An EdibleSpirit Approach to Job Hunting

Werk, werk, werk, werk, werk...

When someone comes to me for a reading or healing, I respect that they, and their concerns, are as unique and significant as the moment we share. Despite this uniqueness, most of the questions and issues that people bring up during a session can be grouped under three (very) broad headings: Life, Love, and Work.

Life readings are my fave: dealing with big questions about who we are and why we’re here. I also put guidance concerning psychic development and spiritual awakening under the “life” heading as those gifts and realizations usually pop up to illuminate and empower your experience of who you are and why you’re here in this life. 

I cut my teeth on love readings while working for an international phone psychic line. When I say Love, in this context, I really mean all relationships, including family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, lovers and spouses. How you relate to others is how you relate to yourself. The way you love others is the way you love yourself, so relationships=love.

It's me, MD in the midst of a group reading, waving some sage to keep it fresh.

While doing love readings, “on the line”, most of my callers were people wanting to know how so-and-so really felt about them or when they would hear from a lost love again. I did my best to answer all the questions posed while guiding callers stay focused on the bigger themes associated with love and relationships:  acceptance, forgiveness, deservedness, trust, communication, and commitment. Working on the line helped me to refine my understanding of how ancient wisdom can be applied to modern problems, and I’ve got a few thoughts on the subject, which I will share down the line.

Then, in 2008, as the US economy tanked there was a distinct shift in the concerns of my clients, with a much greater emphasis placed on work readings.

“When will I find work? Will I lose everything? How do I tell my family what’s happening to me?”

It was such a hard time for so many people, during which the realities everyone faced seemed to shake them to their core. It was difficult for me, too, to stay centered for so many while feeling the depths of their pain.

But that is my job as a healer - to stay present, calm, and grounded, no matter what my client is going through - to hold space and point the way to the place where all is well and all is whole. That place is always there, in the middle of the moment you are in, waiting to be found.

Problem is, in the middle of crippling material realities, like unemployment, bankruptcy, shame and fear, the last thing most people want to hear is an immaterial solution.

“How can my perspective help me when all I need is money for my mortgage?”

That was tough for me to answer at first. I would consult my guides, my tarot, my higher self and whatever else could help us find clarity, understanding, and acceptance in the midst of the storm. I turned, as always, to the wisdom of the ancients to provide a clear path to positive identification and acceptance in the moment. I knew if we could find that space together, from there, it would be just a few steps, a handful of choices, and a couple commitments before clear skies and smooth sailing were just as valid a reality as the financial tempest that preceded them.

I’ve done my best to distill everything I ever learned from all those work readings, and the ones still going on today, into the following three reminders for spiritual job-hunting. My hope is that they will help you to infuse your modern grappling with ancient ease, and in so doing give you some spiritual levity in the midst of so much material gravity.

1. What do you have to do?

As in, what is your bottom line? This part is between you and your bank account. What do you need? Like really need? To eat, to drink, to sleep, to live. There are certain basic financial realities which cannot be avoided. Sometimes these realities are logical and valid and true, but most often, the fear that people feel around lack, loss, or not having enough make the question of “What is your bottom line?” too scary to answer.

Alternatively you may think you absolutely most definitely need really fancy eye cream. You probably don’t need a healer to help you decide whether your rent is more important than your eye cream. And I’m not hating on eye cream! Maybe you really do need it. Maybe it’s worth it for you to not eat or drink for a week to have it. I would always choose food over eye cream, but that’s me. 

My point is that only you know where your bottom line is. Only you can know and decide what you really need to do to meet it. Once you are honest about what you need to survive, you can figure out how to proceed: whether you can make this on your own as you are, whether you have to cut something loose or sacrifice something, whether you need to hustle harder, or ask for help, or do something drastic. Be honest, be clear, do the math, and know your bottom line and what you need.

This first query corresponds to your root chakra - getting right with where you are, accepting the present as it is, and in that place of acceptance and presence, taking the first steps in the direction of your choosing.

2. What do you really, truly, want to do?

If there were no bottom line, if money was no object, if you had all of your druthers, a pie in the sky, and a pipe dream par excellence, what would you do? Shoot for the stars, please, and be really honest no matter how crazy it seems.

