From Tenure To Freedom: Leaving The Safe Life Behind

Your life can look stable from the outside and still be a slow leak on the inside. That’s why this conversation with life coach Christina Renzelli lands so hard: she spent years in a respected, tenured teaching career while her intuition kept insisting she was meant for something else. When she finally stopped arguing with that inner knowing, everything changed.

Christina takes us from her early leaps of faith like moving to Italy on a one-way ticket and finding work the old-school way, to the quieter trap of “security” that kept her stuck. We talk about how fear disguises itself as responsibility, how grief can reset your priorities in an instant, and how ignoring your soul’s calling can show up as real physical symptoms like insomnia, exhaustion, and shutting down. She shares the moment she heard a crystal-clear message in her mind: “One more day you’ll never get back,” and why that line became the push she couldn’t ignore.

We also get practical about rebuilding: planning your exit, using decluttering as an alignment tool, taking imperfect stepping stones, and learning to trust intuition again through journaling, walking, and cutting through the daily noise. If you’re craving a career change, recovering from burnout, or trying to stop outsourcing your choices to other people’s expectations, you’ll leave with language, tools, and courage.

Subscribe to She Suite Society, share this with a woman who needs it, and leave a review so more listeners can find these stories. What’s one truth you already know but haven’t acted on yet? 

Want to talk to Christina yourself, contact her today at christina@christinarenzelli.com

Transcript

Finding A Gift Through Teaching

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Welcome back to the She Suite Society, the podcast where we celebrate the real, the raw, and the remarkable journeys of women who chose to bet on themselves. I'm your host and empowerment Sherpa, Dahlia, and today's guest is someone who spent years living a life that looked perfectly fine on paper. Steady job, security, a clear path forward. And then one day she heard a voice, not a whisper, a voice. And it changed everything. Christina Renzelli is a life coach who helps people uncover their innate gift and bring it to the world. But her road to that work was anything but straight. We're talking Italy, Chicago, a decade-long teaching career, and a moment of reckoning that she'll tell you she simply could not ignore any longer. This is a conversation about what happens when you finally stop outsourcing your decisions to fear and start trusting the one voice that actually knows you best. I think you're really gonna love this one. Let's dive in. What what's what's what do you do? What would you say you do as your life's work?

SPEAKER_03 1:14

So that's a tough question. I think I help people figure out their gift and how to use it in the world, really.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

I know that I know you do that and you do it quite well. You do it really, really well. How did you find your purpose? Because let's talk about your background before we get into that. Okay, you were an educator.

Italy On A One Way Ticket

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Yes. So I kind of fell into becoming a teacher. I became a teacher. Well, first of all, I changed my major like a hundred times in college, not really a hundred, but probably seven times. I was like, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. How do I know that? And then I took a linguistics class and I loved linguistics because I loved people and I loved learning about people, and I loved I always loved learning like new languages because I could find out more about different people. So I thought, oh, well, I could stick with this, and then I'll just travel the world and be an English teacher. I'll just use English teaching as a way to travel the world. So that's what I did. I became an English teacher. As soon as I finished college, I moved to Italy because I had done a study abroad program there. And I my goal was to perfect my Italian skills and then move on to another country and learn another language. So I taught English. I had to go. This was back when you had to look up everything in the telephone book. So I got a one-way ticket and looked up English schools in Florence, Italy.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Dang. How brave of you.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

I just loved, I was excited for the adventure. I was like, everything's gonna work out, I know it will, and I'm excited to see how it unfolds. That was my whole way of living.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Have you always been that way? So sure that things would always work out?

