Anguishing, Languishing Blog

Why hello blog!  It’s been a long time!  I’ve been busy doing a lot of things.  But none of those things has convinced me of my calling.

So I still have a topic for this blog!

My best bud and I have moved to a new city, where he is doing a fantastic job in his grad program.  I am struggling with the transition for a lot of reasons, one of which is my lingering unemployment.

I have been actively looking for a job since mid-August.  There have been some near-misses, and there have been some periods without any prospects at all.  But there have not yet been any offers.  And it’s driving me nuts.

Because I need money.
Because I can’t decide when it’s time to give up and seek a minimum-wage hourly job.
Because there’s very little structure to my days.
Because my partner is busy all the time and I’m not.
Because when people ask me what I do, I don’t have an answer.
Because I’ve been putting most things on hold until I have a job instead of living my life in the present moment.
Because it’s hard not to take the continued rejection personally.
Because the emotional roller-coaster of hope followed by disappointment is destabilizing.

For all of these reasons, I have been kind of losing my mind.  And it’s affecting other things in my life, too.  It’s putting a huge strain on my relationship with my significant other.  It’s making me want to avoid social situations, because I tear up so frequently and it’s embarrassing to cry for no apparent reason.

Thank God I finally found a therapist!  (To whom I’m paying cash money—but it’s worth it, I think).

And thank God there are a few possibilities out there right now.  I wish I could force these organizations to decide whom they want to hire more quickly, because I have diminished patience each day.  But maybe, maybe, one of them will want to hire me.  And I can get back to figuring what work is the most satisfying for me.

This post is kind of repetitive. Watch out!

I just got off the phone with my grandmother.  She turned 88 today (confession: I wrote this last week.  Her birthday was a week ago).  Totally inspiring (and unrelated to the rest of this post).

Here’s the actual thing I’m writing about.  I’ve been making a lot of connections (perhaps shivanautical ones!) in the past week, and had a couple of ideas.

Connections:

There are so many places in my life where I want to practice the discipline of just showing up.  Sometimes I think, why am I doing this if there’s no tangible result?  Or immediate result? I don’t want those thoughts to stop me, though.

In shivanata, I don’t always have a huge epiphany.  In truth, I’m not sure I’ve had any significant epiphanies yet.  (Or maybe I have, but I’m not sure whether they’re attributable to shivanata or not).   Anyway, that doesn’t matter.  I just need to keep patiently practicing.  Showing up.  Eventually, once in a while, something awesome will happen.  I think.   The chances are definitely increased the more I actually practice!

Same in my spiritual life.  Sometimes I don’t pray because I don’t “feel” like it.  But if I can set up a discipline, a structure (not necessarily a rigid one), then the chances for something to happen are increased.   I won’t have some transcendent experience every time I pray, or study, or whatever.  But the more I practice, the more likely it is that I’ll have a transcendent moment or two some day.

Same with the job hunt.  Not everyone I contact is going to have anything to offer me.  But I still benefit from reaching out as much as I can.  You never know which of the people I meet will be the one to know something useful.  I just need to keep showing up to the practice of reaching out.

Same with the career discernment thing.  Not every avenue I explore will turn me on.   In fact, it’s better that they don’t all thrill me!  Then I’d have to narrow things down!   No, not every thing I try, learn about, ask people about is going to be a Thing.  But one of them might be.  Or one of them light lead me to something else that might be.  So I just need to keep on patiently plugging along, practicing showing up to my vocational exploration.

None if this is stuff I didn’t already know to some degree.   But right now I’m really knowing it.  I’m feeling it.  I’m reminding myself not to be discouraged.  That seems to be the purpose of this blog.  It’s a place where I write notes of encouragement to myself.  Courage!

Hey, if you’re a reader out there, I’m encouraging you, too.

The Future is Now (or, at least, the Fear about the Future is Now)

Y’know how Havi has this weekly tradition of sharing Very Personal Ads?  Yeah, it’s kind of neat.  I’m sort of blog-cheating by posting here what I wrote over there.

