Days 32, 33, and 34 – Leaving the JOB

Living Full-On Every DayHow long have you thought about leaving YOUR J.O.B? I say “leaving” and not “quitting” because doing so really isn’t quitting at all. You are simply choosing something different. In any event, I have wanted to leave for so long. SO DAMN LONG. I love catching babies, and I love midwives, and I love my clients, and I really do dig being a baby catcher. Alas, I do not dig being an employee.

Not because my job sucked. My job rocked! As did the people I worked with. But I just don’t do well when I’m not doing my own thing. On my own terms. At least most of the time;) I even went part-time more and more over the years. But, my soul spoke louder because, frankly, it was not enough.

So I quit! Ah. Big breath.

This does not mean I am never ever going to catch another baby. But I need more freedom in my life to live out the other things that excite me as well. I am now going to be more FREE to embrace the speed at which Freedom Junkie is growing, and spread the love of radiant inner confidence so people can live their dreams. And I get to continue to live my dreams, my life, on my terms.

As my partner said when he toasted me last night, “Welcome to the free world.” Indeed.

More risky? Yes. Worth it? For me, it is.

You see, I’ve been in the “free world” the majority of my adult life. I had been a climbing guide for 10 years living in the wilderness and out of my car as I traveled the world. I have also spent years working in various clinics and hospitals, piecing together three or four different sites so that I could make my own schedule. Yes, that was more of a pain, but it was worth it for me at the time. My recent career as a midwife was the first time I ever had a kind of “normal” j.o.b. and even then it was pretty amazing and unique. It had lots of freedom within it as well. So yes, I was used to the free world.

Someone once said to me (lovingly), “You, Ana, are a special case.” LOL. Indeed. And us “special cases” can’t be put into special cases. We need to bust out of them. Some people like special cases and they make nice beds for themselves and sleep soundly. Safe and secure. And they LOVE it! But me, I like being free and running around naked etc., even if it means I might get cuts and bruises where I prefer not to. I like to sleep on the ground, under the stars (literally and figuratively). I sleep better after a day of hunting and gathering, if you will, than after the grocery store. So I took the risks to be free. And it was awesome!

But then I got cancer. And then I got booted from every potential insurers “Please come be our client” list. Then I got divorced.

Then I got scared.

So I took a J.O.B., and I gave thanks every day that bringing babies into the world and caring for mamas and their families was such a fulfilling and rewarding career, and that where I worked generally celebrated my special case-ness (I know…not a real word). I enjoyed my safe bed and the secure sleep for a little while. It was worth sacrificing some freedom when I was scared. And I still think it was a good decision. When you’re scared, it is important to take care of yourself. But after a while, you need to step back out and take risks again. I was getting too comfy. And for me that was, frankly, boring.

Not everyone feels this boredom when things are predictable. When I see people who are honestly OK with predictable, I notice that it is usually because they are in fact living their dreams – which happen to also fit in with a predictable world. But my dreams never have fit quite so well into the predictable.

On the flip side, I think a lot of people do feel this boredom as well. It is there when you pause and take inventory of the NOW. What you are doing, and what you’d rather be doing. Finally, I couldn’t be OK with what I was saying “No” to while I was saying “Yes” to security. Until the balance got tilted in that direction, it worked for me, bu after that, I couldn’t be OK with it anymore. So I quit.

I am very aware I am giving up a coziness in career that many people long for. However, I am thrilled over the moon to regain my freedom. Security has its perks, but freedom – for me – has many more.

I’m not saying this is for everyone. Peeps need to do what makes THEM happy. And for me, it is worth it to take the risks of not having an externally guaranteed paycheck (and, ahem, many have learned that isn’t a sure-thing either) so that I can live with fewer regrets.

And if I regret this decision? I guess I’ll go back and get another J.O.B. But something tells me that is highly unlikely, and hell, you HAVE to do it scared anyway. I’ve learned through lessons I hope you will never have to experience that “What ifs” are a bunch of B.S. and you do NOT want to wonder that every day of your life. Life is too short.

(Oh, and the Full On 365 recap for the past few days? Day 32: Fully – and finally – purging my house of 6 boxes of books and 3 boxes of clothes and tossing hundreds of pounds of clutter. Amen. And if you can believe it, I can STILL toss more stuff. Clearing this clutter has been a HUGE part of living Full On that I’d been putting off. Now I have more energy as a result. Which means more Full On days;) Day 33: Deciding I would make some big decisions on my own, without waiting for my partner to decide anything or for some magical event to occur, and talking to my partner about all that in a way that left me vulnerable and strong at the same time. Day 34: Quit the job;)

Full On.

 

Note: Ana Neff is known as the Freedom™ Mentor. She helps individuals awaken their lives, their businesses and their success with radiant inner confidence. Her monthly Freedom Junkie eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting www.FreedomJunkie.com

 

Days 27 and 28 – The Box: Letting Go of a Poverty Mindset Around Love

this is the postcard my soul mate gave me over a decade ago that was in The Box

Do you have a Box? I mean, THE box. The box that holds all those old pictures and love letters, cards, newspaper cutouts, plane ticket receipts, foreign money etc. Some would say Pandora’s Box;)

I had one of those boxes. Today, I went through it and – gasp! – threw stuff out! Full On.

