On Christmas 2023, my mother-in-law gave us calendars, as she usually does. But this time, they were a bit unusual. Each one had a motivational quote printed on its cover page (in German).

Mine read: Make time for things that make you happy.

“Nice,” I thought. But how was I supposed to do that while juggling the overwhelm of corporate work and the responsibilities of family life?

In retrospect, I count this calendar as one of the signs that the early retirement program was about to happen.

***

At the time of writing this post, I find myself wondering whether I have truly made time for things that make me happy. I have just returned from nearly four weeks at my parents’ home, where I cared for my mom while my dad was in the hospital after a fall.

Was it happy-making?

I am grateful that I was able to be there for my parents without the added burden of a corporate job. But it was also deeply exhausting. I had almost no time for myself, too little sleep, and came home with bronchitis. My body is making it clear that I need rest now.

If there was a happy-making element in the middle of all this hardship, it was noticing how spirit orchestrated events and protected and guided us through those challenging weeks.

And of course, caring for my parents was only one part of my first eight months in early retirement. There were also plenty of lazy, vacation-like days and stretches of time for my writing projects.

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This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.

When our younger son decluttered the house in late 2023, he also came across boxes of my old photos. He wanted to sit down with me and look through all of them. So we did, for several evenings in a row.

It felt like a short life review. Not the kind people describe in near-death experiences, where they feel the emotions of those they have wronged, but more like a gentle walk through old memories, starting in childhood and moving forward.

I wondered what force behind the veil was pulling the strings and inspiring my son to these actions.

In retrospect, I found it interesting that this phase of decluttering and life review came before the retirement offers appeared. It felt as if everything, both the house and my memories, had to be reviewed before I could move into a new phase of life.

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.

In September 25, 2023, as I walked around the fields, I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt that read, “Good things will happen.”

I remember wondering what that meant. I had never seen that phrase on a shirt before.

A few days after the T-shirt sighting, I started getting frequent spam emails about winning the lottery. Each morning, I’d review the spam report from my mail provider, and there were always several messages about lottery participation or wins. And I don’t play the lottery.

I’ve noticed this pattern before. How my guidance sometimes makes use of spam mail titles to send signals.

In hindsight, I think this was pointing to the early retirement program ahead. But at the time, I had no idea what was in store for us.

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.

Looking back through my old journals, I tried to connect the dots in retrospect. Which signs and synchronicities had pointed to this shift? It turned out there were actually quite a few that, in hindsight, could be interpreted as pointing toward the early retirement program. But at the time, of course, I had no idea what they meant.

At first, the theme of gold showed up frequently. In May 2021, I was assigned to a recurring task at work that included the word gold in its name, and it remained part of my responsibilities until the end of my job.

In January 2023, my husband ordered a set of speakers, and the company sent a golden tote bag with it. In May 2023, he brought home a small card game box labeled GOLD.

In the fall of 2023, I was told that golden milk might help with my rheumatoid arthritis. In December 2023, I happened to get one of the few gold-wrapped filled chocolates from my husband’s advent calendar. When I bought a small pocket calendar for 2024, I chose the color gold.

And in January 2024, just after the announcement of an early retirement program—but before we understood that we might be eligible—I sat on a bench by the fields, angry about work. I had been forced to attend a workshop on my free Tuesday afternoon and was fed up with being ordered around. As I sat there, silently fuming, a woman in a golden jacket came up to me and said how nice the weather was and how good it felt to sit in the sun.

I wondered what the message was. Maybe it was just a quiet nod that I was on the right path with my blogging projects. Or maybe it pointed to a shift into golden times that were ahead.

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.

While I was disengaged but still okay at work, the offer for an early retirement program came.

I live in Germany, where workers’ rights are strong. If a company wants to reduce staff, it usually has to provide some financial enticements.

The timeline for this retirement program was not rushed. We had plenty of time to consider whether we could afford to take the offer. Here’s a brief overview of the milestones:

• The announcement of the early retirement program came in early 2024. At first, the conditions were unclear, so my husband and I didn’t realize it might apply to us.
• By the end of February, it sank in that we might actually be eligible.
• In late spring of 2024, when the final conditions were announced, we applied and were accepted.
• In the fall of 2024, after several rounds of consultation and refinement, we signed the final contracts.
• Just before Christmas 2024, I had my last day at work.

The whole process stretched out over many months. There was no pressure to make a decision quickly, which gave us time to weigh everything carefully.

The early retirement contracts guaranteed reduced monthly pay for several years, until we would reach retirement age (somewhere between sixty-three and sixty-seven), when the state pension would begin.

Busy

Throughout 2024, we were busy trying to figure out whether and how we could make this transition. From February through May, once we realized we might be eligible, I took a crash course in personal finance. How did our various pension insurance plans work? How much would we owe in taxes and health insurance? How much money would we need versus how much income would we actually receive? In the evenings, I lay on the sofa, trying to force my brain to grasp the legal lingo of the different pension schemes. Dry and boring stuff I normally avoid, but it had to be done on top of my regular job.

Then, a family member needed sudden and urgent help with administrative matters. That meant four more weeks of heavy workload and stress. I persevered and was able to help, but it took a toll.

By then, I felt completely drained, as if I were on the edge of burnout. All I wanted was to sit outside on a bench and stare at the clouds for hours. It had just been too much.

