Big shifts

Since I returned from the Christmas break I’ve decided to change the structure of my career radically and start working for myself this year. It’s the natural evolution of all the thinking and soul searching and prospecting I did in 2010, and it’s all felt relatively easy and synchronous by comparison. I’ve already told my company and started my planning in the space of a few days. Amazing how fast it’s all happened – but it’s been a long time coming and I’m totally ready…like an autumn leaf…

I’ve preferred to contain all of that business-related thinking in a separate journal. It’s been useful to write with pen and ink as I formulate my ideas and go through quite a challenging, emotional process, and more appropriate to keep in entirely confidential.

I’m feeling inspired, and excited – my only wobble thus far has been telling my dad and not feeling as supported by him in my decision as I would have liked. But if I believe in myself and my own ability, others will too. And I’ve had nothing but love, support and enthusiasm from the handful of other people who know my news.

So here’s to a fruitful 2011…bring it.

HoneyChild

A call for guidance

Wow, I’m feeling strained. While the focus of last year was deepening my relationship with R and plannning a wedding, so far 2010 seems to have been all about career tension and the back and forth of ‘should I stay or should I go?’. It seems silly to complain because I have great opportunities available to me in whichever direction I choose to move. But I’m finding the whole process - weighing up intense loyalty and the comfort of familiarity with ambition and the need for change - emotionally very draining. I want to be able to satisfy all of those desires in one place.

Looking for some guidance and certainty here, Universe. Please.

HoneyChild

Trying to decide

A few years ago I received the gift of a channelled reading which I experienced as a stream of beautiful wisdom from my spiritual guides and my higher self. I understood and identified immediately with most of the information revealed to me, but I found one aspect of the reading very surprising. It was an insight about my tendency to be indecisive. Basically I was told that sometimes watching me make even the smallest decision in a grocery store was excruciating! I don’t think I’d ever thought of myself as indecisive before that moment, and I’d never considered that if I was, it may be frustrating to other people.

And yet, several years later, I often think back to that message and it resonates with me. Obviously, it usually happens when I’m in the middle of a decision-making process, as I am now. It’s not particularly helpful either – in fact, it just makes me more self-conscious about my own indecisiveness. But I don’t believe that my intuition would point something out that sharply just to mess with me. So I’m really trying to come to grips with why I have such negative energy around making a call about important stuff. I’m sure it’s largely to do with my need to please others, and not to hurt anyone as a result of my actions.

I can choose pretty quickly when my decision doesn’t affect anyone but me (I’ve never been one of those girls who changes their outfit 10 times before going out, which I’m sure makes me very decisive in some books). But I can weigh up pros and cons for hours when it comes to different kinds of decisions - from life-changing but really very simple choices like whether to go on a first date with someone who would ultimately become my husband (I spent months working out whether that was a good idea – duh) to inconsequential rubbish like what to buy for supper for the husband. Where there’s a chance that someone else can be negatively affected by what I decide, I’m temporarily paralysed.

Intellectually, I can see that’s stupid. Energetically I know that it’s crazy to fixate on the negative that hasn’t yet occurred. And the ridiculous thing is that by deliberating and delaying for so long, I can sometimes hurt people even more.

My horoscope today: This is a session in which you must cultivate positivity and faith because these qualities will easily overcome fear and doubt. Ok, will add that to my to-do list.


HoneyChild

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Signs

My grandmother told me that feathers are messages from the angels which protect and guide you. A white feather left for you is a sign that whatever you're thinking or feeling or trying to decide is the right thing.

I received my new job offer yesterday, but the terms of engagement do not amount to what I want. She'd not able to offer me quite enough to make the move worth it for me, and to lose the stability and environment of my current job. I'll counter it for a while, but my heart's not in it. We hosted dinner at home for a dozen work colleagues last night - it was so much fun, and I was reminded that I'm very fortunate to have a social scene like I do at my company. This morning we watched creative work that's come out of the agency in recent weeks. I loved it so much, I cried. Last week our team won industry awards beyond our wildest dreams - I am a member of one of the hottest PR consultancies around. How can I leave all that just to chase the idea of money? The money will come.

I'm sitting at my desk, looking outside at a little white feather which is stuck like glue to the window. I think this is a message to go with my heart, stay for a while.

HoneyChild

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Taking risks

Moving on is hard. Especially when what you're leaving behind is good, fun, happy. And even moreso when you don't need to move. I'm feeling pulled, not pushed, onto a new career path, and it makes me wish my current job could be enough, could give me enough. But my mom always said you're never totally ready to make the biggest decisions and take the biggest risks that life throws at you. Having a baby, emigrating, or in this case, leaving the security of a well paid job in a great company with growth potential to start a new division of a small start up. But that's what I'm about to do, and it's scary.

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