If you have been following this blog at all, you know that I am not exactly where I want to be in my life. Not that things are all bad- I am in reasonably good health, my marriage and The Kid are in good shape, I really can see some progress around the house, and I’m expanding my involvement in my community. The missing piece of my life’s puzzle is a “real” job. Actually, not just a job, but an outlet for the considerable (unfocused) energy and ambition I seem to have been accumulating over the last year or so.
My logic-based efforts at finding full-time employment have not yet been successful, so I am enlisting another piece of myself. It’s time to go with my gut. I hope it won’t be too mad at the way I’ve so often ignored it.
Many years ago, when I worked in my worst job ever, I mysteriously found myself in extreme gastric distress every Monday morning. It took weeks to make the connection; it wasn’t Sunday supper, but the job that was making me ill.
I’m much more sensitive to negative notes now, but still working on recognizing the positive messages my gut is trying to send.
My gut hasn’t been considerate enough to dictate specifically what I should be doing, job-wise, but I have been receiving hints and signals:
When logic instructed me that I had to get over my absurd levels of self-consciousness, my gut sent me to Toastmasters. It also sent me to a two-day blogging conference, and a workshop for people looking to make changes and/or find direction in their lives and careers.
My gut got all giddy at the prospect of working as an Employee Relations Consultant, which would employ a full range of my existing skills in a new context. Logic hopped on board, and I’ve joined a professional group which will allow me to meet people in the field of Human Resources, and study to become a better candidate.
My gut jumped up and down, waving its arms and yelling “Yes” when I sat in on trials of the Moral Monday protesters with Dr. T, and again when we attended a banquet honoring the 120 volunteer lawyers representing them.
My gut was apparently attending to other matters when the prospect of extending my little job to full-time status first arose, but has recently started giving me funny looks when I consider it. It recently joined forces with logic to remind me that there was no reason to miss meetings of any of my new, career-boosting groups in order to work a shift at a job that does not sustain me. I will be changing my availability accordingly.
Logic tells me that I am a smart person with some skills, a desire to serve, and a sense of justice. My gut seems to be telling me that if I trust myself to do the right thing, I will find the right thing to do.
thatdifficultstage 
My instincts don’t lie in my gut, I don’t think. The things that thrive in my gut are panic, anxiety, dread. Also extra pounds. I would just as soon not know about my gut – where it is, what it’s doing or thinking, .
My question is to my heart — the soul part, not the bloody pumping part. “Are you there? How do I make you grow? How do I live out your desires? ”
One thing that has helped me in moving along when I have been stuck is visualization. Draw the image of where you want to be, who you want to be, what you want to be. Make the image as real as you can. I write it out in words, draw and diagram pictures of it. Keep looking at it, keep it in your head at all times. It becomes part of your self, your conscience, your sub-conscience. You start moving it the direction you visualize as if by magic.
I learned this awhile back from a friend who shares some of my fears around horseback riding … specifically the performance anxiety that comes with competing, and my huge fear of jumping. I started to ride the perfect dressage tests or hunter classes in my head, over and over. I even visualized burps in the rides and how I would ride through them. In my car during my commute, in the shower, during boring meetings at work, whenever I could let my mind safely wander away from reality, I would put in my head the vision of where I wanted to go.
Build the vision and live it in your head. What are you doing? What kind of person are you? How are you dressed? What is your daily routine like?
Interesting how hard I find it to give myself permission to do that. I see glimpses from time to time, but I am working hard to allow myself a clearer view.
[…] dear friend of 40 years and fellow blogger writes about life-changes she is seeking, and how she is trying to pay more attention to her gut […]
ah but here is another life philosophy I love to live, except when I can get fired for it. I first saw it hanging on the wall of the office of a Colonel I worked for when I was in the AF.
It is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
In my previous life as a Real Live Professional Adult, I learned to live by that philosophy (since it was the best way to get things done.) Now, if I can just get one over on myself…