Landings

I received this card from a friend yesterday.  My fist thought was, "Yes.  I had every intention of landing on my feet when I moved to Oregon in 2008, but instead I fell on my ass."  

I moved from Colorado to be closer to family. I was confident I would find the perfect just-for-me job to support myself as I pursued my new career as an artist.  It didn't dawn on me, until I was neck deep in it, that the recession could slow me down a bit.  In regard to finding that perfect just-for-me job my life as I knew it came to a screeching halt.  I've lost track of how many jobs I've applied for, and how I've had to drastically lower my job-search standards over the past four years.  The people who did take the time to respond to my resume told me I was "over qualified," or "your skills don't match what we're looking for."  Well now, after four years of what I clearly perceived as rejection  - - one after another - - my self-esteem has taken a nose-dive.  It's crashed and burned.  

I gave myself all of the usual pep talks.  I created positive and uplifting vision boards, and I tried to keep conversations and email with friends focused only on the good things happening in my life, such as sales of my paintings and getting my artwork into galleries (a topic for another blog).  In our attempts at dream-manifestation and sending out into the universe only the highest and purest vibrations possible we've become a society that only focuses on what's good and right in the world, and in the lives of our friends.  We, as a whole, have chosen to associate with only those who are always positive and upbeat.  Those positive and upbeat friends might very well be stuffing and hiding the struggles they're experiencing,  along with their sometimes dark emotions that they're afraid to utter a word of.  In turn, those of us trying to climb up out of the pits of despair become more and more isolated, and when we attempt to share our fears, and not so cheery feelings, we're met with, "Just think positive thoughts and everything will be okay."  Really?  Try telling that to a homeless person, or to someone one step away from such a fate.

Our social media has become an endless stream of over-the-top positive, sometimes sickening cheery thoughts, and how dare anyone utter even one single word that is anything but.  I've sometimes found myself getting pretty sick of all that cheery goo, which I honestly feel is a cover up, or a mask for quite a few suffering souls who fear to speak their truth for fear of being shunned, or of the manifestion of their fears swallowing them up completely.  I'm one of those who has been hiding behind the very mask I speak of here.  I'm thankful I have friends and family I can be open and candid with.  Even having a support group, I feel pretty isolated in my struggle most of the time. I wonder about those people out there who have also fallen on their ass - - do they have family and friends willing to listen when they feel there's no hope in sight?  Do they also get a little frustrated by the endless pep talks they read on social media?  Do they feel their manifesting powers have all but dried up?