My VPA this week:

I have big stuff coming up.   Moving to a new town; moving in with my significant other for the first time; finding (hopefully!) a new job.  I would like to be calm about the scary parts of the transition, and excited about the happy parts.  I would like to feel confidence about it all!

How this could work

- I could trust my own planning while recognizing that some things you can’t plan for!

- I could receive support and encouragement from my significant other and my friends.

- I could have insights or ideas about ways to make the physical transition easier.

- Same with the mental/emotional transition!

My commitment:

- To keep taking small steps of preparation.

- To remember to trust the love that my main squeeze and I share.

- To breathe through the scary stuff, and ask the movies called “Your Future Is Going to be Terrible,” (parts 1 through 50) to stop playing inside my head.  They can go hang out in the DVR in my head, and I’ll promise to watch them next year sometime.

- To make time for shivanata and writing in my journal (even though I feel very busy!)

Easy Now

So, I was a little, um, worked up in that last post.  I’m better now, I promise.  There are a couple of reasons why.

1.  The sun has come back into the sky, after having hidden behind murky gray clouds for days.  I am a solar powered machine.

2. I reread the part about taking action in Barbara Sher’s book.  Oh yeah, action!  I had forgotten about that!  It turns out ruminating alone does not produce much in the way of results for me.  Nor does it make me feel particularly awesome.

I admit I haven’t taken a LOT of actions already, but I started again.  And it feels good.  I contacted another friend to have coffee and talk about her job.  (It’s research into What’s Out There!)  I signed up to help plan a women’s gathering at my church.  (This seems unrelated, but I think it will give me the opportunity to meet a bunch of people who might know interesting and useful things.)  I got up early enough to do some shivanata this morning.  And I worked on a couple of the exercises from the book.  Wanna see?

*****

One of the things to think about is what we secretly, deep down, think we’re “supposed” to be doing with our lives.  These are things we osmosed (new verb?) as children that we consciously or unconsciously compare ourselves against.  The idea is to discover that we hold contradictory ideas in our heads.  Once we know the standards to which we’re holding ourselves are impossible to meet, we can let them go a little bit.

What messages did I pick up while growing up that told me what I’m “supposed” to be doing by this nice round-number age?  I’m definitely supposed to me smart.  As a kid I was supposed to be an excellent student.  And I was (high school valedictorian, prestigious college, blah, blah, etc.).  But I’m not supposed to be a student now, even though I’m really good at it.  I’m supposed to have a job.  I was supposed to be safe and not take risks.  By now I was supposed to be married, and maybe already have kids.   I’m not, and I don’t.  Did my parents or anyone suggest what I should do work-wise?  Something “better” than what they do.  By which I think I mean, “more prestigious.”  I guess maybe I was supposed to be a genius and also a mother?  I don’t think those are things one can accomplish without taking risks.

This was kind of interesting to think about, but I’m not sure it got me much further on the path.  I don’t feel as though my parents disapprove of my life as it is now.  Far from it!  I don’t think this is the thing that’s holding me back from figuring out what I want to do.

*****

Next I though about another thing: the job I’d hate most in the world.  This is a tricky way to make me figure out what an ideal job might be like.  It’s the opposite of the nightmare job.  I maybe kind of cheated on this one.  I basically wrote down all the things I don’t like about my current job.  But maybe I don’t have such clear memories of things I hated about past jobs.  And!  Maybe I would not like the opposing condition to the one I hate, either.  Hmm.  Anyway, here are the characteristics of my worst job ever.

I’d work alone without any camaraderie.
I’d have a boss who didn’t appreciate me, and could not be pleased.
I’d do drudge work that was not exciting, and that didn’t benefit any people in the world.
I’d have no supervision, and never know whether I was doing a good job.
I’d be in an office that had no natural light and no color.
I’d be constantly flooded with work, and would always feel like I hadn’t accomplished enough.

