FollowCraig: You’re Fired!

 

Has it ever happened to you? The work or job you love, worked so hard for so many hours, days months and even years is abruptly ended. You’ve been fired! Perhaps the company closed down or you quit or even retired but none the less it’s over. No more showing up, no more time clock, the friends are gone, more than 50% of your days are now empty. That feeling of being not worthy, helpless and likely afraid. Now you’re worried about money, health insurance, your rent, your family and the list goes on and on.

Then the doubt, was it your fault? Are you a looser, a failure? How do you tell your friends and your loved ones?

Not everyone experiences this personal devastation, however most of us have have faced devastating loss and pain. Almost all humans have experienced the feeling of being fired from a deeply connected part of our life.

How do we continue? Why do some human beings often lift themselves up after devastating loss? Why is it that others never do? These are the questions that haunt so many of us.

Personally I have also been through great loss, very devastating loss. I know that desperate feeling of regret, fear, denial and so much more. I’m guessing you know it too.

As a kid, I was taught that faith is the way. However faith never did really work for me, I tried to believe and hold on. Faith alone just didn’t work! So I thought I could escape by pretending everything was ok, but that never lasted.

Like others I’ve known, I tried everything to get out of that quiet depression I kept hidden from the world around me. Then one day someone gave me a tool. The tool that has changed my life! It was so simple, one would think everyone knows it?

Long ago I was sharing in a group circle of others opening up our lives and experiences. Afterwards a woman came to me and gave me this gift. She was there that day to help support a close friend and had listened to my story. Why she came to me with this I’ll never know, why this day and this place?

So very simple, so powerful…

Craig she said, when you get home go find a quiet place where you are alone. Where no one can disturb you, where no one can hear you. Have a pen and paper in hand. Can you do this she asked? Of course I said as I looked into her trusting eyes.

Now she said, sit down in this quiet special place and write this down. Write 3 things you are grateful for in your life. She said you must have three at your age “jokingly “. When you’ve written these down, stand up. You must stand up she said to me with conviction. Then Craig she said, read ALOUD your three things you just wrote. Do this 5 times, then go on with your day. Then, tomorrow do exactly the same. I guarantee you will begin to forget your pain.

That was the first tool she gave, then came the second. She went on to insist that I begin writing a daily journal of my experiences and always end that day’s chapter writing down one thing I was grateful for. The miracle happened , I listened and followed her instructions then everything changed.

This was the day I fired my pain and began to live in “Gratitude “

Blessings to you

…..keep following Craig