Family Pull And The Chicago Detour

Staying Put Through Illness And Grief

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Yeah, I think so. I think that I always had that, I've always had a sixth sense where I was kind of, well, I've always been intuitive. So I've always known like if if I feel something is meant to be, then that's leading me to it. So I I did the whole English teaching thing. I stayed for about three years. But then my mom, she was like, I don't really like you living so far away. I don't want you to live far away. I was like, Oh, but I I wanted to. So she kind of was like, Well, at least come back to the United States. So I ended up moving to Chicago, living in Chicago for four years, actually. Um, because that's where my friends moved after college. They were like, Let's live in the big city of Chicago. So I moved there too, sort of fell back into grad school because I was like, Well, I guess I'll just get a teaching. I guess I'll go get my master's in education. Then I can. It was really my family saying, You need a steady job, you can't just be floating around the world forever. So I was like, okay. So got the master's degree, became a teacher, started teaching. At that point, most of my friends left Chicago. So I was like, well, I'll just go back home for a little while and see what's next, what next, what next adventure happens. Um, and actually I got a job there, which I did not want. The principal talked to me and she's like, please just take this job. And that actually, the first year of teaching there, I actually I was like, this is so fun. I love it. I loved it. Um didn't want to do it forever, but I loved it. And it was just like one of those magical experiences where I'm like, I get to come to work and be with kids that just love life and get they want to, I can just like inspire them, help them follow their dreams. So it was really fun. But then in that first year, my mother got a diagnosis of cancer. And also during that year, my sister found out she was pregnant with my first nephew. And so I was like, Well, there's no leaving now. You know, I didn't ever I didn't want to leave my family. Um, so I ended up staying there for 11 more years teaching.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Oh, wow. You went there thinking only one year.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

I thought I'll try it for a year, just not try it, but I'll just be like, I'll do this for a year until I figure out my next adventure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Then 11 years later. Wow. Sitting with that for a moment, how does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_03 5:28

You know, during that time I was I felt so conflicted because I was like, I don't want to leave people I love, but also I want to go on adventures and to do all the things that I dreamed of doing.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Live your life.

When Security Becomes A Trap

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I didn't, I was I've never been like the steady job type of person where you go to the work, the same place every day, do the same thing. I've I always loved the kids. Oh, that was what I was like, I love I loved the kids. They were so fun, and they it's just such a joy to work with them every day. But then like the the routine of doing the same, like driving to the same place, parking in the same parking lot. It really became a grind. Yeah. That I was like, my soul did not, it was like, no, no, no, this isn't for you. And yeah. And then my mother passed away. And the moment she she passed away, I was like, I cannot like life is so temporary. Yeah, I can't be doing something that doesn't feel aligned with what I know I'm meant to do.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Yeah. That so that was your changing moment, or that was the moment like pulp switch of oh my god, I gotta live.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Yeah. Well, it was just like, how can this person that's I've always like I came from her? How and now she's not here, like that just shows you how temp, like it's just the strangest. I mean, I know you understand it, but it's just the strangest feeling, like it just shows how temporary life is. It really does, and it and it changes what matters because it's like, oh, why would having secure the the you know, I'm using the air quotes, the security of a job be more important than dream your than following your dreams. Yeah, like it just doesn't just it didn't make sense to me. And so it took me a while to figure out how to leave that job. Like I think it was probably two or three years of planning and figuring it out and just figuring out what to do.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

And I didn't know. I'm sure probably sitting with yourself and like he there. I feel like there's comes a certain amount of trauma when you live against your life's desire and your soul's calling, and then and then a certain amount of healing that needs to take place that's never ending, but healing, and that's the journey, really.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

Yeah, because it's that that is the journey. It's that's when I just started um trying to understand how I felt how I got to feeling so stuck. Like, yeah, how did I set aside those parts of my dreams and get so far into like, well, there's no like there was a point where I thought, well, I have no options, but that is never true, but it's easy to believe, and I was like, I'm not this person that just doesn't think there's no option. I'm the person that finds a job by tr buying a one-way plane ticket and looking up English schools in the phone book.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Wait, how do you think you ended up feeling stuck?

SPEAKER_03 8:31

I think I bought the lie, I bought into the lie that financial security is security, and that um having a steady job is safety. And I didn't buy the lie, I didn't I didn't really buy into the lie, but the fear I think kind of tricked me into believing it for a little while. Yeah, fear is a powerful, oh yes.

Childhood Roots Of Intuition

SPEAKER_02 8:59

You're right, fear is very powerful. Can we talk just for a moment then about your childhood? Sure. Where did you grow up? How many siblings do you have?

SPEAKER_03 9:10

So I have two sisters, both younger. I grew up in in Athens, Ohio.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Okay, and how much younger are they? Two years and four years. Do you do you find that you are all very similar or or are you very different from from them?

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Well, they have never wanted to leave our hometown. Like they they're still living there now. So for some reason, I've had this need to travel and live everywhere else.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Yeah, and you're brave enough to follow that calling. I think that's pretty great. Would you did you have a pretty stable kind of upbringing? No, your face is people can't see you, but I see you.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Not stable. Fair enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

If you could sum up your childhood in one word or phrase or sentence, what would that be?