(A lot of these things seem to be pointing to a need for external gratification, btw.)

And now, what is the opposite of these things?

I would have colleagues and human interaction during the day.
People that I respect would appreciate my work and tell me so.
I would do work that was interesting and varied and that helped people in the world in some way.
I would have some supervision so I wouldn’t feel all on my own and uncertain whether I was doing it right.
I would have pleasant physical surroundings.
I would have enough work to keep me busy, but not so much that I felt overwhelmed all the time.

So, does this point to anything?  It doesn’t help narrow down the options of kinds of work I might like to do.  But it does define the kind of environment I’d like to work in.  Office (or not-office) culture.

*****

Hey!  This was a lot of words.  I’m stopping now.

Fear Of Commitment?

Me?  Surely not.  Men on sitcoms have Fear of Commitment.  Fear of Commitment is the punchline to a joke.  How could I possibly be suffering from such a thing?

Okay, obvious difference: I’m not talking about having fear about committing to a romantic relationship.  I am all about committing to my significant other.

I am, I think, afraid of committing to an idea about my career future.  Lots of things seem like good ideas.  None of them seem like Perfectly It.  I’m afraid of choosing a wrong path, so I’m not choosing any path.  I know this isn’t smart.  I know it.  I don’t want to regret a decision, but now I’m regretting not making a decision.  I’m keenly aware of time racing by.  As I sit on the fence, I get older and older.  I could have done something by now! I think.

Other examples.  I haven’t committed to the books I’m reading.  I read all of What Color is Your Parachute? but I did, like, one of the exercises.  And halfheartedly at that.  I started reading I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was.  I am reading ahead, not stopping to do the exercises and really think things through as I go.  I’m not committing to it.  I’m not committing to shivanata.  I was all excited about it for several months before I bought the DVD.  Now I’m not giving it my best.  And I’m not seeing the results I wanted to see.  And those things are probably not unrelated.  I think I must be avoiding this stuff for some reason.

But what is it?

What am I so afraid of?!?

Lightning Speed!

As in, I am going to type some words here with lightning speed!  Because I don’t want to take a lot of time.   I am busy!  Work (my current work) is overwhelming because a key person is out on maternity leave and I’m doing her stuff as well as my stuff.   Also, my sister visited me for a while.  That was great, but not, you know, productive.  Busy!

I decided to give myself a break this week.  No feeling guilty about not looking for a new job.  No feeling guilty about not working on vocational discernment.  No feeling guilty about not practicing shivanata.  No feeling guilty about not updating this here blog.  All those things will still be there next week, once a yucky work deadline has passed.   They’re not going anywhere.

Did that make me feel less stressed?  Maybe!

Kind of a Book Review, But Not Really

I don’t know what I want to write about, but I know I haven’t posted in a while, and that feels wrong.  Shall we start with another little checklist thingie?  Lets.

Since the last time I made a list, I’ve:

• Contacted a free career counselor.  Haven’t heard back yet.
• Started a spreadsheet of resources and organizations in Awesome U.’s area
• Received the mp3 of a teleclass about making an academic resume into a more saleable resume.  I haven’t listened to it yet, and I’m not sure when I’m going to make time for that!
• I sent an email to a minister friend of mine asking about work opportunities in churches, because it’s something I sometimes think I might be interested in.  She sent a long and thoughtful response, which has given me more to think about.
• Finished reading the Richard Bolles’ book (What Color is Your Parachute? super-old edition).  Let’s talk about that.

My favorite parts were in the epilogue, “How To Find Your Mission In Life: God and One’s Vocation.”  It’s great for me to get the God thing out in the open, because my spiritual side is fundamental to my selfhood.  That’s a weird way to express that.  What I mean is, I believe in God and in a relationship between God and me, and that colors the way I see everything, including my self and my career decisions.  So it’s great to have that out there from the get-go.

