I've been feeling a lot like Nathan recently ... looooong story... :)

Cathy ... I feel for you... I don't really have any specific advice, but I'm starting a new book titled the Luck Factor. It's not a spiritual book, but you can find it on Amazon and I thought I might recommend it since it's part of my growth process through similar life experiences.

I'm in that same place although my situation may be slightly easier... I spent the better part of a decade as a computer programmer -- was never paid what I was worth -- lost a lot of jobs to either the dot-com fiasco or to being fired because I'm a very liberal individual and have a "big mouth" and find it very difficult to censor myself... when I do censor myself people think I'm hiding something, because DUH! I am... and they fire me because they assume that it's way worse than it actually is -- what it is is me being afraid of being fired because someone found out that I'm a bi/poly glbt advocate, dislike censorship (kid-blockers for adult websites on school computers for example), etc. I'm just very liberal and admittedly somewhat opinionated. My personal experience has been that people mostly overreact... I was at a comedy club here in Austin and I said "I'm bisexual" during a set and my girlfriend Tiff saw a guy in the audience who had never met me, had no reason to think he would ever meet me started looking for crosses and holy water -- Austin is considered a pretty liberal town, the local slogan is "Keep Austin Wierd" and several years ago a vagrant transvestite got 7% of the votes for *mayor*. And yet the overreaction seems to have been mostly what I've encountered in the workplace in particular (though most of my jobs have been in other places). When I split up with my ex-wife in 2000 things got way worse. I'm now $70k in arrears child support... why? Because the state expects me to be a $40k+ income earner and I've never been that *in spite* of having jobs at $50-60k because of businesses going under and losing jobs to my popularity. About this time last year, just before I saw the Secret for the first time (my first exposure to the concept of LoA), I got fired from another job for political reasons again here in Austin (for the city through a company in DC)... at the time I was considering suicide. I was an excellent programmer -- still am... I would come home and put in 60hr weeks to work on my own projects in the hopes of finding partners, sales people, etc. who could help me get my own software business off the ground. I contributed *THOUSANDS* of hours and lots of *unique* and workable ideas to the open-source community. Guys with degrees bounce ideas off me when they have tough problems. Friends who know me professionally, who've read my articles in the ColdFusion Developer's Journal, who know about my involvement with Team Macromedia and the Adobe Community Experts program and my presentations at conferences (out of my own pocket), any of whom will tell you that I'm a nice guy and that I'm always eager to help people and am good at explaining complicated concepts, have been continually perplexed by my situation and why I've never been given a comparable salary (even when I've been promised one -- that's why I left a $50k job after 18 months because they promised me $70 and were still unwilling to give it to me and I realized that after the state applied interest on my child support arrearage it had gone *UP* not down, which meant that the longer I stayed at $50k, the deeper in debt I would become -- so I left to take a $60k job in VA where the state income tax brought my income down *BELOW* $50k so the new job that was designed to resolve the money problem *made it worse*). For six years I'd had no life or mind of my own -- I was a machine, belching out tons of great stuff in a desperate hope that something might one day break the surface and I would be successful and being totally uncompensated for any of it. A few months ago I finally decided to stop carrying everyone else's baggage. It's not my responsibility to be someone else's $40k income earner -- I don't care what the state thinks. So I started focusing on something I thought might be a good niche for me -- I went back to art, both general illustration and comic strips with the hope of syndication. In the interrim I've focused on trying to get traffic to my cafe press store because it's seemed like the most likely source of income for me (www.cafepress.com/anupwardspiral) ... for several months I've worked on it in much the same way I worked on the programming projects and last month it *finally* just *barely* paid for itself for the month ($10). The past few weeks I've thought about pursuing more short-term contract programming work and every time I think about it I become *violently* angry, so I've been trying not to think about it too much. Given that my options are find a niche where I'm not perpetually in a state of sheer terror of homelessness and can *maybe* see my kids once in a while (I've seen them twice in the last 6 years because of finances) or suicide, I'm finding it very difficult to be grateful daily for the grinding poverty and continual threat of jail from the state for no reason other than being poor. It doesn't mean I'm not trying -- I try every day -- I give people complements, I write testimonials for people, I'm generous with my thoughts without being judgmental when people have problems, etc... and I promote my cafe press store and anything and everything else I do at every opportunity I can find... Monday I'll be filling out more applications to flip burgers, which -- before the state garnishes my income -- will be only slightly less than I was making after the garnishment when I was programming at $50k.