SPEAKER_03 10:12

I would say it was a mixture of the best things and the worst things. A combination.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Which you almost need because you can I uh you ever hear the phrase, and I'm sure I'm it's not right because I butcher every phrase I've ever learned. I know it is what it is, but you can only experience the depths of anything to their like polar opposites. So you can't really know extreme joy until you've felt extreme pain. You can't really know happiness until you've been that sad. Not real, but like that the extremities, and they keep expanding almost like a rubber band every time you you do that. So you would so what I'm picking up is you felt all those rubber band moments through your childhood.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

I love that the rubber band analogy, because yes, it was like the best of times and I probably experienced everything that there could be to experience.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Very fair. Very fair. And so that's kind of do you think helped propel you to look inward a little bit more, to listen to yourself a little bit clearer.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

I think I think so. I think I'm actually lucky for that to have the best and the worst experiences because it's different it. I I've you know talked to many, many people in my work, and some people the the hardest time for people I think is if they just have the medium, like nothing terrible, but nothing wonderful. It seems harder, I think, than to experience the highest highs and the lowest lows.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Um I agree, they don't get it. Yeah, uh, I find that the people that I I know for me I have the most meaningful connections with or the strongest connections with understand because we come from this foundation of trauma and and overcoming that trauma. And I should be click clear, the people that have worked on the healing to overcome the trauma, the people that are still in it, never quite moved past it, that are still engaging in those kind of toxic behaviors. I don't vibe with. It's the people that have started to lean into what I call living, uh, that that I tend to um steer towards just naturally, organically. You've and I feel like you're the same way. I mean, that's kind of how we met.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

Yeah, I think it's kind of a it's I guess I would describe it as either awake or asleep.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

It's like so when I was very young, I had experiences that I would say I guess we would call them supernatural, but I would dream things and then they would happen later. And so I always knew things before everybody else, or I knew I could see the deeper meaning in life, yeah, more than anyone else.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

And I didn't think it was a gift at the time. I thought, oh, well, I kind of I did know it was a gift, but I also was like, everybody else thinks I'm a weirdo because of this. Um so and they kind of knew it too. They were like, how do you know these things? But I think because of that, I knew life was a gift.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

And a gift and a person. Yeah, tough things can happen. And I'm like, okay, well, how can I what can what can I learn from it?

The Voice That Forced A Choice

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Oh, totally agree. Um, so let's pick off where pick up where we left off. So you're back, it's been 11 years, uh, your mom passes away. You get sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Oh, she probably passed she passed away. I think it was maybe in the eight or nine year mark of my teaching there. So I still had two or three two and a half to three years of teaching in the feeling of this isn't my job anymore.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

It was so hard because I was like, Well, I could try and no matter what I did to try to make it mine, it wasn't mine.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

So you said you spent a few years building a plan um and healing and going through that. What did that look like for you and what did the plan result in?

SPEAKER_03 14:56

So the first thing I I started just that's when I first started kind of trying to listen to what my intuition was telling me because I had been ignoring, I had been trying to ignore it so that things were neater and easier. It'd be much easier if you don't have to change everything about your life.

unknown 15:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:27

Which is what I think most people when they're when they do feel stuck, it's because it's like sometimes you have to change everything in order to be back in alignment with what your heart really wants.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

And that's not easy, it's the hardest thing ever. But there was a point where because so for a couple years I was just like, hmm, I I'll I could do this, I could do this, but nothing seemed easy enough. It's hard, it's really hard. And then one day I was walking, and I was at this point starting to feel physical symptoms. Was like I couldn't sleep at night. I I was just I had no energy whatsoever, absolutely no energy, could not sleep at night. Um I pretty much disengaged from life in general. I you know, I I I could only make it to school, and then after school, I didn't do anything really. I was just wait till the next day, go back to work. And then the weekends were the same. I was I mean, I didn't know I knew I needed to make a change, but I thought it was just really hard. Um and then one day I was taking my the students out to the bus, and I was it was I was leaving school, and I heard very clearly in my mind the voice that always tells me what to do that said, one more day you'll never get back.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Ugh, what a gut punch.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

I was like, Oh yeah, okay, that's right. No matter how hard it is, I gotta do something. So I remember deciding that that was my last, and this day, this was a day in October of the school year, so that's pretty close to the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah.