In the epilogue, Bolles talks about the idea that one might not ever know exactly what one wants to do for the rest of forever.  I might not figure out a single most important long-term goal.  But that’s okay.  I just have to figure out the next thing I want/am able to do.  And once I’m doing that, then I can think about what to do next.  This is a little freeing.  It takes some of the pressure off.

The other thing I liked a lot in the epilogue was this little section (which I will now quote at length–look out!)

Comment 5: Examples of Mission as Intersection

Your unique and individual Mission will most likely turn out to be a mission of Love, acted out in one or all of three arenas: either in the Kingdom of the Mind, whose goal is the bring more Truth into the world; or in the Kingdom of the Heart, whose goal is to bring more Beauty into the world; or in the Kingdom of the Will, whose goal is to bring more Perfection into the world, through Service.

Here are some examples:

“My mission is, out of the rich reservoir of live which God seems to have given me, to nurture and show love for others—most particularly to those who are suffering from incurable diseases.”

“My mission is to draw maps for people to show them how to get to God.”

“My mission is to create the purest foods I can, to help people’s bodies not get in the way of their spiritual growth.”

“My mission is to make the finest harps I can so that people can hear the voice of God in the wind.”

“My mission is to make people laugh, so that the travail of this earthly life doesn’t seem quite so hard to them.”

“My mission is to help people know the truth, in love, about what is happening out in the world, so that there will be more honesty in the world.”

“My mission is to weep with those who weep, so that in my arms they may feel themselves in the arms of that Eternal Love which sent me and which created them.”

“My mission is to create beautiful gardens, so that in the lilies of the field people may behold the Beauty of God and be reminded of the Beauty of Holiness.”

This was so good to read.  So freeing.  Because I tend to think that being in service to others (especially the poor) in a really literal and direct sense is the only noble thing.  Even if it’s not enjoyable.  That somehow martyrdom is worthy, and nothing else is.  Or anything else is okay for somebody, but not for me.  I have to do social justice work, not necessarily because I feel called to it, or because I love it, but because it’s the only thing that’s allowed.  Says me.  I’m only now realizing that maybe, maybe, I can have permission to want to do something else.  I’m not saying that I’m ready to give up on the service thing.  I don’t hate it.  I do value it.  But maybe I can value other options, too.  Revelatory.

It would be nicer if I were omniscient after all

I’ve had this baby blog for less than a month, and already I’m struggling to come up with topics to write about.  I’m just as surprised as you are!

Let’s check in on what I’ve accomplished since I wrote that baby steps post last week.

Hey!  I did almost everything!  And here I’d thought I wasn’t accomplishing much.

• I did contact Jane Doe at Awesome U., and she responded right away with a suggestion about another person to get in touch with.
• I did email the HR person at Awesome U.  I’m still waiting to hear back from her.
• I did have the interview with my friend (more about that in a moment).
• I did keep practicing shivanata and I tried to remain open to learning whatever I might from it.

I did everything except apply to that one job that isn’t ideal.  I’m not sure if this is smart or not.  Maybe there’s no point in applying, since I don’t think it’s quite what I’d like to do, and I think it’s below the level I can aim for (both in terms of responsibility and salary), and there’s a good likelihood that they’ll want to fill the position sooner than I can get there.  (We’re not moving until this summer).  And applying to something I’m not serious about is kind of jerking the chain of whoever has to read all the resumes.  I don’t want to be a chain-jerking jerk.

But!  Maybe not applying is a mistake because I think the reason I didn’t do it last week is that I’m afraid of putting myself out there, and because I don’t want to do work for no concrete positive gain.  Maybe applying would be a good exercise, and the positive gain would simply be that I have more comfort the next time I apply for something I really want.

Reader, do you have an opinion about this? (Because I seem to be spinning in circles.)

