Career changes? Shifting into our greater roles...

Many years ago I exited corporate employment and started my own business.  My first clients were  executives leaving (some by choice, most not) corporate positions and requiring new resumes. All of these execs had been employed for twenty-five plus years by the same organization. Most were not quite age ready or willing to retire and had no idea what they were capable or qualified to do outside of their current industries. Although I had left a year prior, we had stayed in touch with the intention to keep a broad network for whatever lay ahead.

It was during an era of corporate downsizing, restructuring and giving the bottom line profits a boost for stockholder dividends not only for this specific industry, but for many others. Although these execs had weathered previous cycles of downsizing, they were not so sure they would make it though the cuts this time; few did.

One-by-one, they contacted me to build their resume for a later life job search. I had a reputation as the communicator, coupled with the ability to identify transferable industry competencies. It wasn't a conscious plan to become a resume writer or a career consultant. It was part of The Available Life.

You see, I had been certified as a coach long before it became popular. My previous employer had sent me to a professional executive coaching institute in the 1980's as part of my role of recruiting, hiring, developing, and, at times, firing. These execs knew of my training and asked if I would help.

As senior executives, they were directed to an executive placement organization paid for as part of their severance packages. Over a five month period, only one had been placed into a new position; fear, frustration and borderline or full blown depression had crept into their lives. It was a tough place to be when their entire career faith had been bolstered with big promotions and even bigger paychecks. As breadwinners and "family head of house", they had expected to live out their career in the company. It just didn't happen that way.

Trusting in the greater good and with my counsel, a new life direction began for them.  A co-created story of their career unfolded, worded from a different perspective; all the training, accomplishments, certifications, awards, rewards, successes and relationships - with others, and as importantly, with themselves. What passion lived behind this masked life of over twenty-five years? What did they really want to be doing now and for the rest of their life?! Most had no idea, did not understand the full extent of their achievements or what highly desirable expert skills they had to offer in the corporate or not-for-profit world.

Armed with resumes reflective of their true self, each of my clients had a new knowing of who they were and felt prepared for their next steps.  They began to breathe easier, sleep sounder and go after opportunities with a renewed confidence they would soon be employed. More then feeling confident, they learned to be Available. Instead of fear, they lived feeling safe and trusting in the moment, listening to their desires and manifesting a career that fulfilled their dreams.

What was the message to me? Be Available and flexible, open and willing to risk, to learn, to grow, and to explore. By Living the Available Life our futures were created, far more global and extraordinary than we might have planned or imagined. Had we built our responses to life on past experiences, we would have limited the expectations and the outcomes. Being Available, we released the control and allowed our hearts and spirits to discover our deeper selves, and our truest roles…Living the Available Life.

Emails, Texts -What are you saying??

Recently I received a reply message stating that my email "was very thoughtful, and well thought out. It was  as you always do, put such care into your communications with me and everyone else I've known." The recipient  was responding to the words and the tone used in my email replying to his first email. I had responded with great care and some trepidation, not wanting to spar in response. It had come from someone I consider a friend; someone who was going throughout the "dark night of the soul" and was still going through difficult and frankly quite scary times. I knew this person was under doctor's care and wanted this email to be honest and kindly stated. The option to pick up the phone and call was not available; this was our only means of communication at this time.

It got me to thinking…. 

Emails are often read and responded to without any consideration to the tone, and quite frankly, the abbreviated method of text and/or short or overly lengthy emails does not contribute to ensuring the tone meant to be communicated is established. This may be appropriate in a detached and egoless type of read, and maybe this newer generation writing with shorten emails and acronymic texts has it right. I am not so sure.  

With every generation communicating in their learned or newly created trend, the problem is that most communications are filled with one's own personality and attachment to the response, both in the writer and the reader. We don't just read a text or email, we are thinking about how we want to answer, often with a preconceived idea of what is being said or not said. Usually, it isn't the same conversation to either person.

So I read and re-read the email, at different times of the day and in different mindsets to understand and perhaps come to some conclusion - what was this person really saying? What was needing to be heard? What was I reading and reading-into the message? It became more clear that in Living the Available Life, the present moment-to-moment exists in all of our communications. The language and words and tone with which we use to communicate often impact the situation between two people; neither the twain shall meet. 

The conclusion?  All of our responses based on past experience creates an expectation that doesn't necessarily work. To BE in the moment, neutral and without preconceived positive or negative triggers, we allow the Divine to happen - a far more desirable outcome. In the moment, we are connected to all things filled with compassion and love, with communication clear and unencumbered of past experience or self projected future. Living the Available Life is the moment-to-moment allowing, allowing a new and higher vibrational result.

Think back to your past triggered response to written communication from someone whom you wanted to hear, really hear and to understand, even though you thought differently in response…  Kind of gives you second thoughts… Promise yourself to Be Available and to know that communication gets better when in the moment.

Is it all a Mirage...

Many years ago I learned every situation in our life, and how we handle it, is a projection of our own thoughts, feelings, experiences and expectations.  Our minds, and our memories, are so powerful that a as we contemplate and conjure a concern or worry it will show up proving us right.  Learned this the hard way - a cosmic 2 by 4 proved it to me right then and there.  Realizing that if I could create something so feared in my life, so quickly, I had better learn even quicker, to clean up my thinking and speaking, and ultimately my creating.

Know that I often speak in analogies, stories and verbal pictures that I see in my mind's eye and hear whispered in my ear. I determined long ago that my art is in my voice and words are my paintbrush. The light, the dark, the bright and the hued words of communication. So…

Do you remember the old movies depicting a man dragging himself across the desert, delirious and needing water? All of a sudden a vision of palm trees appeared, filled with dates and beneath the waving fronds was a pond of water. Sometimes  the mirage was real; thirst quenched, man saved.  At other times the mirage would disappear just as the man approached the illusion close enough to quench his thirst. Poof! Gone. That is exactly what happens when we put an intention out into the world in an effort to create what we want, then deteriorate our manifestation with thoughts of dis-trust, questioning our ability to create our intended result.

My curiosity and desire to better my language of clear communication and wondrous creation sent me off to research. Interestingly I learned in Hindi the root of the word mirage means to look at or to admire. It doesn't distinguish if it is real or not. It is left to the individual to decide to trust, know and accept the real of their own creation. The question to ask, it as a mirage I choose to live, in admiration of my own creation? Or the illusion, a dream unfulfilled?

So in this earthly world, a life of our own creation, it is our choosing; create the illusion or mirage of life. Is it the fruitless effort of Poof! Gone. Or is it to create the Mirage, admiring, enjoying and living as the man quenched and vibrantly alive.

Live the available life through your own Mirage.