Decluttering As A Path To Clarity

SPEAKER_03 17:29

Um, so I remember saying, Okay, I'm giving myself this is it. I'm gonna go tell my principal the next day that that's this is my last year. So the next day, like I decided that was when I decided. Went in, told her the next day, and she was like, Well, we'll see. Well, you'll you might change your mind by I don't know, you have to give the school board a certain notice by April or something. Because I had a tenured position where it was like like forever, I guess. You get to do this for the rest of your life, yeah. And they're like, nobody quits a tenured position. And you're like, Do I have to? I was like, no, I have and so yeah, and so those that time from October through the rest of the school year, which ended up being in by June, that was really that was like the hardest time for me. Um, I did a lot of soul searching, a lot of reading, finding my own coach, um decluttering. I did a lot of decluttering and I I was reading the book, the Marie Condot book, The Life Changing Magic of Uh Tidying Up, but there was something about the way objects symbolize energy. Oh, and so I started just going through all these things that I'd collected over the last decade or more, and I was like, I don't need this for my life, and I just started to give stuff away and get rid of things, and one of my neighbors came in one day and she's like, It looks like you're like packing up and getting ready to move to Paris or something, and I was like, That feels like what I feel like. Like I I needed to get rid of all the things that were holding me down, yeah. And so then I was like, Oh, I could help people do that and start a job, you know. I knew I wanted to help people with their inner world, but it seemed too hard. It seemed like, oh, is that really can I really do that? So I decided I would start a professional organizing job or business.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

And that's what I did. Was that easy? Did you find clients right away?

Detour Business Then Life Coaching

SPEAKER_03 20:00

I found clients right away. I built the business, learned how to do that, but then I found myself in this exact same position where I would be driving to the job and saying, I hate this, I don't want to do this. Because it wasn't my true want. It wasn't truly what I was meant to do. It was a detour, it was like one one stop there. It was one way in that kind of, but I was still being, I was still holding myself back with fear of like, well, what would people say if I'm if I say I'm a life coach? Like, does that even sound like a real job? Like, I just wasn't like, who am I to say that? Right. You didn't believe it yet. I didn't believe it. I didn't really know how it would work. I I didn't know. So I then enrolled in a program to learn about that as I transitioned out of my organizing business into that next more aligned level.

unknown 21:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

At least you you learned though, in each of those, you learned something valuable to help get you to that to your closer to your calling. Like stepping stones, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yes. And I think that was that like all that was important. Looking back, I remember even during the time where the three years that I knew I needed to quit teaching through when I actually did. I remember I was even going to a um career coach to try to help me figure it out. And like I there was a time where I had no idea. It's so clear to me now what I'm meant to do. But I look back, I'm like, I hadn't there was a time where I was not clear. I had no idea. And now I'm just so clear, like there's nothing else I'd want to do ever.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

So you got there, and where is there now? It's it's how long did it? Take you to get there from the from the I'm done my last day at the teaching gig. How between then and now, what length of time do you think it took you? Not that yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

I'm right now at year 10 from actual quitting of the teaching. This is year 10. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

It's amazing. And you're living in full alignment and you're thriving. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

I'm living in full alignment, thriving. Every day gets better, every year gets better. Everything gets better.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

What do you think? What do you think was the main main motivator?

SPEAKER_03 22:48

I stopped ignoring my intuition. And I think that's what I that's my whole goal of what I help people to do. Because I know how it feels to ignore myself and ignore my intuition. And I know that everyone has intuition. And maybe I had a different type of where I can like have premonitions and know things, but everyone has intuition. I don't think that there's anyone that doesn't have it. Yeah, I think it I think it's almost like it's something that gets um hidden with life. It gets buried because we listen to the well-meaning experts that tell us there's that they know more. And so we're like, oh well, okay, sure that's true. But it's never true. Never true. We always know.

Daily Life In Alignment Today

SPEAKER_02 23:46

That's very interesting. Very interesting. So, what does a day in the life of Christina look like today?

Quiet Practices To Hear Yourself

SPEAKER_03 23:55

So a day in the life will look like, you know what I did? The first thing I did when I stopped teaching, I stopped, I stopped waking up before my body was ready to, because I was so sleep deprived from I'm not an early riser. I'm a night person. And teaching did not work well with that with my circadian rhythm. It just never, it never did. I'd I can't go to sleep early, which I would have had to do to um to be a teacher, you know, you have to get up early. So I wake up, you know, at a decent time for my body, which is sometimes it's like 7 30 or 8 o'clock. And I I do a lot of journaling first thing. I j I always journal in the morning because I'm just always in tune now with with my intuition and what I'm like what's what's up for that day. Um, and then I spend my afternoons coaching my clients and evenings I spend with my husband.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

I do want to touch on that. How did you meet?