It was a bittersweet tenderness. I looked at maps I collected over the years, ferry passes from sea crossings on my early travels, held money from various parts of Asia in my hand, and ticket stubs collected from fun first dates or with people I idolized (like my first ticket to see H.H. the Dalai Lama in person). I admitted, for example, that I really didn’t need the bulky napkin from a crazy guesthouse in Bangkok where I had stayed up all night with my friend dancing in wigs and sipping various concoctions with this “new” drink called Red Bull. I mean, really…I wasn’t going to bust that out with a grandkid on my lap one day. Maybe the story, but not the napkin;)

I also read beautiful letters from past boyfriends…many from more than a decade ago. I went through little packages they had made for me, sending them across mountains when I was working abroad or in the middle of Alaska or the Sierra Nevada in California.

As I read the loving words and saw the care put into the gifts, my heart twanged as I thought about how they might be doing now, how I feel so blessed to have been loved in such a beautiful way by them, and – yes – I wondered if they hated me.

For realz? For realz.

It takes a lot to disappoint another to honor yourself. Some of those breakups were ones that I wasn’t sure should happen, but I was trusting myself and what I needed, and honoring a future that would be better for both of us if we spent it apart. Inevitably, it was the right thing to do.

But still, I wondered if they hated me for breaking up. I really did love them, and I really wanted them to know that. I just, frankly, also loved myself more.

There…I said it.

While those relationships did indeed come to an end, it was good to remember that I have had some pretty amazing men in my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to generally have relationships in which we communicated well, were trusting, passionate, and involved a lot of life adventure in all shapes and sizes (pan to montage of me in couplehood laughing and frolicking in the mountains…).

Gag. I sound like the female version of Julio Iglesias right now. And I lack the accent to make up for the sappiness. Sorry.

In any event, they were great men, and I just didn’t want them to hate me. But ya know what? You can’t control something like that. I reminded myself that while I like to think of myself as a Jedi on some level, mind tricks were not my forte and I had to simply let go.

Then I wondered: why had I been holding on to all those letters and photos and poems etc anyway? Yes, part of it was lovely and sentimental.

But if I’m being Full On Honest with myself, the other part is because of the remnants of a poverty mentality around love. On some level, my holding on to these keepsakes was similar to the folks with financial poverty mindsets who hoard things, filling up a garage of items they never use in a poverty mindset because they are afraid they may never be able to afford to get another one should they need it someday. And things still sit there, never to be used.

It was like Chris Rock’s description of women’s “plutonic friends” being a – excuse my vulgarity – “Dick in a Glass Case.” Break in case of emergency. This was my Love in a Glass Case. Open, read, and maybe even call in case of a heart emergency.

I say “remnants” of a poverty mindset around love because I have proudly moved through the grittiest part of that at this point in my life (one of the COOLEST things ever about getting older!). I am very clear about who I am and what I want (at least a whole lot more clear than I’ve ever felt before!) and KNOW that I deserve every bit of it. That means I am much more willing to disappoint another in order to honor myself, and this is also more possible because I know there will be someone who will celebrate me and love me even as I fully honor myself: Myself. So, I have less of a need for Love in a Glass Case should an emergency arise.

It is indeed one thing to read through such letters and look over the photos and have internal sounds of “To All the Men I’ve Loved Before” going through my head. It is a whole other beast to toss things out. But I did.

EVERY SINGLE ONE of those things? Hell no!

OK…I admit…DID hold on to a handful of the cutest most intricate little gifts mostly because they seemed like art to me. At least that’s the bullshit excuse I gave myself. But I bet deep down it is because there is still the tiniest remnant of that poverty mentality left. And one day I am sure those final pieces of past loves will also leave my presence. In fact, I bet it will happen pretty soon. Like waiting one more month to bring that sweater you never wear to Goodwill.

The coolest part of this whole thing was finding a card from my current partner from over 12 years ago. We have finally arrived back into each others’ lives after many years – and many interim relationships. We met in Kathmandu when we were wee little ones (mid-20s). I recognized his writing on the back of a postcard and turning it over there was the old photo of an iconic Buddhist stupa he took me to on the back of his motorcycle in Bodhnath, Nepal. He had glued the photo to a thick piece of paper, sending it off to me as a postcard when I was in graduate school at UCSF. I held this in my hands for a long time, amazed at how a part of me always knew we’d end up together.

I stuck that postcard on the fridge for him to see when he came home. And I put a lot of other things from that box into the recycling bin, and others I burned ceremoniously. They deserved more than a landfill parting.

I sat there, quietly, happy that I was not feeling empty as a result of having let go. I felt more full, and at the same time, more spacious allowing love in the present to fill my cup.

Note: Ana Neff is known as the Freedom™ Mentor. She helps individuals awaken their lives, their businesses and their success with radiant inner confidence. Her monthly Freedom Junkie eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting www.FreedomJunkie.com

Day 5 – Downloading

Today I hiked up Table Rock and checked out some vernal pools as we watched the sunset. I made dinner for my best friend and her partner, and had a few evening hours with my man to talk about some deep stuff.

I have found that a good way to describe living full-on is a lot about not avoiding things. It is about turning towards, and not away from. More on this later. I am going to download more about this while I sleep tonight… which reminds me of this (LOL):

Shit New Age Girls Say

Sweet downloading!