Keep the Noise Out
When my late husband was finally able to leave the hospital after a four month stint in and out of the ICU, we returned home, back to Toronto.
We’d been living in the US for several years prior (you can read that full story here).
A few months earlier, I had abruptly left my dream job in San Francisco and now had to begin searching for a new job back at home.
The medical bills (despite decent insurance) had begun piling up and I needed to get back to work right away.
I hit the pavement, mined my network and within a few weeks had several good offers.
The timing of all this?
January 2008.
I had started my job search just a couple months into “The Great Recession”, the longest recession since World War II.
But at the time, I had no idea that’s what was happening in the world at large.
I'm sure I heard the word "recession" somewhere on my periphery, but it hadn't entered my psyche.
I had just spent months enduring one of the hardest times of my life. My thirty-one year old husband was on his deathbed multiple times and while he eventually came through, he was left with permanent medical conditions that we were learning to manage.
So I wasn’t reading the news. I wasn’t watching CNN. Or talking about the recession at all.
I was in my own little bubble, just doing what I needed to do to take care of us.
I didn’t have a single thought in my head like:
It’s going to be so hard to find a job in a recession.
No one is hiring.
I should take what I can get.
Maybe I should try for a lower position.
I should take the first thing I get.
None of these thoughts were in my mind. Sometimes I wonder how the outcome might have been different if they were.
Would I have shown up differently?
Would I have expected less?
Would I have expected it to be hard?
Probably.
Instead my mind was completely focused on landing a great job that I would feel good about. And that's exactly what I received.
There is a lot of talk right now about an impending recession and what that could mean for our economy, not to mention job security, unemployment rates and our individual financial situations.
The general consensus has been this: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I get it. There are layoffs happening as we speak. Inflation is on the rise. These are real life things happening. It’s good to be prepared for a disruptive event like a recession at any time.
But.
What if we process that bit of information, make a list of things we could do to prepare and then put it away.
Keep the noise out.
Instead of giving all your attention to the loud megaphone of fear:
Focus on creating a strong inner world.
Focus on real world connection with others.
Focus on the life you are creating when you wake up everyday.
Focus on who you want to become.
Yes we need to be aware of what's happening out there and be prepared. But for too many of us, we let the outside world hijack our inner world.
"The world we believe in becomes the world we live in"
- Gabor Mate in The Myth of Normal
This week I invite you shift your focus inward and create the world YOU live in.
With love,
Kena xo
Kena Paranjape, Founder, All You Are
PS. If you'd like to work with me this year, here are 3 ways:
1. Join my 90 day group program for women, Be All You Are. We start again on January 26th.
2. 1:1 Coaching - I'm taking on three new clients this quarter.
3. Hire me to facilitate a corporate workshop for your company.