Empowered By Unemployment: Post Covid World

2024 has been a wild ride for most.

I was forced into the realization that for the last decade I have been an employee - dedicated, trustworthy, and resourceful. I gained experience in several industries, met a lot of great people; customers, co-workers, bosses, and the like. I thought the thrill was finding the next best job and raise — but where has that gotten me?

More bills, less time, more stress on my mind. I started just like everyone else, thinking I wanted to do and be something specific but then reality showed me I didn’t. I started in childcare, I’ve always loved kids. I grew up with a teacher turned principal mother — it’s in my DNA, and it felt destined to be my path too. After working in schools, daycares, and summer camps I decided that lifestyle was unsustainable — I wanted more for me than this, clearly. 

After a very brief and young midlife crisis; i.e. moving to Miami for an old boyfriend, I came back home and switched my trajectory to another career path, one also familiar. I started working in a dealership. It felt fitting at the time, given my birth name; Shelby was chosen by my father, an avid car lover who also worked in the industry his entire career. I learned more than I thought I would, not only about cars, but people and relationships as I met so many great people there. However, it was there my spiritual awakening began. So much change went on in such a short amount of time there. I worked throughout the pandemic, part of the service department we were deemed essential. It was also at the end of that year I decided I needed to end my relationship. So I did. Then my career ended next.

I started doing serious inner work, releasing things I didn’t even realize I was holding onto from so many years prior. There was a lot of resentment, trauma, and insecurity issues I was never aware of until secluded in my one-bedroom apartment with all the time in the world after losing my full and part-time employment. It felt like the Universe positioned me there, at that time so I could heal myself and change the trajectory of my life - so I did.

During my months on end of job searching, I began journaling and writing again. It felt good to get everything going on internally out on paper, it was a form of releasing come to find out. I started learning about divination and the occult, healing, trauma, and shadow work - terms I seldom used years ago that are now a part of my daily vocabulary. Living on my own forced me to look at myself clearly for the first time in my whole life. The baggage I carried had begun to pack on too much extra weight, it was time I began unpacking. In that time, amidst the darkest of them all, I found the real light within myself begin to flicker back on. I asked myself “What do I want of this life? Who am I? Where am I going? How can I sustain a living on my own - without an employer?”

Fast forward three years, and I am now in the midst of another career change. I left my stable remote job after an ugly ultimatum to pursue my own lifestyle and be my own boss. Pivot after pivot has been the main theme these last few years, but I believe I found myself the perfect career. I am now back in the field I originally chose and went to school for - teaching, with a twist. I provide in home behavioral therapy to children diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder.) I have loved every minute and plan to continue this journey while building my own thriving business’ on the side. 

~ PRAYER

~ PURPOSE

~ ACTION

Those three have been my daily remedies during this intense time of transition. I also have taken my meditation and yoga/pilates practices more seriously and feel a tremendous difference in my physical body. I have leaned into more natural ways of living and consuming because so much of what we are fed - between the food and media - is essentially garbage and toxic to our systems. The chemicals, lies, and deception we have been polluted with may be intentional, but so are all the medicinal, naturally occurring plants and species that occupy this world just as we do.

While I am writing, we are in the midst of eclipse season - one of the most energetically potent times of the year. Lately, I have found it essential to listen to my body and rest when I need it. We survived years (emphasis on years) of living through a health pandemic and now, unfortunately, are circling world war territory - these are indeed scary and monumental times in history. If you feel like you can't catch a break, you are not alone and we ARE all in this together. It is essential to step away from the noise, I have been doing so by taking lots of breaks from my phone and the news. Nature has been calling for me more, and the weather in upstate New York is perfect in these fall months so I have been taking advantage! Sound healing, whether my own crystal singing bowl or hertz frequencies on YouTube help to keep my stress and anxiety levels down, as I am especially prone to it in these transitionary periods.

The trick to becoming empowered when you are actually feeling inferior is blind faith. The last few years have stressed nothing other than the fact that I am more than capable of handling whatever comes my way, whenever it does. We are only on this beautiful planet for a small fraction of time, so I urge you to do what it is that you love. Whether painting, singing, writing, acting, creating - whatever it is, even if you cannot make a living off of it, please take time out to do it and thank me later! I have never felt more confident, powerful, and aligned with my purpose than I do these days going after exactly what I feel I was born to do. Part of that mission is also showing others, aka you, the reader that you can do it too!