14 September 2014

Intuition's importance to me.

I feel weird writing about my personal life, for all the world to see. However, something compels me to write out what I've been contemplating writing in the form of a post for a while. It's about intuition, and what it means to me. To me, it's everything. You see, I'm an INFJ. This means, 'introversion, intuition, feeling, judging,' by Myers-Briggs' definition. Yes, I'm all about gut feelings. I tend to look for the hidden meaning, symbolism, and metaphors in life, literature, and film. I'm inspired by the underlying meaning, as a thing. To me, it's a powerfully meaningful thing.

That's why I quit my job of over three years this past March. The only regret I have is not having followed my heart sooner. My instinct screamed it wasn't right from me my first week on the job, but I ignored it and pressed on. Have you ever had a gut feeling you failed to heed? What was the end result? I have quite a few times continued on in spite of my feelings warning me against doing so, and the end result has not been pretty. I loathed my last work environment, and the one before that, and the one before that. Why? Mostly, because these environments were the antithesis of my introversion. My last job involved too tight cubes with a micromanaging egotistical manager, and loads of ignorant methodologies. I detested every second of it. The first sign was the fact that no one talked. When I say no one talked, think about a library, but quieter. I remember feeling so self-conscious the first time I had to use the phone in my coworkers' presence. My boss asked me, 'who was that?' as soon as I had gotten off the line. It was so awkward and uncomfortable also given the fact that I sat directly in front of him, and felt he was monitoring my every move. I later came to find that my intuition was spot on.

The feeling of 'off-ness' continued for over three years and intensified in the Spring of 2014. I woke up with the worst dread. I pried myself out of bed and cried in the shower at night and oftentimes during my lunch break. I could not get out of there fast enough. I meditated on what to do and how to experience reprieve. One Monday, toward the end of March, I did something I thought I would never do, something so against the grain of what I have been taught to do, but something my instinct urged me to do. I sent my boss an email in which I resigned effective two weeks from that date. Moments before, I had gone out to my car, sat in the drivers' seat and closed my eyes, as I often did in an effort to meditate, and asked for assistance from my spirit guides. I asked for an answer to whether this was the right thing to do. The answer I received was that it was, and so I proceeded accordingly. I will say though, that it was not a yes in the form to which we are accustomed. It was more of a build up of intense anxiety that would not leave me, that motivated me to make the move, and assured me that this was the right decision.

That night, I received an email from one of the jobs to which I had applied, asking me to come in for an interview. It felt like another sign, a reward for doing what I finally had the courage to do. Interestingly, I landed that very job, which cut forty-five minutes off of my commute as well as toll costs, in addition to providing other perks.