*****

Back to the interview with my friend.  It wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped.  One of the problems I noticed (once it was over and I was at home and I couldn’t do anything about it) is that when there are terms or ideas that I’m not fully sure about, I just nod and smile and assume I’ll get it from the context.  I do it because I’m embarrassed to admit (to myself even!) that I don’t already know.  Because, like, I’m supposed to be omniscient or something.  In this case, I didn’t get as much out of the talk with my friend as I could have if I had been able to admit my ignorance and ask for clarification.

The good thing is, this might be a pattern I can notice more and more and work on.

Like, just two evenings ago I went to a basketball game with a bunch of people.  I don’t know much about the game, and I don’t really care.  At one point someone explained a bit of strategy to me, and I acted like I already knew about it.  But I hadn’t known! Why’d I do that?

The triumph here isn’t that I realized the mistake and admitted to my friend that I hadn’t known the strategy thing.  Because I didn’t.  The triumph is that I had done this duh-of-course-I-know-that-everybody-knows-that thing and I noticed just a few minutes later, and not, like, the next day or something.  Maybe next time I’ll notice that I’m about to do it, before I actually do.

You know what?  I don’t need to be ashamed of not already knowing absolutely everything in the whole world.  I don’t even need to be ashamed that other people know things I don’t know.  I’m not in an accumulated knowledge competition with anyone.  (except when I’m playing Trivial Pursuit)

So there!

Feeeeeeeeeeelings

The two-part task (or maybe it’s really two discrete but related tasks) of both determining a long-term career goal and finding short-term employment is (are) really bringing up a lot of emotional stuff for me.  I’m more on edge than usual.  More fearful.  Less forgiving of myself.  To the point of counter-productivity.

Last week I had an insight about the fear while doing shivanata.  (This is awesome, by the way, because the whole reason I’m starting to try shivanata is because it is meant to promote insights!  Success!)  I’m a super brand-new practitioner.  I’ve memorized the eight basic arm positions, and I’ve started to combine them at the most elementary level.

The very first time I tried to actually do the thing, the arm position combining, I made a discovery.  I knew that while I was concentrating on following the DVD, figuring out what the movement pattern was and which movements would be next, I was losing my form.  I was scrunching my shoulders, not keeping my palms pointed up, etc.

I started to panic.  There seemed to be two possible solutions: to slow down and go back to the beginning to practice holding my arms correctly, or to continue practicing the same sequence I had kind-of screwed up, trusting that as I memorized the pattern I would have the brain-space to also improve my form.

There was a choice to make, and I didn’t know what to do!  I was afraid that if I went back to memorizing the arm-positions, I would lose the brain benefits of doing the flowing movement.  And I would lose the opportunity to practice being okay with my human imperfection (the imperfection of not being able to do the whole sequence right away).  But!  I was also afraid that if I didn’t go back and restudy the basic positions I would teach myself the bad habit of poor form.  I would learn the sequence of positions, but I’d be doing the positions themselves incorrectly.

Oh my gosh!  The potential consequences seemed so dire!  I was (briefly) paralyzed by my fear of making a mistake.  Of choosing the wrong action to take.

While I was mulling this over, I realized this paralysis, this gripping fear of making the wrong move, is infecting my employment search, too.  I am constantly second-guessing myself.  For example, I might start an email to a potential employer, but then think, “Maybe I should call instead.  But what if calling seems impertinent rather than go-getter-ish?  But what if sending an email seems passive and impersonal rather than respectful of a busy person’s time?  I only have ONE CHANCE to make this first impression.  I CAN’T SCREW IT UP!!”

Crying and hyperventilation ensue.  Now I’m too worked up to write a decent email or to make a phone call, so I don’t do either.  I tell myself I’ll think about it and make the contact tomorrow.  Or maybe the next day.  Or maybe after I really have time to think about it a lot, which won’t be until next week.  Or whatever.  I couldn’t choose one or the other, so instead I choose to do nothing.  Is that going to advance my career search at all?  No.  And I know it, so I feel guilty, too.  Which brings further paralysis, more fear, more guilt, etc.  Shame Spiral!  Of DOOM!

