Job-hunting - sigh - it doesn’t matter what age you are it can a long and tedious process. It’s finding the balance of looking for a company that fits your location and way of thinking along with the job that matches your skills and interests. I suppose that employers probably think hiring can be a long tedious process too and for similar reasons.
The Labour Day weekend just passed, a holiday for most of us, and we happily enjoyed the company of my eldest son and his girlfriend. However, it originally gave workers the chance to campaign for better working conditions or pay. PBS Newshour highlighted the issues of part-time workers in the USA and how difficult it is to find jobs and balance their own needs with the needs of the company. Because the young people in our lives are all in various stages of part-time work, hunting for full-time work, or improving where they are we had a lot of discussion on the job search process. They face the same issues I face as I look for a job in my neighborhood.
I’d like to find that balance between working full-time yet having evenings and weekends to grow my new Reiki practice. And I thought I’d found a good prospect, a job with great hours and excellent pay. I applied and got a positive response via email. But something about the email didn't sit right with me. I tried to ‘google’ (that’s a verb isn’t it?) the company and came up with only a website on their services but no real company information. I responded and was moved to the next level of acceptance, but something still felt off. Paul and I discussed it and by the end of the weekend he had found another website with almost precisely the same information, only this one was a legitimate business. It was the website that the scammers had copied as their own and substituted some of their own contact information. Confirmation that our intuition was right!
Trusting your intuition, that insight you perceive when something is not plainly evident, is important in all areas of your life. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement when you think you have found that thing you’ve been looking for, such as the right job. Especially if the process has already been going on for a long time. However, if something feels off, even if you can’t explain why, it’s time to “Get Still”, as I call it.
Pausing and getting quiet will help you to create the balance to the excitement that you feel. In that stillness the insight about the situation has a chance to rise to the highest level of your mind and become clear. Or you will be guided to do something, like Paul searching for the original website, that will give you the answer to your uneasy feeling.
You may fear passing up a great opportunity in front of you right now and losing out if you don’t take what is offered. But if, as I found out, the great deal is really a scam then moving forward will only create more heartache. It can seem like a seesaw balancing act - intuition and stillness on one side, fear and loss on the other.
If you were like me you’d say that intuition feels like a lightweight high on one side of the seesaw. Fear would be heavy and hitting the ground on the other side. You can change that with practice.
Learn to get still, which is just a matter of pausing what you are doing. Let it rest, whatever it is. Walk away for a while and think about something else.
Listen to your inner voice, that voice my friend calls the ‘brain in the belly.” If something feels off try to figure why. If you can’t quite explain it to yourself try talking it out with a friend. You may hit on the thing that’s bothering you.
Act slowly, and respond cautiously.
Practice often, in everyday matters, the principle of quiet listening.
Then you will notice that your intuition will have greater weight bringing balance to the seesaw and your life.