The Spiritual Pledge - Here Yesterday, Gone Today

My organization is converting my position as a contractor to a full-time employee. Their purpose in doing so is to hire me specifically. However, this is a big organization where the HR department narrows the field of applicants down to five people without consulting the division with the available position and there are weighting factors outside of my control (like whether or not I’m a veteran). In the end, I didn’t make the list.

I’ve been ambivalent about whether the job is actually right for me, but I plan on taking it should it be offered. I figured I’d turn it over to god’s will as to whether or not I actually get the position. Given the circumstances, the only way I cannot get the position is by divine intervention. I’ve been totally confident that if I didn't get an offer, then it truly wasn't meant to be and I’m meant to do something differently. However, when I got the news my faith immediately disappeared. Plus, my ego kicked in full force with emotions of embarrassment, fear, sadness, and anger. On the upside, I was at least aware in the moment that my reactions were ego-based.

I think I'm about 96% back to normal now, which is good for me because historically I'd be around 65% normal at this point. My biggest issue has been being mad at myself for not practicing emotionally the spirituality that I know intellectually. Also, I see I've been using spirituality to no longer have negative emotions (sadness, anger, fear, shame, guilt). This is unrealistic. I think the answer is that I'm still going to experience these uncomfortable human emotions; however, as long as I have "awareness," they don't have to be so drastic or last as long. And there is the simple fact that I just don't like to accept god's will when it feels uncomfortable in the moment (regardless of my faith that everything works out for the best in the end).

I realize I’m being overly hard on myself. (Something else I'm very good at, unfortunately.)

I also realize that I received many gifts from the experience and have seen opportunities to grow. Some of the gifts include: Having “awareness” while receiving seemingly negative news (this is new--normally I would have had a LOT more ego involved), I rebounded much more quickly than I would have otherwise, the “awareness” allowed me to see that none of the good things in my life changed, and I saw the extent to which I’m prone to beat myself up (in this case both in terms of not making the list and not responding with ideal spirituality).

The lessons learned include discovering: I am fragile, even though I can “think” a good game I still need much more practice with the actual game (this is a helpful awakening), I’m tied even more to ego than I realized (hoped), I get very defensive, and I have more work to do on accepting god’s will.

I have a lot more practice to do.