Getting laid off + India = Wonderful...

For those of you who had asked about my Facebook status (“Back from an extended trip to India - best & most life-changing trip ever. ‘When there is conflict between the heart & the brain, let the heart be followed, because intellect only has one state, reason, & within that, intellect works, & cannot get beyond. It is the heart which takes one to the highest place, which intellect can never reach; it goes beyond intellect, & reaches to what is called inspiration.’ - Swami Vivekananda”), I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to write about it. One thing though that I now realize is that although my trip to India deserves all the credit I give it, the stimulus to my new & truly enlightened (at least relatively speaking) SM-mindset was actually my getting laid off in December. That unexpected (& then shocking & also horrifying) event put an involuntary pause on my SM life as I knew it, & all I was left with was time to think (mostly about “Who am I without this job/career?... “What do I now…? What do I do if…?”) and act accordingly.

Two months after looking for a job to no avail & living my life in Chicago as if nothing changed, I started to feel this intense need to simply not be here. Everything felt off, & I felt my heart (spirit, soul or whatever you want to call it if you believe in any of it & if you don’t you may just want to stop reading now :-P) telling me that my restlessness, unease of mind and everything related to no longer being “SM, Sales Manager Extraordinaire” would find some clarity & peace if I put my own voluntary pause on what was naturally expected of me – find a new job & get back to work asap.

Without asking for anyone’s advice or permission (2 things I'm notorious for doing being the natural people pleaser that I am) & with less than 2 weeks until I traveled, I booked a last-minute flight to India. Side note on why India (considering the country itself for the most part is far from one that exudes serenity & “Om Shanti Om”) & why not anywhere else actually more serene… Well, naturally, India - where you see unthinkable poverty & suffering juxtaposed next to unimaginable wealth & prosperity - is a place where anyone can get perspective & therefore, introspect. However, it was more than that kind of perspective that I got in this trip and here begins my post sounding very “out there...”  In spite all of my non-religious inclinations, I have always been a highly spiritual person & the one thing that I have always believed in the most from Hinduism is that we are all Aatmas (souls) & that because this soul takes human form again until it no longer does, our souls are colored with all the previous experiences of our past lives. (I have a feeling that this is where I’ll start to lose people :-P). My personal proof of that has always been newborn babies; each & every one comes into this world with a certain pre-programmed personality & inherent nature, and irrespective of 2 children being raised by the same parents, our likes/dislikes, values, & personalities are all so wildly different.

Anywho… I have always felt that my soul is colored with everything-Indian because in every trip there since I was just a little girl I have felt an incredible sense of “home” & calmness of mind and spirit. I’d felt it in all my trips as an adult in the past 7 years as well, but most trips became cluttered with “to do’s” (from visiting my 500 relatives to tackling long shopping lists) & once the trip itself flew by and came to end, within a day or two of my return, I would be back to the daily grind of work & my American life as I knew it. This trip was completley different because I cleared my plate of as many “To do’s” as possible and got to fully experience simply being & living there for almost 6 weeks.

As my trip ran its course, I found that I was – without any effort, planning or even wanting of my own – being connected to people with whom I felt this “soulful” connection (a sameness of mind & spirit) or teachers in the non-typical sense who were helping me move along my spiritual journey (it wasn’t until after India that I realized that I had even been on one). After extending my trip, I’d planned to visit Mumbai & without my asking, my good friend connected me to her cousins there who then offered for me to stay with them. Upon arrival to their home, I saw many pictures of Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramakrishna & Sri Sarada Devi, & after a few hours of deep conversation, I knew that this family did not have these pictures as decorations, but they breathed, practiced & lived the beliefs of their spiritual gurus. A week later, I visited the home of my niece-in-law’s parents (don’t get caught up in understanding that :-P), & during a tour of their home, her father took me & his granddaughter to his meditation room. He asked us to sit down and to his daughter’s dismay, I sat there for over 3 hours. He has been a Shiva Baba/Brahma Kumari follower for 28 years and he was, as I saw him, peace personified; when he spoke to me & especially about me, I (& this is no exaggeration) would have goose bumps in one moment & then would feel waves of heat through my chest in the next. I asked him if I could meet and sit with him again, & he told me (& I believed him) that it was my destiny – that it was pre-written that I would come here & that on my own I would seek his spiritual guidance. Over the next few days, I visited with him & this too is no exaggeration, the time spent in his presence & knowledge literally changed who I am as a person & the whole course of the rest of my life.

Now all of the above is not to say that I am above all worldly things (or above anything), am now a Brahma Kumari or Vivekananda follower or have it all (or any of it) “figured out;” I am simply operating at a new level of thinking & living that I was not capable of or open to before those experiences. Without getting into too much detail (b/c I’m sure the above was detailed enough), having had that experience in India & then coming back to the freedom of no job, no routine & no “daily grind,” has been amazing. Believe me, I am still struggling with what is expected of me & all the “should do’s/ should have happened by now’s” of life, but those thoughts are beginning to take a back seat in my mind & I’m hopeful – actually confident - that as I continue to take action moving my life in the direction I want it to go & free myself of everyone else's & even life's "check mark" expectations, that those thoughts will soon be non-factors because they will eventually cease to exist.

I know some of you are wondering if I’m ever going to get back on track with my posts related to - as I called it - “the seemingly mysterious & overly complicated process of finding ‘the one,’” & I can assure you that I will eventually get back on topic. However, in the meantime, to anyone who has read this far & is open to the suggestion, I strongly recommend that if you are still in this single boat - & actually even if you’re not single & are married with 2 kids – that you try to put a voluntary pause on your life. Routines, obligations, careers & daily grinds are all amazing things because our whole lives can be spent on auto-pilot in them. & sadly, too often, people spend their whole lives consumed by them only to come to the end of their lives wishing for a “do over.” We all know that there are no second chances at this thing called life, so why not take some time – invest time – into delving into your own heart’s desires and making sure that you are living your most authentic life possible??

& as for “finding the one,” let’s abandon the thought that this very famous line from Jerry McGuire was a good & “awe”-inducing one… “You complete me.” While still giving finding the right partner the complete importance it deserves, let’s stop seeking “our other half… to be completed.”  Let us – as individuals – be whole… be already complete… be our own one, & then have faith that we will eventually meet another whole one who will accompany us for the rest of this journey.

I know this was unlike every other post I’ve written & I might sound completely different, but for now, I can say that I’m still pretty much exactly the same & have simply started to think & act differently.   & I will now sign off with… Om Shanti Om. Just kidding, peace to the world & all that good stuff but I don’t want to mess with my classic…

Write Soon ~ SmileMoon  :)

p.s. - I was reading my "Off to the Motherland" post from 2 months ago & thought it was fitting to re-post the quotes that I had ended with...

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. - Maya Angelou


Don’t worry about what the world wants from you, worry about what makes you come more alive. Because what the world really needs are people who are more alive. Your real job is to increase the color and zest of your life. — Lawrence Leshan