What Just Happened?

A timeline from fired fed to love alchemist

I was catching up with a friend I had not seen in a while and he said we wanted to hear all about my new work, but first, how was I processing being fired…? I looked at him in a bit of shock and anger. My immediate response was, “I’m not! Why would you ask me that?” It had been six months, and I had not really processed anything that happened.

Delusional Optimism (November 6, 2024-January 21, 2025)

Looking back in my journal to November 6, 2024, I find reflections on how hard it was to work for the federal government under the first administration (2016-2020). I also find a commitment to be a love warrior. To stay, to lean in, to find common ground, to embrace the reality of the situation and continue to do my best. There is also a desire to find a new job because I love my work so much and was burning myself out.

During the first administration, I worked for HHS’s Office of Global Affairs (OGA), and then at the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP). At OGA I learned what happens to the priorities of the prior administration after a transition of power. I had been working with our Cuban counterparts to strengthen health diplomacy under our nations re-establishment of diplomatic relations. That ended. My work then turned to focus on the Venezuelan regional health crisis (i.e. the spread of measles and other diseases in the region as the Venezuelan health system imploded and migrants went unvaccinated and untreated, overwhelming neighboring countries). Alex Azar, HHS Secretary, was personally interested in the issue, and it became the major focus of my work. The administration was also interested in lowering drug prices and willing to use tactics, like price negotiations, that seemed more palatable coming from a republican administration. When I transitioned to CTP it was under FDA Commissioner Scott Gotlieb, who took an aggressive approach to regulating tobacco products, including a commitment to lower the nicotine in tobacco products to non-addictive levels, likely one of the most impactful regulatory actions the agency could take to decrease the death toll of tobacco products.

All this is to say, I thought, maybe it would be okay.

From November to January, I did my best to maintain some form of delusional optimism. Most of my colleagues were bracing for the worst and tried to tell me, but I did not have the emotional capacity to engage.

The Writing on the Wall (January 21, 2025-April 1, 2025)

Everything changed after the inauguration. The DOGE e-mails started coming. They were mean and caused fear, division, mistrust and confusion. The instructions were nonsensical, leadership was scared and nobody provided clear instructions. Every day we strategized and re-strategized. Reading executive orders and leadership memos to try to understand what it all meant. Doing our best to keep the work going, not break the law, to protect our team, to maintain our commitments, and resist the temptation to give up. Everyone was confused and scared. Offices were being shuttered and people sent home with no warning. It was an emotional rollercoaster. It was exhausting.

Nominee Kennedy promised to continue to support Long COVID work during his Senate confirmation hearing. We held onto this promise tightly. We saw Long COVID as an area of convergence-an opportunity to fundamentally change how we engage with complex chronic illness, right in line with the administration’s focus on chronic disease.

The firings started in February with the probational staff (i.e. those with less than a year in the government). Our newly established Federal Advisory Committee on Long COVID was abolished by name via Executive Order on February 19. We had just spent that past year standing it up. We held a call with the members to explain. It was meant to be for them, to apologize to them that we couldn’t keep the work going, instead they let us know how much they appreciated everything we had done-our whole team left in tears.

On March 12 I was informed that the White House was ordering our Office to close. We were a tiny, insignificant office, running on fumes, why did they care so much? We put together a process to close out the work, which was then leaked. The silver lining is that we had the opportunity to say goodbye. Most people did not have this luxury.

We had senior leadership meetings every day. They ranged from sober to somber. Everyone was doing their best and it all sucked. See the thing is, we all care so much. We are professionals who worked there because of the love. We love people and want everyone to be healthy, to thrive. How many times I tried to will myself to stop caring, to just turn it off. I never succeeded. And I don’t think anybody else did either.

My Soul’s Calling (Not time bound)

It was becoming abundantly clear that the most likely outcome would be losing my job. I began to allow myself to consider what I truly wanted. What was my soul’s calling? What are my most valuable gifts that I must share with the world? I allowed myself to think big, to think wildly.

Since high school I wanted to go into medicine, which later shifted to public health, because I wanted to help people live healthy and happy lives. I did my master’s degree in public health policy and had been working in the field ever since. Concurrently, I was a deeply spiritual person, a practitioner of yoga, meditation, and dance. And the experience of having cancer during the pandemic cracked my heart open in a way that would no longer allow me to tolerate living a small or inauthentic life.

I knew that love was my most abundant and valuable asset. All I wanted to do was cultivate and share my love and help others do the same. By the end of March I had committed to this path, regardless of what was about to happen. I was determined to combine all that I knew from my professional and personal expertise to do the most good in the world and earn a living doing it. Just that, no big deal.

Limbo (April 2-July 26, 2025)

On April 1 tens of thousands of HHS employees received RIF notices (i.e. we were being fired). It was a relief by the time it finally came. Since college I knew I would work “within the system”. For the past decade this meant working for a federal agency to promote policies that could help people live well. I loved it and it was hard. The bureaucracy, the partisanship is death by a thousand paper cuts.

Now I was no longer part of that system. Well, kinda. We were placed on administrative leave that was challenged in the courts and ended up lasting until late July. We were still receiving our salaries (which was nice) and still beholden to ethics and communications restrictions. It was an awkward uncertain time. Difficult to plan. Some people were called back, we still didn’t know what would happen.

Regardless, I launched into preparations for my new life. I meditated, I traveled, I trained, I danced. Above all else I allowed myself to dream and create.

The Beginning of My New Life (July 27-today)

I finally received notice that I was no longer employed by the federal government. The next week I saw my first client. I am a practitioner and guide of spiritual intuitive embodiment. I utilize love alchemy and sacred intimacy, drawing on the power of grief and love to support individuals on their path of healing and personal transformation to move towards inner union and universal love. That’s a lot of words. Most of them vague. I plan to share more of this work in the time to come. For now, it’s just me living my most authentic life, doing everything I can to heal myself and supporting others on their path.

My whole career I worked at the macro level-from global to federal, a top-down approach. To impact the community level and ultimately the individual. Now I work at the soul level, bottom-up approach. Working with the individual, to impact the communal, and eventually universal levels.

There is nothing I would rather be doing. I can’t believe this is my life. Also-it is terrifying.