We give up our dreams so easily! If you’re workin’ 9-5 but would rather be a freelance photographer, STOP pretending like you’re good with your 9-5. Admit it raw! I want this! I want to be a photographer, a designer, a rockstar, WHATEVER. This is such a necessary step as it gives you something to work for, a professional guiding star.

And it doesn’t have to be that big of a deal either. What you want can be work-related. Maybe you’re in a position of minor responsibility and major work, and you would prefer more responsibility but less work… ADMIT IT. Maybe you don’t even have or want a big ass dream. Maybe you want more time to garden. Maybe you want more time to do nothing. Maybe you “just” want a family and love to balance out your career. Then please, be clear, and don’t keep working towards infinite fame and fortune. Know your bottom line, meet it in the work you’re doing, and then save the rest of the energy to apply to that which you truly desire.

This query corresponds to your sacral chakra - allowing yourself to want, to desire, to yearn -  and honoring your desires without judging them as unreasonable or frivolous or absurd. This is the key to spiritual peace in the middle of material chaos (and one of the hardest parts of the practice)- keeping the channel of hope and possibility open despite having no visible, tangible, 3-dimensional reason to do so.

3. How are you maintaining the balance between what you want to do and what you have to do?

This is not theoretical, or a one shot deal. You don’t just figure out the balance and leave it at that. Balance is discovered while the boat is rocking back and forth. It requires constant adjustment and eternal refinement, and that’s ok. The point is to keep the whole spectrum (from what you have to do to what you want to do) on your radar.

The easiest way to do this is to write all of it down. Just answer the above question: What do you have to do? What do you really want to do? Write each answer on opposite sides of a piece of paper draw a circle around each, and draw a line to connect the two. This is your work spectrum.

You can be more specific - formulating a clear plan of attack to get to where you want to be, but you know what they say about best-laid-plans. Things happen. Things change. Sometimes your responsibilities will prevent you from taking action in the direction of your dreams and the balance will tip in favor of what you have to do. Other times, your obligatory load will lift, and the energy freed up will be able to find its way into that which you truly desire to engage. Your mission is not to control the war, but to maintain a birds-eye-view of the battlefield and be ready when the energy of stagnation and struggle gets freed up. 

This energy will always flow in the direction of least resistance, aka towards what your heart, soul, and spirit truly wish to embody and express… but if you have no clear intention, it’s going to take longer to find its way there.

Maybe you forget yourself for a moment, or a day, or two. Maybe you’re throwing a hissy-fit. Maybe something horrible happens. Maybe you just decide there’s no point to dreaming and you should just make do with what you’ve got, no need to go wanting something else… All of these responses are fine! It’s ok for you to lose your way, just please, please, don’t let a moment of confusion make you conclude that you don’t want anything.

This all corresponds to the solar plexus chakra - what are you doing, what action are you taking, and most importantly, what are you committed to. By clarifying your commitment it becomes so much easier to effectively apply your will/energy/life force to the achievement of your goals.

NOTE: You are not multitasking here - there are two extremes, what you have to do and what you want to do, and your only task is to acknowledge those poles, honor the balance, maintain it, and keep both present in your mind and experience.

Then, every moment you breathe and every choice you make can be an opportunity to remind yourself of the field upon which you are playing. We are all somewhere between where we have to be and where we want to be. It’s pretty empowering to call out those poles, because by identifying the extremes and edges of our experience, we can remind and reassure ourselves that the midway between where we have to be and where we want to be is exactly where we are. 

One last thought: There really is no such thing as a spiritual job, but there is such a thing as work that is aligned with your spirit. That work is going to change every time you change - because YOU are what the work is aligning to. The longer you attend to the balance along this spectrum, the more momentum, mojo and magic you accumulate, the more likely it is that you will eradicate all separation between what you have to do and want to do. Meanwhile, the guidance offered here is to help you prioritize the needs of your spirit without denying the realities of your existence. 

Happy working, happy transitioning, happy hunting, happy finding.

With love and new-paradigm light,
MD