Tag: fear

Semi-retirement and following passions

Sara MoserLeave a comment

I went down to the lake this morning with a cup of coffee. It waswp-1473004970418.jpg a beautiful clear morning – birds singing, fish jumping – and it was nice for about 10 minutes. Then the humidity started creating a sheen of moisture on me, so I went back inside. It gave me enough time to decide to write a blog post.

If you’ve been reading here, you know that I recently quit my job. I decided that I would call myself “semi-retired” rather than “unemployed”. After all, I am of an age when many retire, and I do have that 401k, although if I tried to just live off of that, it wouldn’t last long. Anyway, I’m not unemployed. I am picking up some part-time hours doing medical reviews from home.

So, what’s been happening with me since I made the big decision? How does one adjust to not having the boundaries of a 40-hour-week job, after years of arranging the rest of one’s life around that box? It’s mostly mental, I think. (pun intended!)

Day to day life is great. Robert and I continue to find ourselves compatible and happy together, which is such an amazing blessing. I’ve started going to yoga class four times a week, and spend regular quality time with my grandchildren. I love getting to eat at home, preparing simple meals of grains and fresh organic vegetables from the farmer’s market.

Then there is the following of my passion, what I really care about. I am an Ayurvedic Practitioner, and have the intention of introducing those who want better health to a new way of living. (and being paid for it!) There are simple changes in lifestyle that can make a huge difference, that can help with stress, anxiety, digestive and weight issues, insomnia, and overall health management. But I find that I am a bit of a procrastinator, a little stuck. I know that I have something of value to offer, and it is just a matter of finding the clients who want to be committed to making positive changes.

So I decided to get some help to move me in the right direction, and am taking a course with Brian Whetten called Selling by Giving. The premise is that it can “transform the way I relate to my fears and inner doubts, and shift from judging them as problems to seeing that they are reliable course indicators showing me that I am heading in the right direction.”

And I’m not finished being a student. I am studying Ayurvedic Spiritual Counseling with New World Ayurveda. I’ve got skills and knowledge about how to make diet and lifestyle changes, but most people are resistant to change. So in this course, I’ll learn how to “help my clients understand what is truly at the root of their obstacles and have the inner transformational skills needed to permanently overcome those blocks.”  I need this for me, first, because I am as resistant to change as anyone I may try to help. Change always has to start with me!

Sounds like a lot when I put it on paper! And it is, but not too much. I’ve found time to paint, to take walks, to have wine with friends. In the midst of all these plans and possibilities, I remember that what matters most is this moment – am I being kind, compassionate, and loving to whomever is around me, and to myself?

Now what?

Sara Moser4 Comments

Friday was my last day doing the job I’ve been at for the last six years.

wp-1468765867052.pngPeople have been asking me what I am going to do. What comes out of my mouth first is “sit in the sun”.  I haven’t been doing much of that, so I am going to start today!

What else do I want to do? More yoga, for one. I’ve already been going to the yoga studio down the street, and plan to step it up from 1 or 2 times a week to 3 or 4. I’m considering a week long yoga retreat in Austin in October, and maybe even yoga teacher training.

I am going to write more, paint more, play more, relax more, dream more.

I am going to continue to open myself up to whatever is out there for me to do. I will go to social and networking events and have opportunities to talk about what I love. Perhaps some clients will arise from this.

I will update my resume and work on a new website.

I will connect more with my family, and welcome twin grandbabies into the world.

I’m going to re-open The Artist’s Way and see where it takes me.

I’ve looked back at some of what I wrote in the early days of this blog, two years ago, and am really amazed at the journey. Starting this blog and putting myself and my inner world “out there” was a huge step, and I have no doubt that because of continuing to allow myself to be vulnerable in this way I have become more willing to take chances and face fear.

Here I am, world!

Quitting time

Sara Moser14 Comments

wp-1467466842516.jpegI’m leaving my job. I gave notice. I’m leaving. I did it, woohoo!! Dance around the room!

I’ve been writing about this day for  2 years.  I’ve read some of my earlier posts and the yearning has definitely been there. I journaled about it ALOT.  I’ve planned for it ALOT. I can’t believe I’m actually HERE. (well really, I CAN believe it. It just seems strange)!

When I returned to work Monday, after the previous amazing week, I knew that I’d already made the decision. It’s been in my heart for a long time, and the lack of management support that has developed was the catalyst I needed. So it is done.

It is time. Time for me to move on. Time for new things. Time to open my heart to MORE possibility. Time to breathe. Time for more time to do that which makes my heart sing.

Ending and beginning

Sara MoserLeave a comment

I have had an amazing week!

Just as I expected, the five day intensive to wrap up my ayurvedic studies was exciting, confidence building, wonderful, and intense! I got to spend 5 days with my amazing teacher and 20 like-minded people who became, in a very short time, my family as well as my friends – my “peeps”.

