When do you know if it's time for a change or just not "right thinking"?
WorkInProgress
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I hope I am able to convey my question in such a manner you understand what I am asking. I also plan to be quite transparent. I am a home childcare provider. I have cared for nearly a hundred children over the last eleven years. Toss in my own children (one is in his middle teens) and I have literally been caring for children for 15 years now. I am very grateful to have had an occupation that allowed me to work AND take care of my own family and children. I am very fortunate to have had such an opportunity. But in the last year I have been feeling so much that I need a change. I find myself more easily frustrated and anxious when I hear children cry or throw a tantrum etc. It's sort of like my "head space" just can't handle the constant influx of noise (crying, screaming - you know, all the noisy stuff kids do!). I can literally feel my heart start beating fast and my blood pressure rise.
Now, that being said, I also struggle with whether I have the ability to CHANGE my thinking. I mean, in the end it's all in our heads. We CHOOSE to feel that something is negative or positive etc.
I have meditated daily for a long time. So, in essence I do "de-stress" each and every day. But somehow it's not working for me anymore with regards to job stress.
Ugh.....I feel so ungrateful just saying the words above. I mean, I have a job, a good job. A job that pays well and allows my family to be very comfortable. I am of service to others. So why do I feel so strongly to move on?
Is there every just a time when it really IS time to move on, where it's not just "a choice" to feel you don't find joy in something?
I hope I have been explanatory enough here. Thanks to anyone who has read this far!
Comments
What are your options?
I have many options. First, I don't "have" to work. We aren't going to starve if I quit. My husband is a self-employed professional and I can easily work at his office if I feel the need to "serve". I like working and feeling productive. I just don't "like" what I am doing anymore. And feel it is unfair of me to feel that way (to the people I serve).
Ah you have the option to be productive in other ways. Make a change. Not like you can not return to child care . . .
So, Lobster.....you don't see it as a lack of "right thinking"? You know, just an unwillingness to be positive? Because THAT is what I struggle with. I don't want to run away from things but deal with them. But I don't know when you KNOW it's not running away but just TIME. You know?
If you just take a sabbatical, it's not running away. Stop and reevaluate your lifestyle.
You know, even a sponge can only hold so much water; then it reaches saturation point. No matter how many times you squeeze it out, it will only ever hold that amount of water, and after a while, a sponge subjected to constant use, degrades anyway.
It's quite natural; everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. Even sponges.
It's like I said in another thread:
If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. If you still fail, quit: There's no point being an idiot about it.
Sometimes, wisdom is not about conquering. Sometimes, wisdom consists of conceding defeat, knowing you gave it your best shot.
"....grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference."
It's OK.
Everything changes, including you. Of course you don't have to stick with something you don't enjoy any more. The world is your
lobsteroyster.So why do I feel so strongly to move on?
Probably because it is time for a change. And it could be really positive, like a new beginning.
I love teaching. Eventually it was time for a change and I became a gardener.
It is not the job, it is how it is done. Simple really. You do not even have to work, you could practice full time . . . actually that is work . . .
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There's nothing wrong with moving on when it is time. Even if you choose to do so, you will have to close out your current childcare operation and you can still use that time to work on opportunities to increase your patience. But often times, those physical symptoms follow later than a deeper part of yourself knowing it is time to move on. Physical symptoms are often the result of not being able (or not knowing how) to pay attention to those deeper signals. So it's quite possible your mind and body have been telling you for a while that it's time to be done, and the things you are experiencing are manifesting in order to make you pay attention. Most people get to a point where they have had enough of their job, no matter how much they enjoyed it. It's why people retire
I think that often, we go into a job, or other situation because we have things to learn and others have things to learn from us. Most of the time, we get to a point we've learned all we can, and we move on. It's not really negative thinking, it's just the way of things.
@WorkInProgress. You are the only one who can answer your question. You most likely already have the solution in sight. To develop trust in your own mind is one of the most difficult tasks we humans must develop.
Hi, @WorkInProgress!
My personal opinion is children-related jobs come with an expiration date.
I have just enough patience for my own son and two kids more in one serving, so I deeply admire people who feel the calling to work with children.
Maybe the time has come for you to move on and try something else.
You can be grateful you have options to rely on.
Many people have to work for the rest of their active years in jobs they don't like just because other options are not an option.
So if you feel so strongly that it's time to move on, then move on.
You can always come back if you have a change of heart.
I responded yesterday to a friend on another forum facing a dilemma. Part of it might be useful:
@WorkInProgress
I would suggest that stress/heart racing & a blood pressure increase when the kids are crying, is actually your teacher saying that right now is the time for you to be bringing that static meditation practice into a more active manifestation.
I have no idea if you should change livelihoods or not....but either way,, or until you do,
this may also be a classroom (custom designed for you) to meditatively illuminate issues that you may not so easily find answers to elsewhere.
^^^ If what @how says resonates and you wish to continue in that vein, then the decision is easy. Your use of language is interesting. You wish to be independent of the option. In other words to be at peace in the staying and the moving on . . . that takes practice, time and knowing. You have that option too and it is independent of your decision. :wave: .
Hey WorkinProgress I'd suggest taking all your holidays at once, & take a month off from work to see if you miss the place & kids....Then meditate on the question of what you do want to do with your time, & see if you can come up with anything else....Have as much fun as you can shake a stick at, & tell yourself you have plenty of time to decide so no rush....Maybe you've ran out of patience with the kids, & i can imagine what an effort it is not to get frustrated etc....But as an experienced meditator you should realise that when your meditating & immune to feelings of frustration anger etc, it is possible to do it in all circumstances no matter how bad they are....So if you can't take time off from work, try working out how to not get annoyed etc with the kids....However they make you feel can at the same time be used, to practice how to not let them affect you emotionally mentally. :-)
@Daveadams ...... Can't just take a whack of time off. It doesn't work that way! I would have no clients when I returned. I am a one-man show, as is the case with home childcare.
Oh, my, thank you for those words! It hit me, when I read those words, that maybe I am attached to the fact that I want to be able to be separate from the feelings when, in fact, I'm just "not there yet". Interesting perspective to be attached to the desire to be more enlightened than I am. Now, isn't that the ultimate irony? LOL! Very interesting perspective. Thanks for pointing that out!