As it turned out, the three-month crash course in finances wasn’t the end of it. We also had to deal with an IT migration project. In the spring of 2025, we had to return all company-owned hardware. That meant buying and setting up our own new hardware, plus disentangling ourselves from a company we had worked at for over twenty-seven years. That process alone took several more months.

And of course, there were also plenty of handover sessions with a colleague at work.

Emotional Rollercoaster

Emotionally, 2025 was a rollercoaster.

Even before the final retirement conditions were released, once we realized we might be eligible, I felt euphoric. Drunk with joy. I was still going to work, and I had no idea whether I’d even be accepted, but I was already elated by the possibility of not having to sit through boring meetings or handle tedious tasks. Inside, I was dancing. Walking on clouds. In that state of mind, it was hard to focus on the legal and financial paperwork.

That initial high felt amazing, but also a bit surreal. Like joy had knocked logic out of the way. It lasted about six weeks before cooling off.

There were also moments of doubt. Would we really be able to afford it?

Then came overwhelm. Between the crash course in pensions and taxes and the four weeks helping my family member, I felt like I was running on fumes.

By the fall of 2025, my tolerance for corporate life dropped rapidly. Things I had once brushed off now felt unbearable. I even made a list of things I was looking forward to leaving behind: endless meetings, performance feedback talks, mandatory trainings, the noisy office, and more.

I also began to wonder how retirement would feel. What challenges might arise in this new phase of life? What had others experienced? I turned to YouTube videos and browsed online forums and subreddits, trying to get a clearer sense of what to expect. Common recommendations included going to the gym regularly, playing pickleball to stay social, or taking up volunteer work to maintain a sense of purpose. I wasn’t sure any of that would appeal to me.

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.

As I wrote in my previous post, I retired in January 2025, just shy of fifty-six. I’m starting a blog series about the transition phase of early retirement, with special focus on the guidance I received, through dreams, channelings, and synchronicities, that nudged me to let go of my job and turn toward writing.

I didn’t choose the corporate world out of passion but out of necessity. I needed a job. While I loved the search for truth in science, staying in academia after earning my doctorate in theoretical chemistry wouldn’t have made me happy, and it offered no financial stability. Tenure was difficult to attain. So I went with the more secure option.

In 1997, I landed a decent position in the corporate world where I worked full-time for the first five years. After my children were born, I switched to part-time, as did my husband. We shared the load at home of childcare, housework, everything.

At work, I appreciated the analytical parts of the job. I enjoyed hunting down the causes of errors with a sharp, detective-like mindset. But what I loved even more was the creative aspect, especially when I got to invent a tool that helped catch errors earlier in the production process, which reduced last-minute stress for everyone involved.

In 2009, however, I realized that my contributions to developing that tool weren’t being recognized the way I had hoped. No promotion. I felt deeply undervalued, and that triggered a wave of anger.

While I eventually made peace with not getting a promotion, I couldn’t recover my level of engagement. After what I’d experienced, I was convinced my efforts wouldn’t be appreciated anyway. I had pulled back. Even though I still met expectations and fulfilled my tasks, I stopped going the extra mile. I stopped inventing new tools or sharing creative solutions. I adjusted my level of engagement to the level of recognition and worked in a performance-for-pay mode.

A few years ago, the company introduced an early retirement program for employees aged fifty-five and older. At the time, I was too young to qualify. I remember thinking, When I turn fifty-five, I want to participate in such a program.

But then we were told the program was too expensive and would never be offered again. Disappointed, I let go of the dream of retiring at fifty-five. I figured I’d have to make peace with the discomfort at work and get through a few more years.

After that, I didn’t really plan my retirement. I assumed something would show up eventually. Maybe I’d get a chance to take part in a phased retirement program. I thought I might work until sixty or sixty-three, then retire. Still, there were no concrete plans.

Then came 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic. We all worked from home, which felt like a relief. No more biking to the office three days a week. That saved me much time each day. It felt a bit like semi-retirement.

In 2023, we were called back to the office. At first, it was just one day every other week, which was fine. But the new building was not. There were no assigned desks anymore. We had to find a different spot each day, and all our things were stored in hallway lockers. The space was loud, with no sound protection between desks. Still, I did enjoy seeing colleagues in person again. Even for an introvert like me, home office life can get lonely.

That was the situation in 2023. Disengaged, but okay. It was bearable. I did my job. It wasn’t my passion, but it came with regular pay, the occasional bike ride to the office, a tasty lunch in the cafeteria, and chats in the coffee corner with colleagues.

While the job was ramping down, my writing efforts were ramping up. I had started this blog in November 2014. In 2017, I created the Divine Guidance Workshop. By 2020, I was blogging weekly and publishing my spiritual journey as a series of blog posts as an online book. From 2023 to 2025, I wrote another online book, this time about my journey with feminism and my transgender son’s experience.

At first, I had been extremely reluctant to come out of hiding with my spiritual experiences. Some of the writing touched on my anger at work, and I was afraid it might not be safe to share. But over time, I found the resolve and discipline to write regularly. And I was relieved to discover that the sky didn’t fall just because I had gone public.

Later, I would not only get nudges from the universe to let go of my job, but I would also get nudges to be more serious about my writing, especially to put my spiritual journey into a book format.

***

This post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement. You can find the table of contents, with links to each chapter, here.