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Having just lost my job, I was rather surprised to learn that I was suddenly more relaxed than I could remember. I had been stressing over work so much, the act of not stressing over work was a welcome novelty, despite the complications.
The woman I had just started e-mailing was still in contact with me, but I figured that she wouldn’t want to have much to do with me, having been fired from a job that was less-than-glorious to begin with. Nevertheless, I was grateful for the contact, and kept writing.
As the shock slowly wore off, I began to realize that my mind had been so conditioned while at that job that I had believed that there was nothing else that I could do. Now that I had been removed from the situation, I could plainly see that there were many different things that I could do. I decided that I did not want to work another food service job ever again.
Ironically, almost instantly after I lost my job, an old boss of mine contacted me and offered me a job as low management at… another food service job.
Now, it’s important to note: I had never really learned to handle money. I had no savings, and I had increased my expenses along with the increases in pay that I had gotten until now. At this point in order to keep going I had to take a job. I swallowed my pride and took the job. It was not sufficient to cover the expenses, but it was income.
All the while, I had been e-mailing more and more with Summer, and we really hit it off well. After an awkward first date (is there ever one that isn’t?) we found that we just “clicked” with one another. Summer did not see someone who couldn’t hang onto a low-paying job. Instead she saw a fighter that was still standing after taking a beating, and that meant more to me than I could tell her at the time. Summer herself was also a fighter, having gotten a Bachelor’s degree in three years despite being sick at the time. We were well matched.
When I had a chance to peruse her coffee table, I saw a book by Robert Kiyosaki: Retire Young, Retire Rich. The book seemed interesting to me, since I’d never been able to figure out how to work money. Summer graciously let me borrow it and my financial intelligence increased dramatically in a short time, and kept growing from that point on.
However, with no viable job forthcoming, my bills were eating me alive. Then I encountered another wrinkle: The hours at my job were being reduced drastically. I started looking for jobs, but none of them worked. Either the job or I wasn’t a match. Then, Summer took me to see a friend of hers named Nanette.
Nanette was dear friend of Summer’s and a warm presence to be around. She was rather mystical, like myself, and we found much to talk about. I mentioned the problems I’d been having with employment and she simply said “It sounds like you need to change your energy”. Seriously, there should have been a bell or a light bulb or something 
I set aside time and performed a ritual to attract the right job for me and to open myself up to accept it once it appeared. The next day, when cruising the job sites, I found a job working tech support. I filled out the online application, and very shortly thereafter, I had the job. This job was about five times closer, and paid a dollar more per hour. That and my increasing skill at handling money made the situation tenable…almost.
I decided that I would keep the food-service job to pay off my debts and save a little money. Thank goodness I didn’t have any large debts, but when you are in a rowboat, it doesn’t take a large hole in the boat to wind up swimming for shore. Once I had paid off my debts and saved up a little money for “in case”, I let the food-service job go.
Now that I had time to actually spend with Summer, the relationship got more wonderful as the weeks and months went by. About this time I took stock of where I was to where I had been not long ago. I was working in a service industry making more than I had recently, in the early stages of a romantic relationship. Anyone taking a passing glance at my life would not see much of a change. What they would not see is all the details that made the difference.
Seeing how far I had come, I decided to ask my guides if it was possible for me to advance further. I was assured that the answer was “Yes”. I decided to start journaling and meditating. I had always had a problem with those two because I tend to be a bit of a “scatter brain”, leading me to get distracted during meditation and also to forget to write my journal. The exercise was well worth it, I discovered: I got a much better look at my inner world and also got much more control over myself.
Somewhere around this time, I began to feel that I was too much of a wanderer to be a true-blue Wiccan. I was still a Pagan at heart, but I loved going and studying different religions and schools of thought to refine my world view. Having made that decision, I deliberately widened my viewpoint even further.
Before long, Summer and I had married. At almost the exact same time, I found a job that was closer still, and paid still better than the support job that I was in at the time.
At this point, where I had achieved a certain level of material stability, I decided to re-focus on my spiritual life. Nanette, with whom Summer and I had kept contact, was also a Reiki master (teacher). I took the first-level classes and this only served to accelerate my life even more. I found myself more and more wondering how I can best serve the world, as opposed to simply trying to “win”.
As my awarenes grew I began to realize more and more that I needed to do something, but I was unclear as to what. I already knew deep down that eventually becoming a Reiki master was part of the program. So I kept studying, meditating, and shaking off poisons. This kept building, and eventually I determined that my next step was to take the Reiki II classes, which was an interesting turning point in its own right.
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(Thanks to dkcc0330 for the image)
