Perspective Shift, Please

On striving, the pressure of self-employment, and remembering what’s changed

Photo by Frames For Your Heart on Unsplash

Yesterday I received an unexpected gift—wisdom arriving at exactly the right moment.

I was talking to my ex-husband, who, like me, left the family car business about eight years ago to start his own work.

Mike and I are friends. We met very young and have grown up together. It often feels like a sibling relationship, and most of our conversations revolve around the logistics of our adult kids.

He’s remarried with a young daughter and has always been the busiest person I know—running two businesses as a realtor and contractor. When I recommend him to friends, I often hear things like, he saved us or we never could have done it without him.

He thrives in chaos, and always has. First as a Marine, and then in the car business, where we worked together. He handled commercial sales, and I handled financing. Once a day, without fail, he’d walk by my office and mime throwing a grenade through the window.

I no longer have a high-pressure job, but I still feel pressure.

When I first realized I could support myself through mediumship, I felt elated. There was a sense of freedom in it. Somewhere along the way, that feeling shifted. Lately, what I notice most is the pressure of self-employment.

I question my decisions, wonder if I’m doing enough, if I’m using my time well, if I’m reaching my potential.

When I’m doubting myself, I sometimes look outward. I compare myself to other mediums, other authors. I wonder what more I might do if I were more outgoing, more comfortable in a crowd. I do this even though I know comparison is a trick of the mind and doesn’t lead anywhere useful.

I’ve wondered if this is just part of being self-employed. Maybe it’s another form of self-motivation. But even when I feel secure in my choices, the feeling of striving doesn’t fully lift.

I circle it constantly, talking it through with my therapist, my business coach, and most often with my wife, Rachel. On her advice, I decided to ask Mike about the pressure.

Right now, I’m winding down a mediumship mentorship with a group I’ve come to care about deeply. Our recent sessions have been full of conversations that stayed with me—premonitions, spirit communication, self-belief. And alongside the gratitude I feel for that space, something has been surfacing.

The sense that I may want to take a break from teaching.

I don’t mean to share that as an announcement, just as something I’m noticing in myself. A pull toward going deeper into one-on-one work for a while. This has been throwing me for a loop, because it may mean changing the way I’ve been doing things. My mind is screaming at me…will this mean more striving? More pressure?

So, back to my realization when I asked Mike about the pressure and whether it all feels worth it.

He didn’t hesitate and said:

“At least we’re not in a car dealership for ten hours a day with your grandfather asking us why we didn’t work on Sunday.”

That sentence landed heavy, and I felt myself wanting to fold around it. I let out a bitter laugh that softened and became genuine as Mike joined in. It brought me right back to the moment and to perspective.

How easily I had let my mind drift so far from where I came from that I forgot how much has changed.

The way things used to feel. What it was like to be in an environment where my time wasn’t my own, where the expectations were constant, and where I was often trying to force and fix things.

And realizing, almost in contrast, how different things are now. Not perfect, but mine, a life I’ve intentionally created.

That realization felt like something I didn’t want to rush past.

I’ve seen this moment so many times in readings. Someone hears something that really lands, and for a brief moment everything opens. They can see clearly. And then, just as quickly, they start questioning it, looking for more proof, pulling it apart—like a rubber band snapping back into doubt.

I can feel that same pull in myself and I don’t want to do that here.

I want to stay with what I already know. To trust myself and my own worthiness. To recognize how far I’ve come and how different things are now. And to honor the fact that I’m the one who made those changes.

Thanks for being here, and for reading.

With love,

Sheryl

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