Monday, August 16, 2010

Finding Yoga

So I haven't written in quite a while, and I feel I should fix that. Things got crazy for some time at the holidays and then moving to Chicago, I just couldn't really find time for me, much less for a blog.

Anyway, so here I am, and I feel I should write, but I'm not feeling terribly inspired lately. You see, I'm burnt out. That is the only way to put it. (Brace yourselves for a rant.) I'm working at a job I hate, underpaid and overstressed. Honestly, were I the man for the job, I'd start a union. Retail has to be the absolute worst job, if only for the hours. It is incredibly taxing to be on an ever-changing schedule. And let's face it, I rolled a low score for constitution. How do people do this day in and day out? I was not built for it. It is so psychically draining to move from one person's needs to the next, multitasking myself into the tiniest portions of attention to be spread around like so much peanut butter on a piece of toast, a very thin spread, to point where you barely taste the peanut butter because the carbon from the charred toast is so overwhelming. That's what I feel like at work. I have absolute dread for it. I'm nearly sickened each morning at the thought of spending eight hours at that job. I mean, I'm mentally, emotionally, and psychically fragmented by it, by the job itself and even by the mere thought of it. And isn't the point of being a yogi, of having a yogic practice, to experience unity? I feel like all the spiritual work I do is splintered and rendered ineffective, weakly effective at best.

It doesn't take a genius to see that all signs point to GO! Get out! Move on! Follow your bliss, find your yoga, get into the vortex, be all you can be, live YOUR life! Yet when I look through jobs online, I am paralyzed by fear. I become filled with such a fear for the unknown. I fear getting too far away from the design industry, but I need something. And no designers seem to be hiring, not that I know any designers up here really. I've been working on building my own business, and that is so slow-going. I need clients. The rest will take care of itself. But I have no contacts up here. My portfolio has nothing in the way of real life projects, and I don't know how many people will want to hire a designer based on conceptual work. All I can hope for is that my charisma and my soul will shine through in conversation and something will click that tells the client, "Hire this man!"

How do I get back to my place of power? At the moment, I feel like I'm defeated. Like "the man" has finally got me down. I have brief moments of respite with meditation and yoga, and all the soul-signs point to joy and success. Yet those are my only moments of hope.

I need a breakthrough. I need to find my yoga again. I need community and a sense of belonging. When I'm surrounded by like-minded people, I feel that I know myself; I feel I can achieve anything. Those people are few and far between up here. Very far between.

I was hoping that just writing about it would help me move some energy, but I don't feel very moved. It's all about the journey, though, right? Send me your love and light for my journey, and I shall do the same for you.

Namaste.