From professional overinvestment to inner rebirth

I spent a long time wondering about power and what it can do to human beings. When it is tied to social status, professional success, or money, it can sometimes feed the ego, vanity, the need to dominate, and the will to get one's way—sometimes at the expense of others. I myself came up against these power dynamics in the course of my professional life. The experience marked me deeply, and in the end, it helped transform my life.

2013: A brand-new professional world

In September 2013, I was hired as a training assistant at a center specializing in transport and logistics. For me, it was an entirely new world.
I decided to throw myself into it completely. I worked flat out to build a thorough knowledge of the regulations governing passenger and freight transport, as well as logistics.
I also trained on a wide range of machines and vehicles: tower cranes, backhoe loaders, forklift trucks, tractors, drilling rigs, trucks with or without trailers, coaches, ambulances, and many more.
At the time, my director was an especially demanding woman whose management style often put me under intense pressure. But I didn't let it discourage me.
I worked relentlessly, headphones on, in front of my computer, using no fewer than twenty-two different software programs. I wanted to measure up. I wanted to understand everything, master everything, and never make a single mistake.

The first choice imposed by power

The regional management then decided to expand the company considerably and move the operation to larger premises in order to welcome more clients.
In the eyes of regional management, my director became an obstacle to that growth. It was decided she had to be replaced.
The regional director then asked me to write a statement describing what he considered her poor management.
I found myself caught in a terrible dilemma.
If I refused to write the document, I was afraid of losing my job. Under that pressure, I gave in. I betrayed my director, and I lied to her, in order to keep my position.
I am still not proud of it, to this day.
That decision still haunts me. I even have nightmares about it sometimes.
With hindsight, I understand that I had been caught in a power struggle in which the fear of losing my job overrode my own values.

2015: More and more work

At the end of 2015, a new director took charge of the center. He was new to the field and had limited administrative experience, since he had previously been a mathematics teacher.
Without making a fuss about it, I supported him and trained him in the various software tools and procedures the company needed in order to run.
A young woman of North African origin was also hired on a subsidized employment contract. Very shy and introverted, she needed support. I took her under my wing with kindness.
The workload was enormous.
A perfectionist by nature, I regularly arrived at 7:30 a.m. so that everything would be ready by 8:00. In the evenings, I stayed well past 5 p.m.
Even on weekends, at home, I kept answering work emails.
Little by little, my work took up all the space.
There was no longer any real boundary between my professional life and my personal life. I wanted to be flawless. I wanted to respond to every request. I wanted to live up to what was expected of me.
Without even realizing it, I began to lose sight of myself.

2017: The first warning sign

In June 2017, my body sent me its first warning.
I suddenly developed deeply alarming neurological symptoms: I no longer recognized the people around me, and I could no longer speak.
I thought of something serious—a possible stroke, in particular.
Yet a few days later, I went back to work.
As if nothing had happened.
I went back to my files, my software, my responsibilities, with the same demands and the same drive to be perfect.
My whole life revolved around the company.
My head was down.
I worked, and kept working, and lost sight of myself. My family gradually faded into the background.

2020: The shock

In October 2020, a new event turned my daily life upside down.
Our car, a six-month-old Citroën C3 Aircross, was stolen from in front of our home.
It was a real shock.
A month later, the car was found in western Nîmes, in a predominantly Arab neighborhood, completely stripped.
I was deeply shaken, angry, and revolted by what had happened to us. I let that anger out at my workplace.
But my words were misinterpreted.
The young colleague I had supported and stood by since she arrived complained to my director, saying that some of my remarks had been racist toward her community.
From there, the situation took an extremely violent turn for me.
I was summoned by my director and the regional director via a registered letter with proof of delivery. I was accused of racism.
I was stunned.
After all those years of professional dedication, after giving so much to that company, I suddenly found myself facing an accusation I considered deeply unfair.
Two weeks later, I received a disciplinary warning for what was described as racist conduct.
I was crushed.
Disappointed.
Powerless.
The anger was overwhelming.
And once again, my body reacted.
The neurological symptoms I had experienced a few years earlier came back.
This time, I could no longer carry on as before.

January 2021: The collapse

On January 21, 2021, the diagnosis came in: severe burnout, extreme fatigue, loss of speech, and depression.
My body had just said what I had never been able to say myself:
Stop.
For years, I had given everything to my work. I had wanted to be perfect, flawless, indispensable.
I had accepted the pressure.
I had pushed past my limits.
I had sacrificed part of my personal life.
And in the end, my body stopped me.

The path to rebuilding

Today, I can say something that would have been unimaginable to me back then:
Thank you, my burnout.
Not because I am grateful for the suffering itself, but because that ordeal forced me to stop and finally take a hard look at my own life.
Without that collapse, I might never have questioned my choices, my values, my wounds, my fears, and my relationships with others so deeply.
I discovered a world in which lies, selfishness, judgment, vanity, and the pursuit of power can sometimes consume an enormous amount of space.
But I also discovered something far more important: the possibility of choosing differently.
For a year, psychoanalysis, supported by the careful oversight of a psychiatrist, helped me gradually recover my speech and ease my suffering.
But I was still missing a few pieces to go further and fully rebuild my life.
That is when I discovered positive psychology and mindfulness.
This approach, developed in particular in the United States from the late 1990s onward, was a real revelation for me.
The sessions were extraordinary.
I discovered concrete tools to better understand my emotions, to see myself through a different lens, and to gradually regain a sense of inner balance.
As I regained my strength, I wanted to go further.
I enrolled in a training program to become a practitioner in positive psychology and mindfulness.

A rebirth

That training, together with my entry into Freemasonry, profoundly transformed my life.
I am no longer the woman I was before my burnout.
I have become a woman who is more aware of herself, her needs, her limits, and what truly gives meaning to her life.
Today, I feel awake.
I am connected to what I call my Source.
For me, this Source is not a path to be found outside oneself. It is more a return to what we are at the deepest level, beyond our fears, our wounds, our appearances, and our conditioning.
Each breath, each beat of my heart, each moment of silence connects me to that infinite energy that guides and nourishes me.
When I surrender to that presence, something within me settles.
Inner peace settles in.
The light flows.
And little by little, my surroundings seem to fall into harmony as well.

Finding love and joy again

This inner transformation also changed my relationships with the people who are dearest to me.
My relationship with my daughter and with my husband has become deeper, warmer, and more luminous.
Now I am learning to savor every second, every minute, every hour.
I am rediscovering the pleasure of simple things.
I smile more often.
I live with more enthusiasm and gratitude.
There was a time when I felt like a woman whose light had gone out, with fragile self-esteem.
Today, I feel as if the sun has come back into my life.
It lights my days, and I hope that this light can also warm, with kindness, the people around me who are precious to me.
I now know that my worth depends neither on status, nor on position, nor on the gaze of others, nor on the recognition one can receive.
It is within me.
The Source lives within me.
It surrounds me and runs through me like a river of love, of light, and of consciousness.
And after a long search for my place in the world, I finally understood that the true path was to come back to myself.otre titre ici