Friday, September 19, 2008

From Corporate Insanity

One year and one month ago I quit my Corporate Job of Insanity. Have you heard this story before? I was a successful proposal manager for a corporation that pursued multi-million dollar military contracts all over the world. I loved the people I worked with, but the increasing responsibilities of this job in its last year had me working 70, 80, and 90 hours a week - without weekends of course. I came home exhausted every night and I woke up exhausted. I own a cabin (pictured), but was not able to go to the cabin, or if I did make it, I'd do nothing but sleep when I got there. It had not always been this way at this job (5 years), but they made it clear the responsibilities and work environment would not change.

I am grateful for this difficult period because it pushed me to recognize I must change my life - I no longer liked what I did for a living or who I was becoming, I couldn't be the mother I needed to be, and I certainly had no time for family, friends, myself, or an intimate relationship.

I made the decision the night I arrived home after making the commute in my gas-guzzling truck because the car had a flat that I didn't have time to fix. When I walked through the door, my teenager announced, "Hey Lady Who Lives at the End of the Hall, we're out of dog food."


So, right after I fed my dogs cat food because I didn't have the energy to go to the store, I wrote my resignation.

Those first few months After Job (A.J.) I decided I would start a nonprofit, write a business plan, woo Bill Gates, and basically save the world. The other crucial thing for me was that I felt ready for a meaningful relationship now that I had time to actually see other human beings.


During the months right after I quit, I realized that the quality of my life was more important to me than getting another "job-job" or to make XX amount of money. I had the reserves to explore what I wanted to do with my life, I just wasn't sure how far it would get me. Even after the reserves were gone, money seemed to make itself available. No, it didn't come out of no where or from trees, but it did come. Whether by a tax refund, an insurance refund, an unexpected side job, or wherever.

What I didn't realize, was that by noticing all the things I didn't want anymore, I was becoming really clear about what I did want to do and experience in my life. I was forming the foundation to create a happy life.

So I can honestly say one year and one month ago, I would never have believed that I would be spending the predominant amount of my time with my daughter and with my dog hiking in the mountains. This picture is of an area just 10 miles from my backdoor.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Stow-aways and Angels

My Journey began 3 years ago on a ship called Spirit in the Gulf of Alaska. It carried 1500 wide-eyed cruisers, 200 of whom were seekers and 3 who were self-described psychics.

I was born in Alaska, so my point for being on this cruise was really to see Sylvia Browne in action, maybe get a reading as an audience member, and, as a pleasant happenstance, visit the towns in the area of Alaska where I'd been born.

Two hundred people went to Sylvia's event on that cruise ship, but maybe if she didn't connect with me, her fellow psychics, John Holland and Gordon Smith, would pick something up. I didn't know who they were, but I figured they must be good if they were traveling with Sylvia. (As some may be aware, both Holland and Smith have become fairly famous psychics in the U.S. and the U.K.)


In the end, Sylvia granted everyone in the audience one question. I got to ask the question that was keeing me up at night: "What work should I be doing?" I was miserable as a proposal manager, though I loved to write. And the climate at work was progressively getting worse, as employees were being under-paid and over-worked to build a corporate empire. I had run into dead-ends on other career avenues that seemed promising, so I wanted to see what "the other side" had to say. It was really just a last-ditch, intriguing idea that came to me, and I figured, why not? I really thought at the time that this would be my only foray into the world of "psychics" and "visionaries."

Sylvia's answer: "Medical." When I stared at her blankly she said, "Healing, dear. It's all the same."


I'm pretty sure I wore the floorboards out in our cabin the next few days, trying to figure out how I could possibly have gone so wrong in my life. How did I get so off track? I had a degree in journalism for Pete's sake. Maybe Sylvia got me mixed up with the guy behind me. But if not, what was I supposed to do...? Go back to school to become a doctor or registered nurse? Good God, how many years of school and dollars would that be!? Truthfully, I didn't know what a healer really was anyway...Probably something to do with a mortar and pestle. I resigned myself to going home and looking at other career options.


But on the last morning, as my mom, daughter and I had breakfast in the restaurant on the ship, we began to talk to a lady who'd been part of the Sylvia Browne event. Mom asked her what she did for a living. The woman answered that she was an angel teacher. My somewhat skeptical, but quasi-open-minded mother, shifted ever so slightly in her seat to get a better view of this woman. Meanwhile, something inside of me said, "Cool!" But I wasn't sure why...I asked, "What's an angel teacher?"


"I hold classes in which I teach people the very basics of inuition and working with angels. I've seen and talked to angels all of my life."


My world suddenly seemed to open up - there were such things as angel teachers!? Wow, there are people who can talk to just angels!? Like Sylvia just talks to dead people!? How cool was that!? We chatted more, and finally I told her I'd been a little perplexed about Sylvia's answer of "medical or healing." The angel lady told me that healing often can be emotional, spiritual, and mental, not just physical, and that there were so many different kinds of healing, I should seek out like-minded people in my community.


I wasn't exactly sure what a like-minded person was, but I was resolved to find them. So when I returned to Alaska, I Googled "Spiritual Alaska" and "like-minded Alaska" and "psychics Alaska," but found only scarey products and dead ends.
Just a few days later, I went to an appointment at the eye doctor's (note the word "eye," as in "organ to see with."). There, sitting on a side table was a magazine called The Alaska Wellness Magazine. I picked up a copy from sheer boredom, and began to read. I hardly opened the front cover when I had to sit up and start flipping pages to be sure of what I was seeing. There before me - page after page - were advertisements after articles after advertisements of psychics and healers of modalities I'd never heard of before. Then I found the article with the title: "I Talk to Angels."


The "I Talk to Angels" author included her email address in the article, so I contacted her and got a reading. That amazing connection started my Journey: from a boat in the Gulf of Alaska, to a doctor's office in downtown Anchorage, to a medium's office in my home town. I discovered not long after this, that I was not just a physical, mental and emotional being, but that I was also spiritual, as is everyone. And that is why we are all Journiers, capable of creating the lives we want, capable of talking to angels and guides, and talking to each other - awake, asleep, this side or that. We are here on Earth to live our lives to the fullest, and that is why I am taking my Journal online. To fulfill my two passions: Writing and inspiring.


The intent of this blog is not to impose my beliefs on anyone; it is simply to share my Journey, so that it might inspire others who are seeking their own truth and experiencing their own Journey.
As far as "the work that I should be doing" - it is still unfolding. I've not limited myself to any one thing, and strangely, I don't have a "job-job" anymore. I've opened myself to whatever opportunities come my way. Am I in healing? Maybe. If you look at life from the perspective that we're all here to help each other out. I do write grants to give healers resources and support so they can heal; I am writing a business plan with healers to create healing facilities and programs. I am also part of an effort to help post-traumatic stress disorder veterans and civilians receive psychiatric service dogs. So, yes, maybe I am a healer! If you look at it the way that the janitor at NASA looks at the world: "I help send astronauts to the moon." I like that guy! We should all be so aware of our contributions - because they matter, and every contribution that we make does effect the rest of the world.