent boss I'd had in my 10 years as a federal contractor. We had bonded over our shared determination to design unique ways to promote health equity in campaigns. Just the week before, Emma defiantly announced to our team that they would have to, "drag my yellow Korean ass outta here before I quit working toward achieving health equity." Emma was the shit.

“Any final questions?” Emma asked. She had made it quick and painless. She gave me the particulars, expressed how much she hated this, and provided the next steps. It was 4:41 PM. She paused, looking unflinchingly at the Zoom camera—at me.

Emma was also a fellow yogi, so during the pause I imagined her taking measured breaths right before our call to center herself. "No questions," I responded. My head had started to float from the sneak attack, but my body was more ready than ever for Leti to have her way with it. "I'm going into my yoga class now. Goodbye."

***

I was laid off exactly one month ago. Today, April 4, 2025, I am using my small platform to express some of my experiences over the past month. And today, I am transforming because I have to and I want to.

Like my colleagues, my LinkedIn feed is a bloodbath of green "OPEN TO WORK" badges posted by the thousands of freshly unemployed public health professionals—federal employees and private contractors. Being torn from our jobs, and for many, their calling, has been worse than you can imagine.

I do not have tips or tricks for getting another public health contracting job—they simply don't exist right now. I cannot connect anyone with useful contacts in the public health space because they are unemployed or waiting to become unemployed. I do not, at this moment, have the capacity, mental or otherwise, to review someone else's resume. I do have my experience from the last month to share. Specifically, I can share what I have done and what I am doing at this moment to process my feelings, accept change, and lean into opportunity:

I Let Myself Feel All My Feelings

I am by nature a doer. I thrive on doing things, accomplishing tasks, and moving forward. So, serendipitously, the day before I was laid off, I was with my therapist exploring what might occur if I were laid off.

"What are you feeling? How do you feel that you may be laid off?" Jeff asked. Even through the screen, Jeff wore that empathetic therapist face that beamed, We listen, but we don't judge.

"I'm feeling ready to develop my re-employment plan," I began. I looked straight into the webcam and continued, "I've started to make a list of people to connect with and…"

Jeff cut me off. "I didn't ask what you were doing, I asked what you were feeling."

Being a doer, my immediate instinct was to skip the emotions and move into action. But what I needed was to identify my feelings and experience them. Not feeling them would mean those things would remain with me and become blocks for any action I would eventually take.

I reflected, trying to suppress my sudden interest in the emergency vehicle blaring outside. "I feel sad. Sad for what is happening and for my colleagues who have already lost their jobs. I feel angry. I feel helpless."

"Yes. Feel sad and helpless and angry," Jeff said. He pushed further. "Tell me this. Does your 'helplessness' feel 'angry', or does your 'anger' feel 'helpless'?"

My brow furrowed. Emotions can have feelings? I thought. Suddenly, inside me, my helplessness revealed its rage in a swell. "My helplessness is angry as fuck! It's gonna use that anger to drive me."

Yes, emotions can have emotions.

I Let the World Fall Away for a While

I let it fall away for 3 weeks. I got laid off the day before a two-week vacation (I decided to stay an extra week after the news) to Aotearoa (the name for New Zealand in the indigenous Māori language). I honestly couldn't have asked for better timing. Having the space and time to zoom out and process the layoff outside of my familiar routine and environment was extremely beneficial. The 8,300 miles and 18-hour time difference allowed me to sit with myself, meditate, and process—in other words, feel my feelings.

I especially cherished this quiet time before I told anyone. I knew my colleagues, friends, and family would bring tons of supportive energy, solutions, and ideas and would be ready to plug me into new positions. But all of that felt overwhelming at the time. So, I let the world fall away just for a while and enjoyed the peaceful eye of the storm.

The result of these 19 days was that I'd processed enough to unburden my mind from a lot of the sadness and helplessness I felt, enabling my strategic, creative mind to float new ideas and concepts at a time when I least expected it.

Looking out at the redwoods surrounding Lake Tikitapu. (Rotorua)

I Sought Perspective from AI

My Type A personality wouldn't allow complete inactivity, so I turned to Claude.ai. Without clear expectations, I prompted:

“I’ve just been laid off from my job as a public health communicator that I was invested in. I’ve built a successful career over 17 years. I’m on my way to New Zealand for a two-week vacation. When I get back, I’ll need to plan to get a new job and probably a new career since the field is about to be decimated and the job market full. Give me some advice on what steps I should be taking right now.”

