“Sign” or Delusion?

So an amazing thing happened.  Well, almost happened.  A dream job I had applied for over a year ago suddenly showed up on my doorstep.  Or, er, inbox.

To set the scene, two years earlier I left a fancy financial job to persue my life-long dream of living abroad in France.  That was a mouthful.  Anyway, the trip turned out to be just the thing (understatement), and upon returning home I was inspired, and determined, to follow my heart and avoid all-things finance.  So I eagerly applied for a student advisor position with Emory University.  Three times.  And nadda.  Nothing.  Not even a, “we got your resume, and why are you applying?”  Which maybe was a good thing looking back.

Fast forward 1.5 years and somehow I’ve landed myself a job, you guessed it, back with my previous employer, doing…right again, finance.  Only this time it’s different (which is funny because in finance, that’s a total lie).  But I’m serious, I’m different this time.  I’m happy, in charge of my faculties (most of them anyway), and really pleased with my decision to return after they asked me back.  Hey, it’s nice to be wanted.

With my new-found funds from my new-old-found job, I decided to take a trip to Arizona to meet Koelle Simpson, horse whisperer and life coach extraordinaire.  My friend, another amazing coach, Laurie Gay, had seen Koelle six months earlier and made some big changes in her life after working with the horses.  Now it was my turn, and I was excited, really excited.  And a little nervous.  What would happen?  What big changes would I make?  God, please, just don’t let me quit my job.  Anything but that.

And you guessed it (enjoying this phrase tonight), Emory University emailed me about that “dream-job” after day one with the horse whisperer.  Seriously?  Really?!  Included in the email was the statement, “we have your resume from a year ago.”  Come on people, you’re killing me here.

So of course it was a “sign”.  The Universe had spoken and this was it – my opportunity to finally, at long last, listen.  To my heart.  And if I didn’t…

It meant I failed the test.  A twisted test that would determine if I had the balls (excuse the language) to finally be true to myself and do what was right for me.

And boy was that a lot of pressure.

I had just started back with my old firm 5 months earlier - you know, the one where I quit unexpectedly 2 years before as a partner.  And no, that didn’t go over well.  Not at first anyway.  So here I was faced with an “ideal” opportunity before me and some potentially painful decisions.  I had to pony-up (pun intended:) and tell these guys yet again, that I wanted out.

But…something wasn’t sitting right.  Maybe it was the hefty credit card balance I had accrued (oops), maybe it was the thought of the imminent lynching that would probably ensue, or maybe it was something else altogether.  Nothing a weekend of meditation couldn’t solve.

And you know what?  It did.  I spent Friday night, all day Saturday and Sunday sitting on a cushion not thinking.   Or trying not to think.  Or trying to not try to not think.  AHH.  In any case, the weekend gave me enough space, and shall we say, wisdom, to see something that had been hidden for pretty much my entire life.

What I realized was that this so-called “sign” was just another way for me to hand over my power to someone (something) else.  From the moment I received the email from Emory, it was a done-deal.  It was a sign!  I lost myself in all of the hocus-pocus and didn’t even stop to consider if it was the right thing for me right now.  In fact, the situation was eerily reminiscent of the time when I first became a partner with my current employer.  Once the partner opportunity had presented itself, I had to do it.  It was all or nothing, and essentially a choiceless situation in my view.  Quite a powerless position as it turned out.

And that’s an important point.  Signs can be incredibly magical, confirming and validating our deepest joys and yearnings.  Or they can be yet another ball and chain.  There is a big difference between surrendering intelligently to your life, to the heavens, to what rings true, and handing over your personal power to some external entity.  I was participating in the latter.

Magical decisions, in my experience, are made when we’re conscious and present to our lives.  And while signs can act as fabulous guideposts, following them blindly is just another way of abdicating your power.  And that very much belongs to you.