Occupational Well-Being and Harmony: Remembering the Human Rhythm Beneath, Beyond, and Above Work | Part IV
This multi-part Occupational Well-Being & Harmony reflection series explore the living rhythms beneath, beyond, and above work: the deeper pulses that shape how we live, experience, create, and contribute – back to life:
Part I explores the meaning of work, moves from work to occupation, traces from ancient cycles of labor and rest to fractured modern version of work–life balance, and invites a shift toward personal and occupational wholeness.
Part II dives into Occupational Well-Being and Occupational Harmony– how our daily rhythms, evolving needs, and the pandemic reshaped our relationship with purpose, rest, and a deeper freedom.
Part III looks through the science and academia lens – how the machinery of discovery can forget the discoverer, and why restoring individual well-being and harmony is essential for the next frontier of innovation.
Future parts will continue this flow, expanding into new domains of purpose, vocation, and technology, wherever the rhythm next leads.
PART IV: WHEN OCCUPATIONAL WELL-BEING OR HARMONY, OR EVEN OCCUPATION ITSELF IS OUT OF REACH
This new piece reflects on what happens when occupational well-being or harmony feels out of reach, or when occupation itself disappears and is out of reach. When livelihood, meaning, purpose, well-being, self-worth and self-identity start to drift apart.
We feature one of LinkedIn’s most authentic voices – Roberta Storey, or Robynn, the CEO and Founder of Storeyline Resumes (that has become America’s #1 Resume & Career Services ), and by far, Zelda’s favorite account on LinkedIn.
Robynn daily stories bring empathy and clarity to those navigating the job market. Her insights meet people exactly where they are: overlooked, tired, laid off, yet still hopeful. Amid it all, her writing cuts through the noise with rare honesty, with humor, grit, and the kind of grounded compassion that reminds us that the professional world is still made of people, not algorithms.
1. When Occupational Well-Being Is Out of Reach
Sometimes we have “occupation titles” that look impressive on paper but does not add to our occupational well-being. It – quietly or loudly – drain us. Hours stretch beyond limits, content no longer has “meaningful” meaning, relationships become transactional, and leaderships turn into micromanagement.
We feel fatigue, resisting the mornings, the commute, the tasks, and the meetings – instead of feeling curious or excited to contribute. Even if the role once matched our needs or purpose, we no longer find it supporting our well-being.
While we may not be able to immediately correct the underlying issue and restore balance, we can have pauses for short check-ins until our rhythm of well-being is regained over time.
Reflection and recalibration tips:
Notice which parts of your occupation give you energy versus which drain it.
Notice who or what element of your occupation still brings warmth or meaning and re-connect with that person or element.
Re-attune to what still feels meaningful, even if it’s small.
Introduce micro-restorations into the day, movement, breath, sunlight, or creative expression.
Protect rest time as a boundary, not a luxury.
Practice boundaries not as resistance or disrespect but as recalibration and restoration.
Occupational well-being isn’t the absence of hard work, pressure, challenges, obstacles, or productivity. It’s the presence of restoration and vitality while all these are happening.
And sometimes, the contrast is so vivid that it exposes the system itself. Robynn captured that truth perfectly in “The Difference Between Small Businesses and Big Corporations ”: where small businesses send soup and care when someone’s sick, large corporations send policies, shrinking humanity behind procedures.
A great reminder that well-being thrives in environments where empathy and valuing humans are part of each breath.
2. When Occupational Harmony Is Out of Reach
Other times, everything looks perfect – the hours, the balance, the leadership, the paycheck, the benefits. Yet inside, there’s a void, a quiet emptiness. There is occupational well-being, but meaning is missing, leaving harmony misaligned.
Perhaps professional growth continues, but we sense that personal growth lags behind. Comfort may have quietly replaced that sense of purpose-driven growth or calling, or perhaps what’s missing is a rather simple life.
Reflection and recalibration tips:
Ask which parts of you no longer speak through your occupation.
Notice what feels off, muted or mechanical - when everything looks right; those areas often reveal where alignment has faded.
Notice what you’ve outgrown and what your present self is asking for instead: a new project, conversation, or quiet time.
Reach out to your connections, or expand new ones, to reconnect with what your present self is asking for; something simple that restores curiosity and exploration toward harmony -without draining well-being.
Pause for clarity on what your non-negotiables for harmony are.