As I have been away from home, immersed in study and then for the last two days on a mini vacation, I have also been given inspiration on what to do next and looked at my present job situation with new perspective.

The first thing I am going to do is start a new blog which will be focused on ayurveda as well as my personal journey in finding it and how it can be useful in daily life.  I think it will be helpful to me to pull together what I have learned by writing about it, with the goal of being able to teach others and have my own clients.

Stepping away from my day to day usual routine and the job that provides me with a roof over my head and food to eat is always a mind bender, and this time even more so. I had set a goal a little over a year ago to quit my job in June of 2016, when I finished with this course. And here it is, June 2016. A few months ago I decided to stay, to not be so drastic, and then things started happening that make me think that I am being guided away. My boss quit, and I was evicted from the office space I’ve had for 4 years due to what is the equivalent of office politics in a hospital.  Middle management isn’t supportive, and upper management doesn’t care, and as I write this, it just makes me wonder what am I holding on to?

I’ve had a tendency to hold on to relationships and jobs long past time to let go and move on, and I think that is what I am doing. Fear, again. Uncertainty, as usual. As difficult as it is, it is the known. But I have a new tool that I gained recently. Instead of fighting with the fear, or running from it, I have learned to make friends with it, to look at it as serving a purpose. And so I will sit with the fear for a bit, talk to it, question it.

I will go back to the job.  I want to take a zen mindset with me. Zen as defined in the urban dictionary:

swans on the lotus lagoon

One way to think of zen is this: a total state of focus that incorporates a total togetherness of body and mind. Zen is a way of being. It also is a state of mind. Zen involves dropping illusion and seeing things without distortion created by your own thoughts.  

I’ve had a tendency to try to fight what is inevitable, to act as if I have some sort of secret power to change the minds of management if I just dig in my heels hard enough.  I think I’m done with that. I need to stop holding on to what doesn’t serve me well.

I know, deep down that the timing is perfect for great change. That there is nothing to fear. That walking away from a closed door is walking towards an open one.

You can’t win a battle against those who have no honor. There is no reasoning with closed minds and no persuasion that will open a closed heart.  – mystical Cat tarot card

 

And now I turn my heart towards home.

 

On flying and overcoming fear

Sara Moser5 Comments

I write from 30,000 feet. Or however high up this airplane is.

I used to be afraid of getting on an airplane. I felt like I had some measure of control, as long as I was on the ground. But to fly, so high above the earth, just riding along as a passenger, putting my trust in airplane mechanics and a pilot I knew nothing about — this was not something that Fear would let me do.

I flew once as a toddler, a trip I don’t remember, and once as a young adult with 3 small children, a 45 minute trip from Dallas to Houston under great duress. I was terrified during the entire flight.

So I traveled on the ground. As a child I was taken on wonderful camping vacations, and the trips I took my own children on were made in a car. In my 40’s, I took up motorcycle riding with my second husband, and learned to ride my own, because I needed to be in control. (as if riding a motorcycle is ever really safe!)  But to fly in an airplane was something I still resisted, in spite of professing in other areas that “God is in control”!

Ten years ago, when I was only 50, I was told by the company I worked for that I was being sent on a business trip. I wasn’t happy about it, and prayed fervently that the plane would stay aloft. I was surprised that the worse thing about the experience was that turbulence was like riding in a jeep on a bumpy road. And God apparently answered my prayers, because I got safely to my destination and home again.

Not too long after that, my oldest daughter moved to Chicago to attend college. And I flew again. Several times for visits, and later for her graduation. And my company sent me on another business trip. I felt like I had entered the space age at last!  But I still fought my fears every time I got on the plane. Then, the opportunity to take a trip to Honduras came my way. It was one of those heart things where you know you just gotta go! This trip would involve two flights over large bodies of water. At least I was well trained from my previous flights on what to do in case of a “water evacuation.”

So I went, my youngest daughter accompanying me. I prayed all the time, the desperate sort of prayer – “don’t let me die in a plane crash!”  When we got to Honduras and had to take a five hour bus trip through the mountains at night, in an old bus at the mercy of a driver who didn’t want to be late, more fear-based prayers were raised to the heavens. Again, God must have heard me, because here I am.

Something happened on that trip. I think that in deciding TO go I finally LET go, and instead of fighting with the fear I acknowledged it and went on anyway. In doing so, Fear lost its power.

20150605_213830Since that trip, I have flown countless times. And my ideas about God and prayers and fear and giving up control have changed and evolved. I experience the love and protection of God in a much more loving and less fearful way. I still don’t love flying, but I don’t hate it either! I  have seen much more of the world than I could ever have traveling on the ground.

Now, when Fear comes to visit, I say hello. And then politely tell it to go sit somewhere else. “I’ll call you when I need you” I say. And I see a bigger world.