My Career Journey: How to Ask for the Experience that You Really Want

Those who go to work every day needing less are inevitably the ones who end up earning more. – Russell Simmons

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit drained. It felt like an emptiness that was falling between my fingers.  It seemed so fragile; a moment between handled (under control), and sliding through like liquid to end up on the wood glazed floor.

You read the bios of people who have such extravagant things to say; accomplishments that make them more marketable that may include volunteerism and education. They are valuable because they say so.  I have said that you can never get paid more than your self-esteem will allow, and is seems that there are individuals who really grasp that truth in this statement, whether pouring money into their image, or some stroke of conscious attraction to their desired level of success.

Last night, a light bulb came on for me and I want to share, and write it out of my mind with you.   While I know that there is no overnight success, I certainly have been incubating greatness for a significant portion of my life. I am thankful that I continue to grow as a writer, and to clarify the vision that God has given me for my life.

MY VERY OWN MENTAL CANVAS

If I were to paint a portrait or profile picture to reveal to you where I am in life, it is not the knowledge that I am a painter it is the questionable characters, the fine lines in revealing the facial expressions in the faces of the painting that I produce. I am getting caught up in the finite details, because it seems that those expressions are they that are going to reveal my consciousness, and my intentions.

I knew yesterday that I could not hide what was going on inside of me. My friend called, and you know what happens when you answer the phone and say, “Hello.” There is a whole conversation, a flood gate of information that is told in a story behind the greeting hello. I have been trying to write, and pray, and believe, and lift up those who are healing from abuse- all while asking God how my obedience to doing what I am called to do will take care of my family. I am not worried, but I am a bit uneasy at times. If I have survived all that I have, I believed before various tragedies- faith and belief are not in question, the more decisive question is when. When will all of the seeds be smothered by soil, watered by the rain, and harvested; overtaking my life so that I am entered into the next phase, glory, transformative image of today?

The appropriate word is exhaustion. I feel like an army soldier, carrying the weight of the military on his back without taking basic or continued training. So last night, I had an interesting exchange (all in my head of course). And I asked myself the following question, “What if I applied the same principle to my career path, that I did my love life to find the one?”

HOW TO ASK FOR WHAT YOU REALLY WANT

Do you remember this post? It is available in the January 3, 2011 archives. This post challenged us to discard of phony lists of attributes that we think would be a good thing to have in a guy (or girl), and to really tell the truth. My truth is that I love a smart man, with little words but when he speaks it is powerful; mind blowing even. I like a man who can where a three piece suit and be the person that business intellectuals are attracted to at a networking engagement, and can have the same affect at a social gathering all while wearing the infamous Washington DC Urban or Hip-Hop style; White tea, Khaki pants, and Nike Boots.

Of course, I setting a visual precedence for you, there are many other important things that are on my list, and you’ll have to pull up that blog to check out some of the things that I mentioned. Today, I want to challenge myself to ask myself the same question that I asked of my personal life, and apply it to my career.

WHAT EXPERIENCE DO YOU REALLY WANT?

When I think of my career this way, it is hard. You see, I’ve posted blogs where I have talked about my having a dream since I was seven years old which revealed a vision of my life. That vision is as close to me as my eye lids, and the soul that rests in the depth behind them.

I have to put aside what I know, and get out of a thinkers head space. I have to put aside my spiritual senses but for a moment to get out of the revelation that God has shared with me about my purpose, and my destiny. Instead, I must dig deep into my soul, the part of my soul that feels and ask myself what experience do I want to have that involves using my gifts and crafted messages within my career. What do I want to experience in exchange for income producing opportunities? How do I want to spend my days and nights? A big part of our lives, is in fact our work, our contributions to humanity in one way or another.

Without further ado, I am going to try as elementary as I may feel at this task right now, to answer this question with as much of my authentic self as possible. If it were up to my self-esteem and my visions, I would own certain companies, and have built a rather successful set of companies, if money were not an option.

See- there I go, talking about something that in this moment is still artificial. Entrepreneurs dream, as we should but this exercise is a protest to any other moment than the right now.  And right now, there are experiences that I would like to have, and I pray that standing up to them, confessing them will create opportunities that lead me right into the pit of these experiences where fruit grows around it, and harvest comes.