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Uh we actually met online. Oh, oh, we're online. How did that pop in? Well, so that was another part of my journey. I was like, I just didn't feel like I always knew I was meant to be, I was there was someone for me that I was meant to be with. And during my time teaching, I was like, I there wasn't space for that. It was just like I had no energy. Plus, I worked at a school with mostly women, and you know, there was just and I and it was in a small town, so I was like, I don't know who to where to meet someone. Um so yeah, we I we met online.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

That's so brilliant. I love that so much. You're very open to your life unfolding for you rather than pushing some sort of agenda or pushing through to get to something. I think a lot of our culture tells us to bust down, it's very violent, right? The words we tackle like seize the day, tackle it. Tackle it, yeah. But you're gonna crush this. I don't want to crush anything.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

I just well, you know, that actually is what I think shuts down most women because women um like our nervous systems are different than men. Our nervous systems are regulated with oxytocin versus like that dopamine of crushing things. Yeah, yeah, it's not like a joyful experience.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

I don't know why. No, it's a releasing experience, not a joyful experience, very different experience. And I don't, I don't, I think a lot of people just um follow a narrative that everybody pushes on them so they assume this as them as being themselves rather than listening to themselves. And you've done a phenomenal job of doing the exact opposite.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

Well, like the voice said, one more day uh that you'll never get back. I was I I felt in that moment it could have really hurt me or killed me actually, if I had just kept ignoring it.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Wow, that's strong.

SPEAKER_03 27:36

It was that strong. I had no energy, like zero energy.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

It's like to do anything, and you were brave enough to just say, nope, done, moving on. It's brave to me. That's brave because it takes courage to go against what people are shoving down your throat all the time.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

It does, but I feel like there was no other option for like I it was either listen to the truth or ignore it and potentially die.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Yeah, see what it is.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yeah, yeah. So for anybody listening, what piece of advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Always trust your intuition. And sometimes it takes peeling back the layers to know what that intuitive voice is. It can be hard and confusing. Yeah, yeah. Can you tell us how to do that? How did you do that? It took me a long time, but to get started, I think you have to kind of let yourself get quiet and kind of cut off all the noise because there's so much noise, so much noise from everything, and there's gonna be a million people telling you what to do and advice to do this and this. And it's too it's hard to hear your own voice if you're if the noise is clouding out all of it.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

And so I think for me, I use journaling or walking, just somewhere where I could be quiet and just start listening. And that's when like those little and you'll start hearing things and start getting a sense. And I would even journal, like if I was confused, I would journal as if I would ask a question to my higher self, and then I would kind of like just let the answers flow, and that actually worked really well. You can get a lot of truth from that practice. It's amazing what the what will come out.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Yeah, it that is really, really great. Um, are you taking on more clients now?

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Yes, I I always always hold space for I oh the way I do it is I when I always know when when someone's going to be in alignment. And there's it always works out to in that way. I think that's that's lovely. I would say every person is on their own journey. Yeah. And it's easy to let the world tell you to just abandon what you really want. But that's not the way. Like there is a way to live your life on your terms, but and the first way to start is start listening to your heart, to your intuition, because you have it, everyone has it.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Yeah, yeah. You just have to learn to trust it.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

And that's a process. And so also, I guess I would say if you don't feel like you trust it right now, that's okay, that's normal. It's hard to just automatically trust something that has been buried under years of expert advice.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

That might be the title.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

It's really it and everyone else is gonna try to tell you that they know more than you, but they don't. No, nobody else gets to tell you.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

It's so annoying when they do that. It's so annoying when they do that. Christina, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your story with such honesty and heart. I know our listeners are gonna feel this one. If anything Christina said today resonated with you, and I have a feeling it did, I want you to reach out to her. You can find her contact information in the show notes, so don't let that be the thing that stops you. Take the next step. And speaking of next steps, if you love She Sweet Society, the best thing you can do is spread the word. Share this episode with a woman in your life who needs to hear it. Leave us a review, tell a friend. This community grows because of you, and I'm so grateful for every single one of you who shows up here. Remember, your life is your story to tell. Own it. Until next time, I'm Dahlia. Thanks for being here.