My life has changed dramatically.

Last year this time I still had a business in downtown Fayetteville, I was in school full time, I worked part time as a student nurse, and my husband and I were working together to get through school–our 4 kids in the mix.  Now I have a Job Job.

This year is very different.  I released myself from 10 years of business ownership, I graduated nursing school, I only have one job now-that of a nurse, and we’re getting a divorce.  The kids are doing great.  They amaze me every day.  I had no idea a year and a half ago even that I would be living this life in this way.  Life on the planet is an adventure.

It’s remarkable to me, having come from a position of decision maker where people sought me out for solutions, to being part of a ‘cog in the wheel’ job job, that the thought processes are completely different.  Perspective is everything.

As a self employed or self motivated person, I am the sole motivation behind what I do.  Nobody is making me punch a clock or fill out miles of documentation to prove that I am doing the job for which I was hired.  I choose to be here.  I choose to work hard.  I love what I do.  I take pride in my efforts.   I am not a victim to any perpetrators within my working scope of practice.  I take responsibility for my work success.

Don’t Succumb to the Allure of Victim Language

As an employed person, I find myself surrounded by language of ‘us and them.’ Victim to the system.  “They are doing this, they are doing that, surely they don’t expect us to…, can you believe they did that?”

Rampage of Gratitude!

I want to stay grounded in my optimism, love of people, and gratitude.   I don’t want to be a victim.  I want to be somebody who is choosing every day to be happy to go to work, to do the best I can with the time that I am given for the people I am responsible for helping.  I am grateful for the people I work with.  They are kind, loving, and helpful.  I have had the best mentors and preceptors, and I am so glad for my experiences with them.  They have taught me so much.  I am grateful to work in a place that values its employees financially and beneficially.  I am grateful to work in a place that has the closest thing to patient centered care that I have seen in organized ‘traditional’ medicine.  And I hope to continue finding successful medical models that embody patient centered care in a way that can be emulated.

I may have a job job now, but I hope to continue to find ways to fuel my creativity as I redefine myself in this period of time.  So much has changed for me, my job, my connection to my community, my connection to a partner.  Uranus has had fun redefining my life this year.  It will be so fun to see how this next chapter unfolds.

I still value health, clean burning food, family, yoga, running, meditation, alternative therapies, and community.  It will be interesting to see how this new clean slate that I’m working with will manifest itself, and what direction all this new energy will take.  I hope that I am able to maintain my sense of responsibility for my position in life.  I’m pretty sure I’ve put myself here and there is nowhere else I’d rather be at this moment.  The sky is the limit.  At the same time, there is a certain amount of fear involved, similar to when, as an artist I am faced with a blank page committing to those first defining strokes

Hiking New Territory, what I can do when I am not at the Job Job.  One of the cool features of Job Jobs is Time Off.  This is a previously undiscovered possibility in my last 10 years of self employment.

“There’s a million things to be, you know that there are,” keeps running through my head these days.  Thank you Cat Stevens.   May the continual background conversations of victimhood fall unheeded around my feet at the job job, and let the first strokes of color fall on the blank page of my life.

Wendy Finn is the mother of 4 boys, an entrepreneur, a Registered Nurse, a Raw Food Enthusiast and educator, a writer, a world traveler in pursuit of superior massage education, a Master Massage Therapist and educator of 22 plus years, and a gardener.  She’s passionate about touching people and sharing health.