Hello!  Today I’m departing from the usual opining and philosophizing to give you an update on my life!

After not getting a much-desired permanent faculty position at the community college where I have been teaching for the past four years (which shall remain nameless), I decided that rather than go back to cobbling together a semi-living from multiple low-paying, time-sucking adjunct gigs, I would go on the non-teaching job market this summer. I wanted to find a job in which I could grow, in which I could be creative, in which I could make a positive contribution to the world, and in which I could use and develop some of the skills and interests that my previous job wasn’t tapping into as much as I would have liked.

And now, lo and behold, I have been offered and I have gleefully accepted a job at the Institute for the Psychology of Eating just north of Boulder, CO. Wow! I am super excited! These folks have been doing amazing work in the field of people’s relationships with food, which has been a passion of mine for years, as well. The owners of the company write books, train coaches, produce conferences, and do all sorts of activities to provide information and education to the public about the ways we interact with food, both as individuals and as a culture.  I am of the belief (ok I guess I’m not totally departing from the usual opining …) that this is one of the most important areas of inquiry in the U.S. today, and that it touches every aspect of our lives — our energy bodies, our personal lives, our politics, our environment, our growth and evolution. I am very psyched to support this endeavor AND to learn more about it!

What I will be doing is working in the communications end of things — administrative support, student services, and editing, to start out. And I think it is going to be really fun. The tasks are things I like to do, and the workplace seems to be a perfect combination of my favorite qualities — fast-paced, driven, and committed, yet laid-back and positive in attitude.

When I started the job-dreaming-process back in the spring, a friend in my spiritual community suggested I check out the book Wishcraft by Barbara Sher, which is available for free online. She said that it had really helped her to get clear on what qualities she wanted from her next job, and had turned up some surprising hidden desires, too. The name of the book appealed to me — it sounded magical, like the way I wanted to manifest my next job, not through a bunch of hard struggle and slogging through mires, but through joy and magnetism and play. So I downloaded it and started working with the exercises. And indeed, although I had already come up with a sort of short list of qualities I wanted in my career, the book helped me to turn up the mossy stones in my brain and see what wriggling little dreams were squirming around in there. One thing I realized was that it had been hard for me to have clear and specific dreams for my life as a child. I had developed a great strength in finding something that I liked about almost any situation I found myself in, but had a very difficult time picking one thing that I wanted. A lot of my “job dreams” were not so much DREAMS as “well, if I do this then I should be ok” types of conclusions. But when I devoted some time and thought to clarifying what I wanted out of professional life, I realized that writing really IS central to what I love doing. (That wasn’t a surprise so much as an “oh, well, I guess I’d better take it seriously then” moment.) And it also surfaced that I would find it very enriching and soul-supportive to work in an explicitly spiritual environment. Not just one that espoused values that were compatible with my spirituality and ministry (as was the case at the college where I taught), but one that specifically addressed the spiritual side of human existence. The spiritual framework doesn’t matter that much to me — I am a universalist and I believe that all sincere paths are true, and I can get with the Baptist game as much as the Buddhist — but to work somewhere that would acknowledge the soul’s needs just felt like, you know, too good to be true.

But the thing about getting really, really clear about wishes is that the Universe hears. And, at least in my experience, when I’m able to bring my heart’s desires to a sharp focus, and own up to really wanting them, and also let go of the outcome and trust to Divine wisdom for the highest good of all, that is when miraculous connections really do happen. I found out about this position through another member of my spiritual community, with whom I was casually chatting about my life’s hopes and dreams. She said, “Hey, I just heard about a position just LIKE that,” and forwarded me the announcement. That’s synchronicity at work. And so here I am, three weeks later, about to start (tomorrow) what I could honestly say is a dream job, at least for this stage of my life.

With all this excitement comes, of course, a little nervousness. I want to do a good job. And I’m also aware of how different it’s going to be. Just the schedule change — from the all-over-the-place academic lifestyle to the consistent daily nine to five — is going to completely rewire my brain. And I’m excited about that too. There’s nothing like a big lifestyle shakeup to open the door to even more previously un-thought-of yet awesome possibilities. Above all, it feels like a quantum leap in self-value and listening to my own heart. So — wish me well, because I’m off to the Great Unknown!

From my back porch