#9 When work isn’t just work

The false promise of work-life separation

Hi angels!

Nearly one year since my spiritual awakening (sorry for leaving that hanging lol), it feels like the right time to get back into my newsletter. I didn’t know how to wrap up my Rewilding series because there is no neat ending—just a continuing process of understanding myself and the world around me.

I have, however, shed a few skins since we last spoke, so it only made sense for Poochie Writes to evolve too. The Integrated Self goes beyond self-awareness into aligned action. Knowing yourself is one thing, but I’ve learned that living from that place is where things get interesting.

Here are my latest musings—let me know what you think.

Emma / Pooch x

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When work isn’t just work

I started the new year bingeing the first season of Severance, taking full advantage of Mum’s Apple TV subscription. At the time, it was just another show to devour over the holidays during that weird, aimless period. I found it dark, unsettling, yet deeply compelling. Now, months later, its themes feel eerily relevant. This year has been all about realising the value of bringing myself fully into my work—and the very real possibility of what that could look like.

Severance isn’t just about a dystopian workplace. It’s about how we compartmentalise ourselves just to get through the day. The version of us that shows up to work—professional, agreeable, unemotional—and the real, messy version buried underneath. The one who wants more but can’t always name what that “more” is.

I used to think the goal was to keep things separate. Work self, authentic self. A clean divide. This approach was reinforced by many of my seniors, who brought very little of their personal life to work.

But the longer I stayed in certain jobs, the more I realised that approach felt hard and unsatisfying. I’d question myself in meetings, dial back my curiosity so I didn’t look unintelligent, and avoid showing frustration even when something—or someone—clearly violated my boundaries. I’d leave the office and, on the commute home, feel my body switching back into me again. Some days, usually the high-pressure ones, this transition didn’t come easily. My mind still buzzing, my neck refusing to release the tension.

Severance takes this to the extreme—literally creating two versions of a person so they never have to deal with the discomfort of integration. The show resonates so deeply because it mirrors a phenomenon that many of us experience every day.

Grief at work and the messiness of being human

Last Friday, I got a phone call from a friend who I also used to work with. He doesn’t usually call, and I had coincidentally just taken a break on the floor of my new retail job, so I answered. We made small talk, but I could tell something was different. His tone. The pause before he spoke.

Then he told me he had some very sad news—a past colleague of ours had died in a tragic accident.

I had to ask him to say their name again. It was a name I knew so well. I had typed their CV into proposals. Updated their bio on our website. Seen it on my Slack channel every day. And yet, I’d rarely heard it said out loud.

A numbness took hold as we continued the conversation, saying the things people say in moments like this. That’s so awful. I can’t believe it. I don’t even know what to say. But hearing those words, they felt too detached.

I told my co-worker I couldn’t finish my shift. I think I’m in shock, I said.

“A past colleague”—that’s what I called them. That’s what they were. But the words didn’t match the weight of the feeling in my body. This person wasn’t just a co-worker. They had known me. I had known them. I had celebrated their recent resignation when they left to do something they loved and that decision had, in some way, inspired my own. And now, suddenly, they were gone.

A few days later, a group of us from my previous workplace met in the park to process what had happened. My initial instinct was to not attend—I couldn’t bear the idea of stepping back into my “work persona” in the context of this grief. Thankfully, a stronger instinct told me to go.

When I saw them—my past “colleagues” who I hadn’t laid eyes on for months—it hit me how much I had missed them. And how deeply we were all feeling it. We’d lost a colleague, but we knew it was much more than that. We knew this person’s joys and struggles. They had known ours. We had spent more time with them than with many of our closest friends. And still, in the framework of work, it was confusing to know how much weight to give this relationship, and this loss.

Someone once told me that grief is just love with nowhere to go. And we don’t think of loving our colleagues, but of course we do. If you’re lucky enough to work somewhere where you truly connect with people, you invest in them. You celebrate their highs, you hold space for their lows. You know their coffee order, the way their voice changes when they’re nervous, the special value they bring to the workplace—and to the world.

Beyond the Severance model of work

There’s a scene in Severance where Mark, the main character, sits at his desk, moving numbers around on a screen without knowing why. He’s told his work is important, but he has no real sense of what it’s actually doing.

That scene stuck with me. Because how many people feel this way about their jobs? Like they’re just following instructions, checking off tasks, performing a role, without feeling a connection to the true purpose—even if, like me, your role is dedicated to communicating your work’s impact.

So many people start their careers with passion and energy, only to get lost in the monotony of it all. The excitement fades, the impact gets blurry, and work becomes something to tolerate rather than engage with.

I remember sitting at my desk last year with a PowerPoint in front of me, realising I was copy-pasting words and images I didn’t even understand the meaning of. I had three more slide decks to get through that day, and my body, which had been slowly resisting this reality for some time, suddenly said no. Panic overcame me, and I called my manager in tears. It was an important moment in my eventual decision to resign.

Losing this special person has further validated my belief that work-life separation is an illusion. Work and life are not opposing forces—they are interconnected, shaping and informing one another in ways we can’t always see.

The energy, emotions, and relationships we experience in one sphere inevitably bleed into the other. Work isn’t just about colleagues, tasks, deadlines, and meetings. It’s about people. It’s about relationships. And when we act like it’s just business, we deny the reality that we are deeply shaped by the people we work with—and that we, in turn, shape them.

I don’t have a grand conclusion—just a growing sense that work, and life, are meant to feel different. More whole. Less severed. And maybe that starts with recognising that the parts of ourselves we try to leave at the door were never meant to be left behind.