No! Not that!!

Sometime in 1993, I think it was, that I loaded the trunk of my car with five or six (maybe more) bankers boxes and drove two hours from Eugene to Portland, Oregon.  I was delivering a professional treasure trove to a friend from graduate school.

Before going to graduate school I'd been a human resource (HR) director and employment manager. Actually, since I started working on my 16th birthday, I'd been working in HR.  I developed skills and experience as a teenager that many of my peers wouldn't have for a decade.  Because I had the experience, I ended up working my way through college in HR jobs.  Then, that was where I got jobs afterward.  I never even considered if I enjoyed these jobs, they were pretty good jobs in a small city that didn't have many good jobs. So, I did them.

Although I had the distinct intention when I returned to grad school that I would work in organization development (OD) when I finished, when I actually did finish and started my business, what I knew how to market was HR.  So, not surprisingly, people hired me to do HR. Within a week of starting my business, I was booked three months in advance--what every new business owner hopes to happen. However, 18 months into the business, I realized that most of my projects had been the work I'd done before grad school and that I'd hoped to leave behind, rather than OD work that I had hoped to do.

I recall a crystallizing moment when I sat at my desk and knew I just couldn't/wouldn't do that work anymore.

In typical fashion, the Universe very shortly sent me two tests.  I got two opportunities for work that were HR opportunities that I had just pledged not to do, and one of the projects was with a company I'd been trying to get work from since I'd hung out my shingle.  I nicely declined, and I put each in touch with someone I knew who would do a good job for them.

Gulp!  I hadn't turned work away before.  Then, crickets....for about two weeks.  I stood my ground and waited.

Finally, the calls started.  Two nice OD jobs landed in the same week, and each would be four- to six-month assignments.  I had turned the corner.  During that quiet two weeks the temptation to go out and market had been great, but I stayed true to what my heart was telling me.

All that is the background for my trip to Portland.  My friend did want to do HR consulting, but had only been working in the field since we graduated.  I called her and said I wasn't going to take anymore HR projects.  I had a lot of books, articles, and other resources.  Did she want them?  She was delighted. In that two-hour road trip, I separated from my HR umbilical cord.

Last Sunday afternoon I sat on the floor of my bedroom closet, trying to figure out what did and what did not feel like it was part of my future.  I was able to throw away about a box and half of stuff that I would never have packed up if I'd had taken time to sort before packing.  (See Endings/ Beginnings, 11/25/16.)  There were things that left me stone cold, like the four-inch thick federal procurement manual. Definitely not feeling it in my future.  And, there were a very few items, like the book Awakening the Heroes Within by Carol Pearson, that I would have loved to sit and devour in the moment.  Definite save those.

In the zone somewhere between "definitely go" and "definitely stay," was a box into which I put the gray zone items. I just didn't know...or at least I didn't think I knew.

As gently as the moment 23 years ago, when I knew in an instant that I could no longer take HR projects, I knew "No! Not that!! None of it...." None of what was in the gray zone is part of my future. I will continue to go through boxes to make sure there are no "definitely stay" items, but I expect that almost none of it will stay.

I don't like to throw things away...especially books, but this time I have no one that I can pass my resources on to like I did my grad school friend.  To just throw things away will really be an exercise for me, but I know there is no turning back.  I have less clarity about what will be in my life after December 21 than I do what won't, but 23 years ago, I had to sit and wait for two weeks...and then I did know what I wanted my future would be.

For at least a year I've been saying that I felt pregnant.  Now I've never been pregnant, so I am not sure how I know what the feels like, but it does feel like something is gestating deep inside me, and it wants to be born. I just don't know what.

I've written that our hearts are the compass to our lives and written on the backs for each of us is what is our true north--what is exactly right for us.  The only thing I have clarity about right now is that I need to clear out the static which keeps me from hearing what is next.

Earlier this week I was doing an exercise in the workplace setting where a colleague and I were supposed to interview each other.  The first question she asked was, "What are you hungry for?" I didn't think even a split second before saying, "Time, sleep, exercise, meditation..."  Those were not thoughts; that was truth, completely skipping my brain and spewing forth without thought.  I just knew.  Like I just know what isn't in my future.

Every item on my "hungry" list was an activity that help me hear where the compass on the back side of my heart is pointing me--helping me connect with whatever is gestating.

I will continue cleaning out, even knowing that I will throw good stuff out to just remove it from my energy field.  When December 21 arrives, I want to send a very clear message to my heart that I am getting rid of static.  Then, I will bring in the static-clearing activities that I shared with my interview partner.  That is my future.