Claude responded with unexpected empathy yet logical clarity:

“I'm sorry to hear about your layoff, especially in a field you've dedicated 17 years to and truly enjoyed. That's really tough timing with your vacation approaching.

-First, try to allow yourself to enjoy your two weeks in New Zealand as much as possible. This break could provide valuable mental space to process this transition. While there, you might:

-Take some time to reflect on what aspects of public health communication you found most fulfilling

-Journal about your skills, accomplishments, and the parts of your work that energized you

-Consider whether you want to stay in an adjacent field or explore something entirely new.”

AI for the win.

My husband snapped a memory of me meditating at Lake Wakatipu. (Queenstown)

I Harnessed Perspective from Nature

Rotorua, a town about 140 miles south of Auckland, boasts one of the highest concentrations and most diverse geothermal areas in Aotearoa. I spent my first day in Rotorua at a Māori-owned spa, swimming in natural sulphur hot springs, coating myself in local grey mud, and steaming while staring at the jutting mountains pushed up eons ago by volcanic activity.

In the mānuka honey bath, I confided about getting laid off to my new friend Tāwhanga (pronounced tah-FUN-ya). He agreed with the benefits of being away and told me about his practice of using nature to work through such moments. He gave me an example, and though I was skeptical, I decided to make an effort to meditate on the picturesque surroundings to see what I could glean.

My breakthrough came the next evening during a hike and tree canopy tour through the massive redwoods of the Whakarewarewa Forest. There, I learned that redwoods were not indigenous to the island. Instead, they were brought over from California in the 1920s. It turns out that redwoods grow incredibly well in the rich volcanic soil and favorable climate I was tramping through.

A thought occurred to me: like the redwoods, I too had grown well in my former familiar terrain—public health—but when transplanted into the next phase, I could ensure I landed in richer ground, where I could grow better than I ever expected. My redwood metaphor inspired me and opened my mind to explore how other majestic features of Aotearoa could ignite me.

The easiest was to simply look up. Being physically upside down in the southern hemisphere provided me with a different vantage point. This new perspective would rearrange the familiar and reveal the new. And there was no clearer example than the constellations.

First, I saw the constellation Orion, which I'd seen many times, but here it was inverted from my usual perspective in the United States. My current world, some would say the entire world, is upside down right now, which requires me to shift how I see things. I thought, perhaps I'm not losing a 17-year career, but that I've finished Everett Phase 1.0 and had been given the opportunity to move on to Everett Phase 2.0. It struck me that I had been actively inviting change into my life. Since January, I had been working with a career coach to design my 5-year transition plan out of public health—perhaps this is simply a timeline shift.

Then, for the first time ever, I saw the Southern Cross constellation, which is primarily visible in the southern hemisphere—I prefer the Māori name for the Southern Cross, Te Pae Māhutonga, which translates as the anchor for the great sky canoe. I considered that this newfound freedom from my job created new space and time to expand and implement the plans I'd been developing with the coach. I realized now was the moment to feature the strategic consulting business I'd started in 2017, for which I have years of successful engagements with top Fortune 500 companies. I saw my new path forward.

The Big Question—What's Next?

No, allowing myself spontaneous crying fits, getting my "Eat Pray Love" on in New Zealand, getting sage advice from AI, and wandering in nature like Henry David Thoreau did not solve my problem of being unemployed. However, it set me on a path to accept the inevitable changes already playing out. It allowed me to open myself to the possibility, then accept the reality, that what is next for me has very little to do with what was for me.

Renowned psychologist Carl Jung put it best, "Every transformation demands as its precondition 'the ending of a world' — the collapse of an old philosophy of life."

It is time for me to end my world that was public health, so that I can transform. I am ready to transform. I am transforming. I am transforming into the version of myself I have been building for almost a decade. And I suspect this version will be an even more authentic and successful version of myself than the last.

We hiked 2 hours up to the ridge of the Remarkables—that’s the actual name of the mountain range. (Queenstown).