Ok, I decided to start writing this post even though I have very little time, and I really have a million things to do. More than a post, perhaps this will be a booster post: short, intense and energetic. I need to really gather all my energy for this. All the positive and negative energies that I have inside me, as they are all needed!
Maybe I can’t explain everything exactly, but I’m sure I can explain how it got here. In Lisbon, with a new job and a new life.
It was February, under lockdown, closed at home with my mother, no money or prospects for the future. Resumes and rejection letters from all over. In fact, I had chosen to send my resumes on AngelList where they keep you in suspense for 1 or 2 weeks and then send you a detailed rejection letter in detail. I was rejected by 8 unpaid jobs, 14 paid jobs, and they didn’t even want me as a volunteer (because they didn’t want me to waste time looking for work).
Once I finished the jobs where I could apply I started sending them to Italy, where at least they don’t really reply to you, and although the ego is not to be fed, I think that at least I love mine enough not to ask him to stand there and take all the bull*. I mean, even the ego needs a little love occasionally. And so, of 42 resumes sent, I received one response from a job as a telemarketing saleswoman, at €500 per month on evening shifts that include the weekend, without a contract.
To say that I was depressed is an understatement because in addition to having no prospects, I also had the growing guilt that has been put on my shoulders by society that demands not to leave my old mother alone, and at the same time ask me to accept any job otherwise I’d be considered demanding.
And although I really wanted to be a good daughter, to show all the love I have for her, I had anxiety attacks every day, with the prospect of having to sacrifice my life in a place that never guaranteed me any right, where I would not be able to live alone, where I couldn’t feed myself, or be able to live independently. Not to mention the fact that I wouldn’t be able to be seen, and appreciated for who I am.
This blog, for me, was a real lifeline because I resumed past studies on NLP, and it forced me, somehow, to take back my thoughts and strength. As the director of my coaching school, Antonella Rizzuto, says in a recent Unicomunicazione post: “What you think is your world”, a way of saying that the map is not the territory.
And there I really sought my strength. I tried to accept my anxieties and fears, but also to dissociate myself from them, because after all I chose what to think. What I am I choose with the things I love, with the music I listen to, with the people I attend, with the ideas that I have of myself that are not still in a moment, they are not static, but are constantly moving, like thoughts.
And emotions don’t represent who we are, emotions are like a guide, and they make us realize if we’re really following our nature or if we’re stuck at a deadlock that we need to figure out how to unlock.
So, with a lot of courage, I collected every moment of lockdown solitude to try to connect more and more to the emotions that I relate to freedom and love.
Some days I spent hours alone in the terrace of my building listening to my favorite music and connecting to it while admiring the sky and trying to imagine myself in different situations while I continued to appreciate the present moment. I was looking for joy in admiring the sky, the freedom of birds in flight, and I was trying to remember what it feels like to feel free to be who I am, and to love me for who I am with all my limitations and vulnerabilities. I tried to let go of the idea that I could be everything. To be the perfect daughter, the perfect niece, the perfect cousin. I realized that I had only one responsibility to my mother: the responsibility of really living every day.
I can’t prevent the other things, I can only take them one day at a time.
And it was only when, looking up at the sky, I connected with the world, I remembered the 68-second rule.
Visualize what you want, down to the smallest detail, when you feel it can happen for a minimum time of 68 seconds.
If you’re able to keep that image undisturbed for 68 seconds, it will come true, or rather, the universe will slowly unfold it in front of your eyes in such a natural way that you won’t even realize that’s exactly what you asked for.
And this is how an insignificant opportunity on paper has turned into a huge opportunity for growth.
I’ve changed my country, and the city I live in now is absolutely wonderful. I have found a house exactly as I had asked it, I have met great people, and the job offers an incredible opportunity of growth that was exactly what I had asked the universe.
All this during one terrible pandemic, and with unemployment rate never as big.
My job now, is to remember who I am. A person with the faculty to think, and if you can think you can be who you want.
Miss Adore
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. Friedrich Nietzsche ·
