Rising After the Fall: Finding Purpose Beyond a Layoff
When the new Trump administration came into office in 2025 and foreign aid funding was cut, my world shifted overnight. Like many who dedicate their careers and life to social change, my work wasn’t just a job — it was my purpose, a part of my identity. And suddenly, with one policy decision, that purpose was stripped away. The day I was laid off, I felt a shock that went far deeper than losing a paycheck. It was as if the ground beneath me had given way. Who was I without organizing? For years, my identity was tied to showing up every day to support communities through organizing and building power to resist moments just like this! And now, I was on the other side of the power struggle, and I felt temporarily paralyzed.
What followed was grief. Waves of it, sometimes coming out of nowhere. It was not the kind of grief people I could speak about openly, but a quiet grief, a loss of my sense of self. I cycled through denial, anger, sadness, and fear. I wanted to move on quickly, to “bounce back,” but resilience doesn’t always look like bouncing. Sometimes it looks like sitting with the pain, letting yourself feel it fully, and slowly learning the person I am now, post January 2025. Slowly, I began to process, to heal. I learned new values and truths from this experience. I’ll never look at NGO work the same, and to be honest my view of many of the leaders in this work has shifted wildly, and that’s okay. I discovered a passion for working with unions in the global south, but I also learned I have a passion to see it done differently, aligning my principles with the work. In the time since the layoff a few of us who were connected by purpose before are stitching together new plans and endeavors, but on our own terms. It meant finding new ways to support organizations, leaders, and communities — not from within an NGO, or formal authority but through solidarity, our own voice, our own work, our own vision.
Looking back, that layoff was both an ending and a beginning. It forced me to confront difficult truths about identity and purpose, but it also opened the door to a more authentic path. If you’re in the midst of your own unexpected ending — whether it’s a job loss, a shift in direction, or a personal upheaval — I want you to know this: you are not broken. You are in the process of becoming. Sit with the feelings, honor the grief, and trust that resilience is not about bouncing back to who you were. It’s about rising into who you’re meant to be.
