Be your own savior

The Truth No One Wants to Hear

This isn’t a revelation I had after 450 days of unemployment. It’s a truth I’ve lived so many times I’ve lost count.

Every time my life has fallen apart—every time I’ve had to start over from nothing—I’ve learned the same lesson: no one is coming to save me. No one ever was.

And that’s not bitterness. It’s just the truth. A truth that can break you—or set you free.

I learned it the first time after cancer. Ovarian cancer. Surgery. Chemo. Six months of my life taken up by survival. When I came out the other side, I wasn’t the same person. I didn’t even recognize myself.

I went back to work still hollowed out from the fight. I came home at night and disappeared into my couch. I was alive, but I wasn’t living.

Until my sister, who’s never been one to sugarcoat anything, said: “Your life isn’t going to come knock on your door. If you want a life, you have to go out and find it.”

It hit me like a gut punch. Because I knew she was right.

So I started small. I drove myself to Barnes & Noble on a Friday night just to be around people. A few weeks later, I took myself to a concert. Eventually, I dug up old phone numbers and started calling friends I hadn’t seen in years, just to see who was still around.

One of those calls changed everything.

It led to me quitting my job, packing up my life, and moving back to Philadelphia. I left behind the life I was clinging to and built a new one—one I actually wanted. All because I stopped waiting for someone to invite me back into the world and invited myself instead.

I’ve been my own savior before.

Years later, after a layoff from a job so toxic I still hesitate to tell the full story, I found myself in the same position. This time, the layoff felt like mercy. I should’ve been relieved.

But relief doesn’t pay the mortgage. So I jumped straight into the job search. And I failed. Over and over again.

The interviews were stilted. My answers were fine, but something about me felt off—and I could tell the hiring managers felt it too.

It took me a while to admit what was happening: I was carrying the weight of that last job into every single conversation. I was sitting across from strangers, trying to convince them I was ready for a new opportunity while my body, my voice, my energy screamed that I wasn’t.

I hadn’t dealt with the damage that job did to me. So I stopped the search, and I started healing. I spent time with my son. I went to therapy. I gave myself the grace to rest.

And when I came back, I came back whole.

I sat across the table from managing directors at a nine billion dollar company and told them, without flinching, why I was the best person for the job. I had found my power again—and they could feel it.

I landed the job in about a month.

I’m going through maybe the hardest season of my life so far. The market is different now. My age is different. The tools are different. And along with unemployment, I’ve been navigating a divorce, the imminent sale of my home, and a spate of challenges to my health.

But that truth—the one I keep learning the hard way—is the same.

It’s on me. It always has been.

No one else will save me. No recruiter. No hiring manager. No old colleague. No friend-of-a-friend with a hot tip. That’s not how this works.

The sooner your mindset shifts from “someone will come along and fix this for me” to “I am the one who will figure this out,” the sooner everything changes.

Your energy changes. Your posture changes. The way you talk about yourself changes. You stop making yourself small to fit what you think they want. You stop chasing scraps. You stop trying to be saved.

Recruiters can feel desperation just like they can feel power.

When you show up thinking, “Maybe this one will save me,” you shrink. You negotiate against yourself. You thank them for seeing you, even when they don’t.

When you show up thinking, “I’m a catch, and whether they see it or not is their problem,” you expand. You ask better questions. You stand your ground. You remember that if they pass, it’s their loss, not yours.

This is not positivity. This is not a pep talk. This is survival. This is self-respect.

This is how you become your own savior. Not because you want to, but because you have to.

And if you’re in your own dark season right now, waiting for someone to rescue you, I want you to know: no one is coming.

But you? You’ve been here before. You’ve saved yourself before. You already know how.

Your life isn’t coming to knock on your door. Go out and find it.

And if you don’t know where to start, start small. Start with one thing that reminds you who you are. The rest will follow.