*****

Okay, here are the things I realized that are helping me chill the f**k out.

First, in both of these instances there needn’t be an only one or only the other dichotomy of choice.  I can do BOTH.  There’s time for me to practice the arm positions one day and the combination the next.  I can do that for as long as I want!  There’s time for me to both email and follow up with a call.  Or vice versa.

Second, if I make a mistake, it will not cause the apocalypse.  Not even my own, personal career apocalypse.  If I get the bad habit of poor form really entrenched, I can choose to relearn the positions.  It might be harder than it would have been before, but so?  If I make the mistake of emailing when I should have called an employer, I can move on to the next employment opportunity.  That would suck a little bit, but so?  Even if my chances at one place are totally screwed, it doesn’t mean the entire job-search enterprise is totally screwed.

Third, choosing to do something, even the wrong thing, is usually (maybe always?) going to be more productive than choosing to do nothing.  Just putting the shivanata DVD away isn’t going to help anyone.  Being too afraid to make contact with employers is not going to get me a job.  It’s not even going to get me closer to understanding what my longer-term career goals might be.  If I do something, I might find it was the right thing.  If it wasn’t the right thing after all, I can try to learn from it and move on.

That was a lot of words, especially just to say something that isn’t particularly revolutionary or ground-breaking.  I know the feelings I’m talking about aren’t unique, and that my realizations aren’t new.  They aren’t even new to me, in my mind.  But they feel new, in my heart and my body.  Like I can breathe.  Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.

Baby Steps

Yesterday I said I’d post something about the steps I’m taking.  Et voila!

I’m trying to accept the idea that I can just take little steps, tiny tiny actions day by day, and they’ll add up to something useful—my getting hired somewhere, but not trapped for eternity at the entry level bottom rung.  I mean, in principle, duh, of course it’s true that many small steps will cause change over time.  Everybody knows that.  They know it so well that there’s a cliché, “baby steps,” which I am now uncreatively using as well.

What I’m having difficulty accepting is that (a) I can take the small steps even though I’m not sure where exactly they’re going, and that (b) I can take the small steps even though I’m afraid of their outcomes, and that (c) I can take the small steps even though I don’t always feel much confidence in myself.  More about that next time.

Meanwhile, I want to share with you (if there’s a you there, reading this thing) the tiny actions I’ve taken recently, and the ones I’m planning to take soon.  You’re like an invisible accountability partner, you lucky thing!

These are the tiny actions I took in the last week:

• I emailed two people at the university we’re most likely headed to.  Let’s call that school Awesome U.  Just for kicks.
• I spoke on the phone with a woman who is the wife of a student at Awesome U.
• I met another good contact, who has just graduated from Awesome U.  Let’s call her Jane.  (short for Jane Doe, obviously).
• I sent one “Hi! Wanna hire me?” email to an organization in Awesome U.’s area.  (no reply yet.)
• I found Awesome U’s local paper and scanned the classified section.  There wasn’t much there, but I’ll keep checking back.
• I set an appointment to meet with a friend who works in a kind of organization I might be interested in.  I’m going to ask her about the work she does, the work other people in her organization do, and how to get there.
• Started doing shivanata (a flowing yoga that’s good for the brain) with the intention of clearing up some of the negative self-judgments that are holding me back.  (I’m going to tell you more about that tomorrow.)

Okay, and here are the next tiny actions I’m planning to take in the next several days:

• Send an email to Jane Doe asking for ideas and advice about looking for work in the Awesome U. area.
• Send an email to the head of HR at Awesome U. asking about what kinds of opportunities might be out there that I don’t know about yet.
• Actually have the meeting with my friend.  (That’s tonight!)
• Send an application to a job opportunity I found online.  The job is probably not an ideal fit, but the sending of materials might be good practice.  I can at least contact the organization to ask for more details about the job.
• Keeping practicing shivanata, and trying to remain open to whatever I learn from it.  (I already told you I’d tell you more about it tomorrow!  Sheesh!)