Question: Hello Kelley ~ I am a 45 year old female (8/26), living in the Detroit area and have been unemployed for the last year and cannot seem to get a break. It’s been a very difficult last year with family issues, having who I thought was my best and oldest friend completely discard me (along with other ‘friends’ who have not truly been there in these difficult times), having a financial strain and along with it absolutely no romantic relationship. I may have made some poor decisions on moving a couple of times that led me to this point and this is not the city that I had planned on living in again. It has been a difficult five years, with the last year (4/2004 to current) being the worst. I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and have tried to learn from my past errors and remain open to possibilities, but things seem to stay dormant. Why has it been so difficult for me? Why can I not seem to get employed or meet someone to form a relationship? What am I not seeing? ~ Thanks and Best, Eliana
Thanks for your note, Eliana. I don’t think it is about what you are not seeing. This stagnation is about what you are not grieving. You have pushed yourself incredibly hard with little or no break, and have given no deeper regard for just how painful things have been, and how much this era has changed you as a person. I’m not suggesting you haven’t felt pain, but that you have not dealt with it in such a way as to give a voice and to let it move through and beyond you. Your method of coping has been very active: doing, fixing, solving. All of those are fine, and show your true champion spirit. Your nature is to get up however bruised and battered, and still make sure everyone has a good breakfast. Remember that for every champion out there fighting the good fight is an inner reserve tending the fire. Your fire tender needs attention now. When I ask her what she carries for you, and what you need to acknowledge about her, she says, “Rage. Hurt. Humiliation.” These shadow feelings have been the motivation for the improvements you are trying to make in your life. Acting out of this dark well has stunted your ability to move into free will. You have to release this deeper grief, so that you can make choices not from anger and feelings of betrayal, but from your higher awareness and truth. Take the time that you need to express these feelings as emotions released. Whatever process you need to go through to release them, to recapitulate them in their entirety–writing them down longhand (including the names, situations and events that go along with them), all of your feelings, the entire chronology, thank your champion and your fire tender, then let those emotions be taken away on the smoke of the pages your burn. It doesn’t help you to hold on to them; and letting go can free you immensely to feel better, and create what you want in life around you.
I do feel that you are not in a geographical area that is well suited to you. You thrive best in a small city, where you can feel both the pulse of life, and that of Nature. Tapping into both of those rhythms helps you connect with yourself.
Be well!
~skh