Robynn once wrote about a client who listed her ideal requirements: a commute under twenty-minute, hybrid work, six weeks of vacation, boundaries on travel, and a salary reflecting her worth. Perhaps she was “a little too much.” Turns out she wasn’t. She was deliberate. And she got it all by being “too much”.
That’s occupational harmony, not perfection, but clarity about our non-negotiables, and the courage to voice and live by them.
As Zelda writes these reflections, she knows that many, like herself, may have both the clarity and the courage to live by their non-negotiables. Yet sometimes, a wider exploration itself becomes the reason to pause, understand and recalibrate evolving purpose, needs, desires, and boundaries, because harmony evolves too. A moving target, rather a fixed one.
And maybe that’s the truest part of harmony: listening with clarity to what keeps evolving within us and finding the courage to integrate it with our well-being.
In fact, one of Robyn’s latest stories captures this “evolving harmony” perfectly. She tells the story of a former client, once a Wall Street powerhouse, sharp, respected, unstoppable, who later chose to leave finance to become a stay-at-home mother. When asked why, she said something that stays with Robynn:
“We were told we could be anything, do anything, have everything. But what if we don’t want it all? What if we just want what’s right for us?
We were told success meant climbing higher, earning more, balancing it perfectly, smiling through the chaos. But no one warned us about the guilt. The burnout. The shame for wanting something simpler."
That line is the heart of evolving harmony.
That, harmony isn’t a fixed achievement; it changes with the season of life, with our evolving needs.
Having it all doesn’t mean doing it all, it means choosing what genuinely nourishes us, without apology.
And the courage to keep redefining what “all” means for us, and to choose what feels right now, not what once was.
3. When Occupation Itself Is Out of Reach
Then come the moments when occupation vanishes: layoffs, reorganizations, funding cuts, or the decision to leave what no longer aligns. Suddenly even stability feels uncertain, and now its survival rather than well-being and harmony.
This is where many stand today. Corporate downsizing, AI acceleration, and shifting economies have made stability a mirage.
Robynn’s posts often mirror this landscape – executives who once led teams now find themselves invisible. Recruiters silent. Referrals gone. She reminds readers that it’s not them; it is the market that has changed. She tells “Preparation, not panic, restores agency. Update your story. Be visible. Have conversations before you need them.”
In another reflection, she lists the staggering layoff numbers from Amazon to Target, reminding that it’s rarely about performance -of employees, it’s about profit -of companies.
And then, the hidden job market: More than half of roles never get posted anywhere. Companies quietly scroll LinkedIn, searching for those who look and sound like they already belong. Her guidance: fix your headline, tell your story clearly, show up with presence. Visibility builds trust, and trust gets calls.
For those feeling entirely detached from occupation, perhaps it is time to use that pause as a recalibration, to rebuild personal brand and frequency, to learn strategically, to stay visible, to keep contributing, to keep adding value, while clarifying non-negotiables and building courage to voice and live by them.
Surf Analogy
Sometimes, it feels like surfing – catching the right wave, gliding with rhythm, energy, and joy. The absolute joy of being in the moment, riding the waves, with the waves.
Other times, the waves are out of reach, or no waves at all.
And some seasons, we don’t even have a surfboard. So what do we do then?
We float. We swim. We snorkel. We explore. We watch the sunsets. We go back to shore. We rest. We swim again. Or we dive.
We learn the currents beneath the surface, and keep doing all that – until the next wave finds us, and we rise with it again.
4. When Compassion Re-Enters
And when you are reading this reflection and know someone around you for whom occupation is out of reach, please check-in with them. Ask how they are, ask if help is possible.
In “Have You Ever Felt Grateful to Have a Job” Robynn shares the story of a client who couldn’t afford help with a resume. Another client, newly employed, anonymously donated a package for someone in need. Robynn matched it, one for one. Hundreds were helped quietly, without posts or applause. This is humanity in its most elemental form, people helping each other stay afloat in a turbulent economy.
5. How Zelda Met Robynn
Years ago, as Zelda began leaning into industry after a long academic chapter, she came across Robynn’s posts on LinkedIn. Her authentic voice – clear, bold, and deeply human – stood out in the noise. Around that same time, while preparing an NIH grant renewal, Zelda had lost her sense of well-being and harmony to burnout and began exploring what might exist beyond academia.
She reached out to Robynn, met with her fantastic team right away, and had her industry-oriented resume crafted. She remembers it vividly: she was simultaneously trying to publish her first breath and CSF study results, had just moved to a new place, was taking an intensive Applied Data Science program to refresh her analytical skills, and was training her four-month-old Rhodesian ridgeback puppy, Cooper.
