When The Crystal Ball Goes Dark

A career in eLearning is a scary ride with ups and downs, but Ivonne Martin says, ‘When you find yourself in the dark, you just need to trust in your own magic.’

I grew up surrounded by magic. My family owned a spiritual and flower shop that stood for over thirty years in a tiny neighborhood overlooking the NYC skyline. We sold candles for every intention, oils for every ailment, and flowers that could brighten a room with their scent or bring a little good luck.

As a kid, I would watch my family work with customers, offering spiritual guidance, reading tarot cards, or helping them choose the right flowers for a celebration or a farewell. That shop was my first classroom in magic and in life. It taught me that the future isn’t just something you wait for, it’s something you prepare for, shape, and sometimes even conjure.

So when it came to building my own career, I didn’t follow the “traditional” route. I ended up being an adult college student who worked full-time, balanced assignments and life one day at a time. I was also the first in my family to attend and graduate college. My degrees weren’t just pieces of paper; they were a spell I have been casting for years, one that I believed would create the future I envisioned for myself.

For a long while, everything seemed to be working just fine. I landed several good jobs, met deadlines, completed and managed projects, and even moved up in the world of Instructional Design. My “crystal ball” became vision boards, carefully written goals, and the occasional psychic reading for fun (don’t judge). In my mind, the future was clear: stability, growth, a steady climb.

That is, until the crystal ball went dark.

It happened one summer morning. The email arrived without ceremony, no meeting, no phone call, just a subject line that would change everything. I opened the email and froze. My hands went cold, followed by a full-blown panic attack, and then the tears came. You think about layoffs in the abstract, kinda in the way you think about hurricanes that hit other towns (I’m in Florida), you know they happen, but you never believe one will hit your town.

But here’s the thing, when your crystal ball goes dark, it doesn’t mean it’s broken. It might actually just be refusing to show you a future that isn’t yours anymore.

The very next day, in between waves of anxiety of course, I filed official paperwork to start my small business. That is something I’d been meaning to do for years but had always pushed aside for “later”. I suddenly started to see all the hidden cards I was ignoring: the projects I wanted to create, the connections I hadn’t nurtured, the skills I’d let sit idle because my energy was always spent elsewhere.

I realized how much I’d neglected my own magic.

I was so focused on meeting deadlines, attending meetings, and serving other people’s visions that I stopped tending to my own. I got too comfortable. I even stopped updating my Instructional Design portfolio.

Honestly, the layoff ripped away the illusion that someday was guaranteed.

But once the initial shock and tears faded, I realized I started to feel calmer. I am not at the mercy of someone else’s schedule or approval anymore. My anxiety began to ease. The relentless hum, the need to perform, to keep up appearances, to always be “on” finally went still.

And in that stillness, I started to hear possibility and excitement.

I began to follow glimmers instead of the grind. I started saying yes to opportunities that felt aligned, reaching out to people I admire, investing in my own skills again. I returned to what I learned in my little shop decades ago: the future is not something you wait for someone else to hand you. It’s something you craft, one intention at a time.

I still keep my spiritual tools on my desk. These days, they don’t tell me much and maybe that’s the point. I no longer need to see the whole picture to believe in it. I know that I have the tools, the connections, and yes, the magic to create what comes next.

Initially, losing my job felt like the universe snuffed out the candles and left me alone in the dark. But as my eyes adjusted, I realized I wasn’t lost, I was just in a different room. And this new room is one filled with possibilities I never noticed before.

The crystal ball didn’t fail me. It simply told me what I needed to know: this path is done, it’s now time to write a new one.

Because sometimes, the magic isn’t in knowing your future, it’s in daring to create it.

Ivonne Martin is an Instructional Designer, Course Creator, and Magical Witch! Connect with her here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivonneid/

Follow her eLearning Bestie TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@elearningbestie