<<<The lessons of trying to overcome flat abject panic and regrab onto hope are huge to me.>>>

understood. been there done that. different story and circimstance, but same result. lost absolutely everything - and everyone - and had to start again from square one.

and here's what i found. when it was all gone, when i was all alone, just me and god, i began to find out who and what i really was, apart from all of the stuff, the career, the status, the toys, the 'security'... it was the hardest lesson i ever learned, damn near killed me in fact i was so exhausted mentally, physically, bankrupt spiritually and financially...

and today things are very different than i thought they would be at this point, but you know what5? i survived, and im a better person for it. my priorities have drastically changed, as have my needs... im no longer caught up in the corporate nightmare, but rather am learning again to follow my intuition, to pay attention to the subtleties of life...

i feel your energy cathy, and i empathize... i know what it is to be lost, to feel cut adrift...
and, because of my own experience and now having worked with undres of other people walking through thier own version of hell, i cannot
not believe that there is something there for you, something trying to get your attention, some direction waiting for you to say yes to...

if you were closeer i'd invite you so sit down and help you as best i can to look and see... what is is that is calling your heart, what you are here on this planet to do... what is your gift to the world...
you will be in my prayers...
xoj

I honestly have no objections to the word failure either... In the corporate world, in any company that takes "research and development" even remotely seriously, R&D department projects are *expected* to have an 80% failure rate. They do this because they know that humans are just plain not built to be objective -- we're far too easily fooled -- and so, in order to find those really great ideas, we have to explore all the avenues, no matter how "silly" they might seem because otherwise we trick ourselves into believing that great idea x "just won't work", when in reality it's the next breakthrough in waiting. Being unafraid to fail, being grateful for every failure means having more breakthroughs and being one step closer to the next breakthrough. :)

You have already begun to regain the use of your intuition. Intuition is as much a part of you as your own heart it is simply a matter of paying attention.

I understand that is easier said than done sometimes in all the confusion life throws at you, but still, like anything, it gets easier with practice. It's like riding a bicycle, you never forget how to do it even though you may be a bit wobbley when you first get back on.

Good Luck and Enjoy the Ride!!!
Leo

the value of succes and failure seem to be equal...
dependng on how we use them...
im'expecting big succes in a manifestation in a few days...
HOWEVER - this succes will bring me to a level of challenge that may be very, uhm, challenging... :o)))

so - failure in that field could mean:
-relief
- just a minor setback to ajust the sails and keep going

but all in all:
there is nothing that can stand between me and my goal(s) - except my own mind...
i can use it or abuse it...
if i use it - i feel good
if i abuse it - i feel rotten...
no mistake...

that's beautiful..... three's eems also to be a glow in there tha is natural too..... that famous qupte from i think Marianne Williamson or Maya Angelou about not hiding your light under a basket.... Universe calls us to be all theat we are ..... not because of who we think we re..... but becasue we are...

you talk about like's paradoxes in your Natha... so true... and this one of life's greatest lessons....


along witht he fact that applies to each ...

"...and you find yourself in situations where that greatness can be of service to others."
Perhaps this is something I need to witness more of--or see examples of, to really understand.....
Perhaps it's that place where you "do without doing"----please explain more, your experience with this if you can!-
-a-

How does one let go of the Ego? I am finding that I am stuck on what I had, now that I live somewhere new. I have no friends here and I find it hard not to compare the city life I had to the country life I am now living.
And what I use to do as a job, dancing. Is not going that well here.

Well, I saw this thread an dimmediately remembered the OP Nathan, an intuitive, gentle person. He has not been on tribe for awhile. His presence is missed.

I can't scroll down when writing.. I hoep the woman who missed danc ein a new area has foudn soem solace.. a gym also carried me through.

Everyones' definitions of failure and destiny differ slightly. I can not get into a big thing right now. I need to say that those who pontificate may speak good words. their actions are the real telling point.