When You Have Nothing to Compare It To
How toxic jobs taught me to trust the signals I was ignoring
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Early in my career, in two different jobs, I had stomach aches almost every day.
I also had headaches that never quite went away. A tension in my shoulders that I stopped noticing because it was always there. A dread on Sunday nights that started earlier and earlier each week until it swallowed the whole weekend.
I thought this was just what work felt like. I had nothing to compare it to.
We Normalize What Harms Us
The jobs were toxic. The managers were impossible. The tasks did not resonate with anything I cared about. The cultures rewarded behaviors that made me sick to witness and sicker to perform. Perhaps this sounds familiar?
But I did not know any of this at the time.
When you have no reference point for health, you assume what you are experiencing is normal. You explain away the signals. You tell yourself that everyone feels this way, that this is just the cost of being an adult, that you need to toughen up.
Your body is screaming. Your mind keeps negotiating. Denial is not only a river in Egypt.
I thought the problem was me. Maybe I was not resilient enough. Maybe I needed to adjust my attitude. Maybe I just had a sensitive stomach and a tendency toward headaches.
It never occurred to me that the environment itself was the problem. What I was experiencing was not weakness, but the invitation to wisdom I was not ready to receive. My body was telling me something my mind refused to hear.
The Body Knows Before We Do
Years later, I have come to understand that, as difficult as it was to accept at the time, the body does not lie.
It cannot override its own signals the way the mind can. It cannot convince itself that misalignment is actually fine. It cannot negotiate with toxicity or rationalize abuse.
The body just responds.
Tension. Exhaustion. Headaches. Stomach aches. Insomnia. Irritability. Under-eating. Overeating. On and on. That Sunday night feeling that something is deeply wrong, even when you cannot name what.
These are not problems to be solved by better self-care or stress-management techniques. They are signals. They are a form of knowing that arrives before language does.
Something was developing in me during those early jobs. A recognition that this was not sustainable, that this was not health, that this was not the life I wanted. But I could not name it because I did not have the framework. Sometimes we so normalize our difficulties that we lack the ability to notice or acknowledge that they are simply wrong for us, and we have to change.
I did not know yet that work could feel different. That alignment was possible. That the absence of dread was not laziness but sanity.
What the Earth Teaches About Signals
The Earth does not override its own signals.
A tree does not convince itself to bloom in January because it should be ready by now. A seed does not force itself upward before it has developed roots. Animals do not ignore exhaustion to meet external expectations.
But we do.
We override our own knowing constantly. We explain away the body’s warnings. We normalize rhythms that make us sick because everyone around us seems to be doing the same thing.
This is what ecospirituality reveals—we have become disconnected from the signals that every other living being still trusts. We treat the body as a machine to be managed rather than a source of intelligence to be heard.
The Sunday night dread is not a flaw in your character. It is your animal self telling you that something is wrong. The chronic tension is not a problem with your stress tolerance. It is information.
The Season of Noticing
We are still in early February. Imbolc. The season of quickening.
Something is stirring in the dark, not yet ready to emerge but undeniably alive. The lambs are moving in the ewes. The seeds are awakening underground. The light is returning even though spring has not arrived.
This is also happening in me, and also in you.
There are signals you have been overriding. Knowing that has been trying to reach you. A felt sense that something is not right, even if you cannot yet name what needs to change.
The practice for this season is not to force clarity. It is not to make a decision before you are ready. It is simply to notice.
What is your body telling you that your mind keeps explaining away?
Where have you normalized something that is actually harming you?
What would it mean to trust the signal instead of overriding it?
When You Finally Have Something to Compare It To
Eventually, I left those toxic jobs.
Not all at once. Not with a dramatic exit. Slowly, over the years, I found my way to work that did not make me sick. To environments where the Sunday night feeling was absent. To a rhythm that my body could sustain.
The first time I realized I was not dreading Monday, I almost didn’t recognize the feeling. I had to learn what health felt like because I had never experienced it as an adult in the working world.
Now I know the difference. Now I can feel when something is off, and I trust the feeling instead of explaining it away.
This is the gift of having something to compare it to. Once you know what alignment feels like in your body, you cannot unknow it. The signals become clear.
But you have to listen first.
A Practice for This Week
This week, I invite you to notice one signal you have been overriding.
Not to fix it. Not to make a dramatic change. Just to acknowledge it.
Maybe it is the tension you have stopped noticing because it is always there. Maybe it is the dread that starts building before the weekend is over. Maybe it is the headache you attribute to stress without asking what the stress is trying to tell you. Perhaps it is a feeling in the pit of your stomach after watching the news, talking with certain friends, or going about your weekly routine.
Name it, even just to yourself.
Your body has been trying to get your attention. The question is not whether it is speaking. The question is whether you are willing to listen.
This is ecospirituality in practice: trusting the signals that every living being trusts, the ones we have learned to override. Coming back into relationship with the knowing that lives in the body, not just the mind.
What is stirring in you that you have been ignoring?
Do You Feel Called to a Deeper Relationship with the Living Earth?
This is the work we do in Rewilding the Soul: learning to trust the Earth’s timing and our own body’s wisdom, rather than overriding them. The Ecospirituality Certificate begins in March through Cherry Hill Seminary. But the practice starts now, with whatever signal is asking for your attention.
What is your body trying to tell you?
Walk With Me
If this resonates, I invite you to subscribe to Where Insight Meets Earth, my weekly reflections on contemplative walking, ecospirituality, and embodied practices for navigating what overwhelms us
In September 2026, I am leading a contemplative walking retreat on France’s ancient Le Puy path of the Camino de Santiago. Seven days of walking in presence on a 1,000 year old pilgrimage path. Only 4 participants. Private rooms for everyone. Every accommodation directly on the path where pilgrims have walked for centuries. Silence as practice, not punishment. If you are curious about what contemplative pilgrimage might offer you, more details are here.
I was stuck in a toxic job for years. Trying to find more balance but still make a living. Thanks for the post.