Chances are you’re one of the millions of people who have been affected by the deepest recession in our countries history. Maybe you lost your job months or even years ago, and now you’ve lost your motivation. It’s easy to feel victimized by a world where it appears you have no control and naturally fall into a spiritual depression. If this sounds like you; I have some ideas, a few brain flashes for your consideration.
No Mistakes in Life
Brain flash #1, there are no mistakes in life. If you lost your job or your business, it’s not your fault, your bosses fault, the President’s fault…it’s not anyone’s fault. Consider that you’ve needed some rest and reflection for quite a while and that this was just the perfect time and opportunity to take it. I am not saying that there weren’t many events leading to the recession, all I am saying is that what’s most important is who it affected. Many of the people who lost in our country are traditionally the ones who hold the values and stability for our country by working consistently. When you have a job that eats up 40-80 hours of your week, there’s really not a lot left in there for you to relax, ponder, and re-create your life so that you may dial up the happiness factor. By removing the element of blame, you are able to focus on life outside of the job you’ve had and ask yourself a few questions. Do you even like your job? The people you work with? Yourself? All very important questions when happiness is a consideration.
Consider Your Job Loss an Upgrade
Brain flash #2, what if your job loss was actually a new job in the making? People who go through abrupt or enduring transitions in life experience spiritual depression. Spiritually speaking, depression is an opportunity to naturally reflect on yourself and your life. Spiritual depression reveals to you spiritual, cultural, and ancestral patterns that may be affecting how you perceive yourself, your business, and your life. Whether or not the pursuit of happiness or joy in life is even a factor for you. What you “deserve” is a huge buzz word in the self-help business, it doesn’t really speak to what you deserve so much as what you will have or not have. Nobody deserves to have their life fall apart because they lost their job, what they get however, is a complete do over card and the time to evaluate and pursue happiness in addition to stability and prosperity. You cannot truly prosper without happiness.
Create a New Schedule
Brain flash #3, working a nine to five requires a consistent schedule that often people losing their job let go of or rebel against when their job goes away. Consider that while you have a new found freedom, your job loss has entered you into a new world of entrepreneurship, yes that’s right, you now work for yourself and your job is to conjure up new streams of revenue. Your new schedule may include things like; time to sleep, working through childhood issues, participating with your spouse or children in a new way, taking a few weeks to be angry (which is actually the process of letting go of how things were and accepting how they are), taking a personal inventory of what you like about yourself and what you don’t, and answering the question, What makes me happy? Finally, the most important evaluation of all; over your lifetime, what are the top five things you’ve done with your spare time?
Anything is Possible
Brain flash #4, I find that what people choose to do in their spare time is what they love and enjoy the most. Folks in mid-life can have upwards of 20 years’ experience doing those things…that is actually expert status. How can you use your well known expertise to make money? Let’s say you drank a lot of beer in your spare time, well micro-breweries have been the fad for the last decade and may just be a nice fit for you…considering you don’t have issues with addiction. If in fact you’ve been self-medicating since you lost your job or because you didn’t like it in the first place, that takes the priority. The addiction cycle is your creative cycle; if it’s being used up with beer drinking it doesn’t leave space for actual thought innovation. It is the process of working through uncomfortable emotions, sober, that elevates our hearts and brains to a new level of creativity and possibilities that may not otherwise be considered.
If you can’t see it, you can’t be it.
Brain flash #5, take care of yourself; paying attention to your needs and fulfilling them is paramount to getting a new job. I found a lot of folks who lost their jobs during the recession eventually just lost interest in working at all. It is the same syndrome that affects people trying to go back to work after a vacation. Once you’ve had time to spend paying attention to yourself it can be quite a weight to go back into a poor work dynamic. Know that unconsciously, you won’t truly let yourself go back into a situation that makes you feel bad and not acknowledging that leads to; making excuses, getting sick, apathy, or self- medication. If that sounds like you, make a list of the top five things you need because you’re human and then list the top five things you need in your new work environment. Doing this energetically creates a new career blue print for you to follow and the Universe to provide.
In the process of re-creation it is honesty that beats out positivity any day of the week. Being honest with yourself about yourself and your situation is where you begin. Once you have a firm acceptance of things as they are, then you can feel free to dream a little. What would you do with that million dollars if you had it? Allowing yourself to be imaginative takes you out of the box you live in and stretches you into new possible realities. You can begin the journey to positivity by asking yourself the question, How can I do that (what you’re dreaming of) today? Letting yourself engage in a little hope will change your perception of all things… and that’s positive. Right?
