S1 E13 · Practice Guide
The Purgatory Worksheet
Free companion workbook · Embracing Your Own Purgatory · with Geoff Curtis
We use corporate validation as a safety net for emotional avoidance. This guide is the companion to S1 E13 of Brave Proximity, a live community conversation with Marissa Green, Susan Page, and guest Geoff Curtis. Together they explore what happens when a professional identity disappears and why sprinting to the next role is often just a way of avoiding the most important question you will ever have to answer: who are you without the title?
What’s inside
The Validation Trigger Audit
1
Where does your professional identity still depend on external validation — a title, a salary band, a company name on your profile? Three checkpoints to identify where your sense of worth is still rented rather than owned.
The Friday-to-Monday Trap
2
A reflection tool for the space between one chapter and the next. What are you sprinting toward — and is the sprint itself a form of avoidance? A structured pause before the next move.
The Self-Expert Diagnostic
3
Who are you when the work goes away? A canvas for identifying the version of yourself that exists independently of your professional context — and how developed that person actually is.
The Purgatory Practice
4
A framework borrowed from Geoff Curtis for making the in-between productive. One specific, bounded commitment to sitting with the uncertainty rather than resolving it — with intention, not indefinitely.