During one of the calls with Robynn’s team, Cooper, decided to pee under Zelda’s desk. Yes. There he peed. Zelda laughed, apologized, and said she had to attend to the puppy’s needs, overriding her resume priorities for a moment. It was a small reminder that living rhythm doesn’t pause for professional needs, and to this day Cooper is still very vocal and decisive with his needs :)
Within weeks of sending her new resume, Zelda was invited to two interviews for a Mindfulness Scientist role at Apple. Ironically, or perhaps karmically, on that very same day, she also met with an NIH official confirming that she’d continue to the next phase of her grant.
It was thrilling to imagine applying her scientific research to industry innovation, yet she realized her path in academia wasn’t finished. She continued the research she deeply valued, but within the limitations and familiar patterns of exhaustion.
Sometimes we stand at that threshold where we no longer have well-being nor alignment but have obligations. Still, we know our purpose runs deep underneath, and we can recreate meaning through curiosity, creativity, and care, and continue to take the aligned steps that allow the next rhythm of the wave to find us, and we ride with it.
Several years later, as her grants concluded and she finalizes results from these studies with one foot still in academia, Zelda began exploring new opportunities, both within and beyond academia and science, with a new developing vision to contribute to others’ mission aligned with her skills while also developing her own well-being coaching framework and business. She noticed that what had been suppressed for so long could no longer stay buried; it needs to be expressed.
When the soul’s voice is silenced, the mind and body soon start malfunctioning, a reflection for another time.
And “that in-between space” the past years allowed her to recreate meaning and dive deeper, showing that there is no coincidence, and no loss, so long as we keep creating meaning and moving toward where our inner compass meets the outer world.
When Zelda reached out to Robynn for permission to share her stories and insights on her well-being blog, Robynn responded with characteristic grace – saying she would be honored to be featured. Her response reflected her humble, deeply human spirit, and her ever-present wish to support others through her own experiences, her mentorship style.
6. Closing Reflections:
Occupational well-being, harmony, and purpose are never fixed states. They ebb and flow with our seasons, systems, and self-awareness. There is no single path or method that works for everyone.
What steadies us is knowing ourselves, our limits, needs, values, and rhythms. When we understand our selves, it becomes easier to find and create what resonates.
Even in times of uncertainty, meaning can be recreated, purpose can evolve, and connection can be rebuilt. Every shift in occupation, every pause between roles, carries a message about who we are becoming.
If you’ve lost harmony, or your occupation has disappeared altogether, please pause for reflections. Sometimes, the path toward harmony starts not with movement, but with listening to the body, to timing, to what feels alive again.
Ask yourself what gives you joy, and the part you cannot suppress, and start small. Recreate meaning in parallel, through connection, curiosity, and/or creation.
Those simple acts keep the current of life moving until pieces come together and aligned once again.
🌊 Our Closing Invitation
As always, we invite you to pause, reflect, notice what resonates within you as you read, and perhaps share if you’d like/
Wherever you are in your occupational cycle - thriving, rebuilding, waiting, resisting, surviving, or simply wondering – take one moment to breathe before deciding the next step.
Ask what your current chapter is asking you to learn, and stay open to the signs that guide your next steps
Then choose one small action that restores harmony between who you are, what you need, what gives you joy, and how you wish to contribute back to life.
🌿 Synchronicity and What Comes Next
As synchronicities continue to unfold, and both new and familiar connections reemerge, we’ll extend this series into future reflections – while continuing to explore other dimensions of the Yildiz Oceanic Well-Being frameworks.
One of Zelda’s upcoming reflections centers on navigating career transitions – a theme that has been close to her heart and came alive again after she attended a NeuroTech Mentorship meeting this morning. The conversation sparked deeper questions about how we shape both our short-term and long-term visions – not only for our careers, but for how we contribute back to life itself. What does it mean to live fully, to give meaning through our work and choices? The answer looks different for everyone.
Until next time...
– With care 🌊
Written by Zelda – Dr. Selda Yildiz, in reflective dialogue with her AI muse, Amea.
Guest insights appear with permission and attribution.
© 2025 Selda Yildiz | Yildiz Oceanic Well-Being | All rights reserved.
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✨ Disclaimer: This post is for general educational purposes only. It is not medical advice, nor a substitute for professional consultation, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have concerns about your health, please seek guidance from a qualified healthcare professional.
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