ONE PARENT EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION

When I was pregnant, with our teen contributor, Dae’Jah Cymone, I begin to pray and cry out to God. There were specific things that I prayed for concerning my daughter and her life. More relevant to this article, I prayed that God would teach me how to be a mother. I asked God to tell me the intimate details of my daughter’s heart, to make me more aware; sensitize me to her life so that I could anticipate her needs. I prayed some very detailed prayers about her life.  What I had hoped was that I would become a mother that would always be emotionally present, spiritually connected, and physically able to celebrate and correct my daughter, and to support her in any way possible.

Rich people and poor people have the same problems honestly. Rich people and poor people are often consumed with work. All economic statuses have successful and failed marriages. There are no economic differences between child sexual abuse, molestation, incest, rape or any other kind of sexual perversion and misconduct.  With that said, families, of all economic statuses face many of the same issues- only, in some cases, the thinking of the child could be the same but the ability to make certain choices are only different because of the availability to funds.

As a quick example, in poor families, children can get into trouble in a trap house, or standing on the corner, and those of a different economic background may be caught drinking and driving, or have access to designer drugs that they poor family may not be able to afford.

So- back to my experience, I want to be in a room filled with parents, court appointed, wealthy or working class (poor) parents to teach parenting skills that increase awareness about emotional wellness, and child sexual abuse. I want to be the voice for their children who have a difficulty saying “Mommy I need you, Daddy I need you.” I never call myself an actress, in fact, I will tell you in no uncertain terms that I am not an actress. About the only thing that I am completely in touch with is my sense memory who can touch the places where I was at different points in my childhood. I can use every one of my five senses to remind myself of the ways in which I suffered internally, and through the painful experiences that were real and impressionable.

I want have the experience of sharing with parents how to effectively communicate with their children. My mission is not to clone parents to be like Ressurrection. We all have strengths that make us powerful people and when we access our strengths in parenting our children benefits from our greatness at home. They have a different view of you from the world. I would like to share with audiences how to impact their children by creating a platform of communication that is not self-serving to either parties, one that bridges a gap between them being demanding parents, and unknowledgeable peers. I want to teach, admonish and encourage parents to be their child’s friend without compromising their parental relationships.

TWO CORPORATE SPEAKING: WORKPLACE BULLYING

I am confident that as I expand my speaking, I will have titles and marketing materials to trademark along the way. I have a background in business and marketing. I love to create trade secrets for companies, and trademarks that can distinguish one company from another.

The experience that I want to have corporately is to speak to fortune 1000, fortune 500, and fortune 100 companies about how to develop emotionally appropriate relationships with peer constituents who have sexually abused as children. Now, I have created this. This is something that God gave me, so if someone comes out with some super fantastic advertisement about it, or it shows up on Joe Blows brochure, it is because he or she had the financial ability to steal it from me. This is my heart speaking.

In a recent Wayne State University survey conducted by professor Loraleigh Keashly, nearly 60 percent of respondents reported experiencing emotionally abusive behavior from coworkers during their working lives.

The experience that I want to have is to create an emotionally aware atmosphere among organizations. Do you have any idea how many people are being emotionally abused at work by their bosses? Any clue of how many people are being treated unfairly, by their peers, who have to be the company’s favorite corporate guy?

My goal would be to talk about emotional abuse as it related to communication within the company; to challenge employers and employees to enforce social responsible behaviors. Adults are being bullied at work, as teens are being bullied at school; both places where we spend most of our time. Both an educational institution and workplaces are where we often aspire to high achievement, certainly abuse would be counter- productive, and prove harmful to company performance goals.

In the 1990s, Columbia University researcher Harvey Hornstein examined information about abusive supervision from 1,000 workers in a wide variety of occupations and concluded thatapproximately 90 percent of the workforce experiences abuse from their bosses at some point in their careers

With statistics of ninety percent of employees experiencing bullying from their superiors, one must question how effective employees are able to be since they have another job altogether; keeping themselves emotionally positive despite workplace abuse.

Here are a few other statistics I picked up at: New Workplace Institute dot org

 

• A 1992 study by human resources expert Emily Bassman found that abusive work environments result in “fear and mistrust, resentment, hostility, feelings of humiliation, withdrawal, play-it-safe strategies, and hiding mistakes.”

