Answering the Call of Self-Preservation

The text came out of nowhere.

It was from my old boss—the one I hadn’t spoken to since January. The one I effectively ghosted when I went on leave and never came back. “Just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing,” he wrote. Simple. Unassuming. Human. To be clear, he’s texted before but this time seemed different.

My wife asked me how I felt about it.

I shrugged.

“I kinda just up and left.”

She nodded slowly and, without missing a beat, said, “Out of self-preservation.”

And there it was. The truth I hadn’t fully named.

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He’s not just my old boss. He’s my brother in Christ. My co-laborer. My fellow warrior. Or at least, he was.

A girl I knew killed herself. They found her lying dead in a field, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

A man I know stabbed and killed another man I knew. He was defending a girl I knew.

My sister-in-law died. She had successfully made it through heart surgery nearly two weeks before and was scheduled to leave the hospital the following day.

I nearly lost Terri—not once, but twice.

What!?! Now you suddenly want to tell me what my job is?

You changed my role. You reduced my responsibilities. You pushed me out of a role I’d developed. You wrote me out of a plan I created.

What was I supposed to do? How should I have responded?

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I didn’t leave just because I was angry.

I left because staying felt like an erosion of my core values, an attack on my health, and an assault on my senses, particularly my sense of purpose. Staying meant agreeing to becoming someone I’m not.

I simply wasn’t down with that.

Self-preservation gets a bad rap in our all out hustle culture. It’s mistaken for quitting, selfishness, or weakness. The truth is, self-preservation is wisdom. It’s courage. It’s that quiet voice inside that says, “You don’t have to continue living here.” Or at least so I’ve learned and come to know through my experience.

It doesn’t mean we don’t care.
It means we care enough to draw a boundary.
It means we’ve heard the toll bell sounding in our soul, and we’ve decided to answer.

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That moment, when my wife named it, reframed everything.

I didn’t abandon ship.
I didn’t run away.
I honored something sacred: the part of me that was gasping for air.

We don’t talk enough about what it means to preserve ourselves. Not just survive—but persevere. To hold onto the parts of us that are tender, and real, and at risk of being trampled in toxic systems or unsustainable expectations.

Answering the call of self-preservation isn’t failure. It’s faithfulness—to yourself, to the people who love you, and to the purpose you’re still unfolding into.

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So, how do I feel about my old boss reaching out?

Grateful, maybe. Conflicted, possibly. But mostly, at peace.

Because that moment of walking away wasn’t about him.
It was about saving the version of me I knew I was losing.

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If you find yourself standing at the edge, wondering whether you’re allowed to step away, hear this: You are. You’re allowed to preserve what’s sacred in you.

And maybe—just maybe—that first breath on the other side of goodbye will feel like coming home.

Live. Learn. Let go.

Until my next post…

Be salty, stay lit.

Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™

#bgbg2#BibleGateway

The Stigma Stops Here.🛑

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