The last time I wrote on my spirituality journey I focused on “why” I was doing it. Hopefully that made sense. I imagine many of us struggle here with the balance of belief, faith and well-being. Honestly, I’m not as far as I wanted. Ironically this is the exact time I SHOULD be laser focused on finding that balance.
Why? Well because in the midst of my quest I have been laid off from work. As the primary breadwinner, it comes at a cost of burden to help my family, to help our retirement, to help keep balance. While I do believe that money isn’t everything, it does address critical key needs for shelter, food, and a semblance of freedom to choose what you do outside of work. Now please don’t feel bad for me, the planner in me always has finances locked down to weather a storm of this nature but this blog is actually a combination of where I got in my spirituality journey and how to handle the knocks in life.
To bring some reality to the job loss, I did recognize that a layoff would happen and expected it to be me as all of the resources supporting my role were disappearing through budget cuts. It meant even if I kept my job, I couldn’t do my job. Personally I have no interest in a role that is not supported. After doing the “math” part of this equation (how do we stay up to date on bills, still be able to have fun and not touch retirement) I started thinking of the personal path.
I will take some time to just embrace and love life. I’ll find my feet and get moving again to help work out some of the kinks of being in a desk-jockey role. And while I will certainly entertain truly exciting roles, I will take off through June so I can visit with family and friends that feed my soul. I am excited about this now. My sleep is already better, as is my happiness. I believe overall my contentment in my role was suffering and this situation came as a “gift” to nudge me into a better space. Message here? When you run into bumps in the road, you have all rights to take some time to process but eventually you should look at all the paths it can take you. Find the “up” in the “down”.
That leads me to the next steps in my journey. I was focused on “defining” what options there may be out there that I could connect to. So, what are things I believe or things that guide me?
· I believe we all play a part in a bigger picture, that there will be a judgement (of sorts) that asks “were you a good person?”, “did you help others without expectation of reward”, “did you offer love, trust and empathy?”
· I believe that your character is defined by how you act when no one is around to see if/when you do good things but do them because you feel it is right.
· I believe everyone has purpose and reason to be here, everyone has something to offer that is unique to all others and it is our opportunity to embrace the best of what that can be.
· I am guided by behaviors of honesty, integrity, loyalty, positivity, and kindness. Am I these things always? No probably not, but I strive to be as these are characteristics that I respect in others and have distanced myself from those that cannot be these things.
Starting my research I found that the basic tenants of many spiritual belief systems have similar views but several really peaked my interest. As I mentioned in my last blog, there is no intention here of listing pro’s and con’s for every one….your choices are yours and I applaud you for having them. But I am keen to move into the stage of reading, learning and adapting to initiate practice with several of the areas I feel connected with.
Until next time my friends…
Conquering Momma Lisa
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