• In 2002, the ORLANDO BUSINESS JOURNAL reported on a study of 9,000 federal workers indicating that 42 percent of female respondents and 15 percent of male respondents had experienced bullying-type behaviors over a two-year period, “resulting in a cost of more than $180 million in lost time and productivity.”

• A 1998 study by University of North Carolina management professor Christine Pearson of 775 targets of workplace incivility and aggression found that “28 percent lost work time avoiding the instigator,” “22 percent decreased their effort at work,” and “12 percent actually changed jobs to avoid the instigator.

• Joseph Kinney, the founder of the National Safe Workplace Institute, reported that “there have been numerous instances where abusive supervisors have baited angry and frustrated employees, pushing these individuals to unacceptable levels of violence and aggression.

THREE RELATIONSHIP COUNSELING: TEENS AND ADULTS

Okay, now I really have to stay focused. Because I know what gifts God has given me, and I know what he had said to me. I know what my heart feels, and I know how to identify what makes me wake up in the morning. And the truth is I have this understanding that I did not study for, about the supernatural desire for man to relate to one another. I have of course theologically studied using the bible as my textbook. There is something about how we connect, and disconnect – how we relate and affect, and infect the world around us.

And, I am so involuntarily climactic every time I think about having this kind of conversation with people who have been through something; people teenage and of adult age who feel battered by the circumstances- who are scorned by the relationships that they have tried to mend.

I was her who- had family that did not love me. I was she who is Christian and was told by other Christians that walking in love is being quiet and giving it to God; that essentially walking in love is to be walked over. I was told to ignore my pains and allow God to take the pain away.

Christianity I believe is not about giving God your cares and then standing in the sidelines waiting for someone else to make the winning basket, or telling God to take care of it all without any effort from you, even if you are injured you can pass a towel, water and a hand clap of support to teammates working on your behalf.

These thoughts really go against God’s nature. God is the giver of all givers. When we have problems we can take them to our fellow man, and without expectation open the door for healing, compromise, reconciliation.

“The way your treat your mate should be a tangible expression of your relationship with GOD.” – Pastor Cynthia Brazelton

I love the idea of having the experience to provide premarital and family counseling to men and women struggling to decide whether the relationships that they are involved in are God’s best for them. My desire is not to be God, not to figure out things for you, but to support you and facilitate you in healing, and making decisions that would help you to walk in your destiny; with or without the person that you are tormented over.

The relationships counseling will be an opportunity for me to go to do small group presentations to teenagers to discuss dating violence and emotional wellness. And, to talk to both teens and adults about THE POWER OF SAYING NO! which is a workshop that I created, and is also one of the Ten Ways to Safeguard your Child from Sexual Abuse. The Power of Saying No is a great way for me to hold individual and group counseling sessions for all ages about:

• Changing Careers
• Career Options
• How to break up with business partner
• How to end a personal relationship
• How to write a closed letter to end a relationship
• How to put your foot down, and stand up for yourself in any relationship without lying
• How to become stronger in your ability to vocalize your disagreement to a loved one
• How to walk in love, and walk away from dysfunctional family relationships

FINAL THOUGHTS

Ladies and Gentlemen, there it is- all laid out. As you can see providing small and large group presentations, corporate speaking, and relationship counseling is all in there. I would be honored to support battered women in building their self-esteem (those who are ready to leave). I would love to work with teens about how to have healthy relationships as I do now.

I personally do not believe that the systems that are in place, work. I don’t really believe that the non-profit organizations that receive government funds to keep their doors open are radically changing lives. I do not believe that poor people working or not, are learning things that those exposed to wealthy literature and mindsets are learning. My work is passionate about being the bridge over troubled water; that supports the growth intellectually and spiritually to people who are seeking to be love, the answer.

A one woman operation, my (no name) company is providing counseling services, corporate speaking, and educational consulting to empower us to be what the world has truly been waiting for. Sessions, Speaking Engagements, and Educational Consulting begin NOW!

I guess to sum it up, my experience that I feel when I think about this work is emotional wholeness; wellness from a well that will never run dry. So write it down, tell me, What is the experience that you want to have in your career? When you write it down, it just may be easier to say.

BE. Extraordinary,

Ressurrection Graves

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