Last fall when I lost my job one of my dearest friends told me I should look at it as a gift. I tried to listen to her, and her wisdom made sense, but I had a pretty difficult time looking at it as a gift. It felt like it was anything but a gift and there I was standing on the edge of a cliff... a tall one... and not like a cliff diving cliff with a warm blue ocean waiting to envelop you in its blue greeny oceany goodness. More like a scary cliff with an enormous drop into an abyss or some rocks or something... maybe on a moor somewhere where the Hound of the Baskervilles was chasing me. I know, I know. Too much Sherlock. The point is that it was very frightening.
I tried to cope with my cliff by using my spiritual tools to give me some structure. Every day I woke up, took my walk, meditated, said my affirmations just like Stuart Smalley (You are good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it some employer will really like you!) Yes, that's really what I did.
Some days it helped. Other days, not so much. But I got up every morning, made some coffee, took my walk, meditated, and said my affirmations.
Eventually, I found a job that would help me pay some bills and give me some peace to figure out what the next step was. At this point, I can honestly say that I enjoy parts of my job. I also really like my employer. I even like my boss. But it's still not what I want to be doing.
Well, what the hell is the problem, you ask? Why isn't that just good enough? I mean, hell, people in the world don't like anything about their job and they do it and just deal with that. Well... Frankly, I don't know the answer. It's partly because it's not my chosen field. Partly it's because the salary wasn't what I hoped for. Another part is that I'm just tired of being someone else's secretary.
I find myself in this role often now--this role of service. I'm trying to understand what the lesson of that is. I'm trying to understand why I continuously need to learn THIS lesson. I'm trying to figure out where this is going from here. Every day just brings more and more questions. Often, it brings more and more frustration.
My mentor is patient with me and listens, she offers a few parables and things to think on. But ultimately, this is my lesson to learn and my journey to travel. And these are my questions to answer. She has her own.
The hardest part in any situation for any control freak is to let go. The hardest part for any spiritual person is to find solace, to keep the faith, to reassure yourself that this path, no matter how rocky, this is the right one. Following your heart isn't wrong. Following your heart and listening to your head guide you is probably a little smarter, but it's not more right than solely listening to your heart.
The fact that the path is dark and I cannot see anything up ahead is really what's killing me. I never considered myself a real control freak until now. I realize that my need to control isn't necessarily about controlling others, it's not about controlling my space, it's not about controlling everything... it's only about controlling the outcome.
I've always believed I was not only spiritual but also intuitive. I can usually just sort of figure out the outcome of any situation and predict where it will go. But not this time. This time, the way is unclear, muddy, and clouded. It's time to go back to the basics here and decide what I want, what I truly want with all my heart, where I want to be, what I want to do, and then map out how to get there but instead of making the "beyond here be dragons" marks on my map, I'm going to draw in some blue greeny oceany goodness and make some plans... The first step is to stop thinking too much.... I don't need to know all the answers. I just need to be able to trust myself that I can handle whatever is below the surface of the ocean as I plunge below the surface to find what awaits me.
