Resume Writing 101

The world outside is like a sleepy child, it's pink lids fluttering with tiredness but not yet ready for bed. The orange and pinks of the sun are sinking down, the drawn lilac of evening is pulling up the covers for the darkness to approach.

I have spent the afternoon writing my resume, which is really up there with having your bikini line waxed, doing your tax returns or swallowing a spoon of fish oil. But surprisingly I am revived and excited. I took a different approach this time. I stayed in the moment concentrated on what I was doing, rather than allowing my mind to go into that swamp of negativity that I usually dive into every time I am job hunting.

I am determined that this job hunt is going to be totally different, I am sick of the up and down drama I normally indulge in, as I swell with negativity and imagine all the impending disasters. This time I plan to relax, not take it personally, focus on the work and the NOW and just surrender and I'm sure the job will find me.

I am feeling remarkably stable and happy, I say remarkably because normally when I don't have a job I am the loosest of all loose ends. But I am liking this new me, I am taking time to heal, reviewing where I am and what I want to be doing and am prepared to wait for the job that is right me. I am so grateful to be able to wait.

BE HERE NOW

The TV antenna guy is here, having just scaled the roof as casually as he would take an elevator, he is now in the lounge room playing with dials and testing the TV. For the last couple of months our TV has looked like there was a metallic grey blizzard in every location. Although I don't watch a lot of TV, getting it fixed is part of a general cleaning up of my life, a symbolic preparation, of tossing out the old to let in the new and sharpening the reception to listen to the signs that I need to hear.

This has been an incredibly healing time in my life, like the seeds that sprouts from the remains of a searing fire, I feel like I am ready to grow out into the sunshine again after the raging chaos of the last couple of years. What I am coming to realise by reading The Power of Now by Eckhardt Tolle is that most of the this chaos has been staged and played out in my mind.

The journey started for me 3 years ago when I first went travelling, a journey not so much to see the world but an attempt to find this missing piece of myself which I was convinced would be in India. I was certain that going to India would give me the sense of completeness and belonging that I had longed for all my life. For those that followed my Bollywood Dreaming blog you would know that this was not what happened, if anything I left feeling more confused than ever.

When I came back to Australia I was convinced that my completeness lay in finding a job in the arts and pursuing my calling. When that didn't work out as I planned I fell into a tail spin of depression. Wanting and needing anything to anchor myself to, I took the first job I could find and that recently ended like a bad horror movie. Then the miscarriage brought all of this longing and sadness to a head, as I again tried to anchor my lost soul onto something else. It was at this point that I realised that nothing was going to fill this gaping hole. That no matter what I did, what success I achieved, fame or fortune that it would still be there.

From my reading of late, largely spiritual books, I am coming to understand that this sense of incompleteness is part of the human condition. An aching need in all of us drives us to be better and to create, but also to consume and destroy. Our appetite gets bigger and bigger from the furstration of not be satiated. The sad part it seems is that we already have what it is that we so desperately seek, we have only to truly look within ourselves to see our own magnificent sense of perfection and wholeness.

Sounds easy right? Tolle claims that to see the perfection of ourselves and life we need to be here now. My first thought is; I am bloody well here now. But as I listened to myself I discovered that I have been checked out of the present for as long as I can remember, either digging through the past and trying to force it to make sense or reliving it's drama. Or by living far out into the future full of promising better-ness, shimmering like a desert mirage, or blazing red in an inferno of impending disaster.

So I am off to meditate and to BE HERE NOW.

Coming Back To Now

It's been a long time between visits but I am back. Let me tell you where I have been for the last 7 weeks.

1. I quit my job - it was incredible to finally stand up to an oppressive, abusive and aggressive person who was making my life sad and crushing my soul. However, I feel truly blessed to have been in this experience it has taught me so much. I believe in years to come it will be noted as one of my greatest teachers.

2. I had a miscarriage - my heart was broken in a way that I could never have imagined. But again I am amazed at how much I have learned from this experience, sometimes I feel like I have been asleep and the is what it took to wake me up.

3. I pitched an idea to a contact at NINE MSN - about a book review blog, I got some amazing ideas and have sent some work in for them to have a look at. I will keep you posted.

4. I have been doing a collage and multimedia class - I have returned to my first passion - art. I am rediscovering what led me to art school. The loving ritual of keeping a journal and creating artworks within it. I am currently creating a beautiful watercolour book about the last 7 weeks.

5. I have been doing a 40 day soul cleanse, following a wonderful program by IylanaVanzant called "One Day My Soul Just Opened Up". Today's lesson is about Authenticity her gem of wisdom "Wherever you find yourself is exactly where you need to be."

6. I have been meditating almost daily and have discovered the Siddha Yoga Ashram in Sydney, in between the chaos and sadness of my thoughts, I am actually experiencing blissful quiet.

7. I am learning to live in the here and now.

With that I will leave you with the eternal words of Maxi Jazz (Faithless)

I want more oneness less categories
Open hearts no strategies
I want decisions based upon faith and not fear
I want people who live right now and right here
I want the wisdom that wise men revere