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Monday, April 20, 2015

I lost my job! Now What?




I heard it so often, witnessed people, and of course, we read it daily in the newspapers and columns. People loosing their jobs, getting fired, and their lives falling apart. Sudden life changes, within a heartbeat. Tons of thoughts and emotions streaming in. How to pay the mortgage, the car payment, food, rent, supplies for the kids, school, etc…. a never-ending loop of confusion, terror and panic. Sleepless, cold-sweat nights, very often in secret. Nobody is to know about it, and the stress increases by the minute.

The mind is so ramped up and thoughts don’t help. Everything is fuzzy and the confusion increases.

Looking back at my own life, I know the moments of panic, although I have never lost a job. I lost my partner and the place I was living in, in a new city, a new country, over night. The mind is a trap, and thinking things over doesn’t help. What comes out of that ‘filing cabinet’ called mind is memories and conclusions, never anything new. More of the ‘Oh my God’s’, and no way out. Have you ever experienced this? And if so, was there expansion and space, or was it contraction and a sense of suffocation? 

In a world of ‘How-To-Do-Life’, there is nothing else outside of the box. There is no question. There is only ‘I-have-to-fix-this!’. We start running in the hamster wheel of ‘I have to find a new job’, ‘I have to do this and have to do that’ to change what is and bring back what was lost, so that we can have ‘our life’ back, go back to how it was and used to be. And we are actually not being present. We are ‘outside of ourselves’, literally.

Now, how do we get back in?

What if we had a question? A question such as “What else is possible here?” or “How can this turn out better than I could possibly imagine?”

I remember, when I lost my home overnight in a foreign city, in a precarious situation, my mind suggested ‘You can just go back!’ It was telling me to go back to what was familiar, as if that was my only choice. I didn’t know anybody else in the city, had just gotten there a couple of months before, had no bank account and didn’t even know where to sleep. I knew one thing, the street was not an option. I had a little money left in my pocket. The suggestion from my mind, the conclusion of going back to Europe and picking up the familiar life over there was not appealing. Somehow, I managed to ask a question to the universe, “What’s next?”, “What do I do now?” and “Where do I go?”

By the next day, through a row of ‘serendipities’, as I would call it, I had a place to stay, my own small room with a bed, a small desk and a window, and new people in my life, overnight, people who encouraged me with kind words and genuine smiles.

Now, I wonder, what if we never come to any conclusion? What if we never expect anything? What if we don’t make ourselves believe that ‘this is the perfect job’, ‘this is the perfect husband/wife’,  ‘this is what I will do until I retire’ etc. These are all conclusions that make us believe that all is well and we have it figured out and right. How much do we make ourselves unaware?

What if the grunge in the stomach, the bad feeling, the headache, the tightness in the morning on the way to the office, is our body trying to tell us something? How often do we shovel our knowing underneath the carpet, so that we can stay in the illusion of ‘all is well’?

I knew, then, that something was coming, that something was not so well. I had dreams, and I ignored them. I did not want to loose my illusion of the ‘happy life’. I never asked “What is this that I am sensing?” or “What is my body trying to tell me?”

If we allowed ourselves to be aware all the time, would we know, clear and bright as the day, that something was changing? Yes. And, instead of ignoring that knowing, we could ask a question. A question will empower us, and we can take action. Questions such as “What is this?” and “What are my choices here?” can change the energy of a situation.

We might find that fear and withdrawal are only two possible choices. “What else can I choose?” can open pathways and doors that we didn’t even know existed.

In my case, I chose not to go back to Europe. I chose to return to my art classes next morning. I had asked the universe to give me a sign that I was on the ‘right path’, a sign that I could understand beyond doubt. When I entered the art school, I discovered my name on the list of students who had won a scholarship. The universe had given me a sign that it had my back.

If you knew that the universe has your back, what would you choose? If you knew that you could never fail, what would that create in your reality?

Instead of going into freeze and standstill and conclusion and freak-out, we can ask a question. “How does it get any better than this?” is a question and an Access Consciousness® tool.

A question always opens more possibilities. The universe will always bring possibilities, ideas and inspirations to us. Sometimes, they will look different from what we think they will. What if that difference, if we are willing to choose it, can create a new beginning and a different reality for us that will be greater than what we could have imagined?

A wise man said “Never give up and never quit!”.

If I had listened to my mind, who knows? I might have went ‘back’ into the old, back to a past that was no more. And what would that have created? Yet, when we step forward and ask a question, I know now that we can create miracles, that we can be magic and expand our possibilities beyond any box. We can create whatever we would like to create.
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Bettina Madini ('Star-Rose') is an Access Consciousness® Certified Facilitator, artist, singer and inspiring public speaker. Born in Berlin, Germany, she is currently living in the United States. Bettina’s paintings can be found in corporate and private collections in Europe, Australia and in the United States. She offers private sessions, Painting workshops and facilitates Access Consciousness® Core Classes, internationally. To find Bettina’s classes and see her art work please visit:  www.BettinaStar-Rose.com.

Access Consciousness® was founded by Gary Douglas. All the tools in this article are derived from Access Consciousness®. Read more about Access Consciousness® at www.AccessConsciousness.com.