Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Hopalong on February 10, 2016, 05:24:35 PM
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Oh my dear Amazons + Doc G, your powers are far-reaching.
I can hardly believe it but I did get a job I was truly excited about. I start end of month. It not only keeps the wolf from the door but it's a humane and positive atmosphere and I'll have a wonderful balance of people-time plus writing-time, and some creativity and nurturing to boot.
If you could feel my sighs of relief from wherever you are, the walls of your rooms would be rattling!
So much thanks for your endless patience and support during EIGHT YEARS of whining about Nboss! I never imagined I could earn nearly the same, and be okay. But I will be.
It's close to home, it's NOT isolating, and it's a lovely little old-age institution I've known and felt good about all my life. I get to build fund-raising and marketing programs from scratch. (It's a private pay non-profit, where old well-to-do folks wind up. But it's small and homey and has the kindest, friendliest staff I've ever encountered...and I've visited every place in town from the NMom days.)
I am so thankful I can't find the words for it.
love y'all,
Hops
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That's wonderful news, Hops! You deserve it!
Richard
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Aw, Hopsie, this has made my week! :) I am so, so truly happy for you, happy you've escaped, happy there will be money rolling in, happy the new place is a great job, not just an 'this will have to do for now' job and I'm also very happy that the new place is getting such a great and amazing addition to their team! I'm so, so chuffed for you, what a lovely thing to read first thing in the morning :) Really glad someone worthwhile has seen your brilliance and wants a piece of it :) Looking forward to hearing all about it :) xx
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:shock: WOW, THAT DIDN'T TAKE LONG AT ALL!!!!
That's fabulous news Hops and you do, truly, deserve to land on your feet in the best of all possible situations. (Dare I say this is also the BEST possible "revenge" on Nboss, too? You've just made his self-centric melodramatic little ego as irrelevant to you and your life as possible!)
Doin' the happy dance for ya Hops! It's really OK, to enjoy the good stuff - it's JUST AS REAL and lasting as the other stuff. Wheee... is it time for a haircut and new outfit? Some flowers for an informal bouquet? Little celebrations?
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happyhappyhappy
luckyluckylucky
gratefulgratefulgrateful
And here's some inexplicable WOO WOO (to cheer anybody who's not doing a happydance just now...). In my long-winded way:
There is a nice gentleman from my childhood church I normally run into about every 15 years for 5 minutes. I usually say hi, remember me, I'm X and Y's daughter and he always says, Of course! How are you, etc? And that's it.
So. Here's the woo woo part. Two weeks ago, I ran into him at a grocery store and we had a nice 5-minute chat in front of the produce. It was nice and as ever I felt very touched that he remembers who I am from 30+ YEARS AGO. I mean, really! My parents didn't even stay at that church...when I went to college they went to a different one.
So a week after seeing him I spotted this job listing, went to the organization's website and noticed that HE IS ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. So you betcha, I called him and just asked for his insight about organizational issues and any wisdom (telling him up front I was applying...). And when I did go to the formal interview, the first thing the director mentioned was that she'd just seen him. I wondered whether she'd find that threatening, but I just said Oh he was great! I called to ask his wisdom about what the issues are. And she just wanted to know what he said, and I shared it all transparently. And she seemed to feel fine about it.
It's not the only reason I got the job but it had to have helped.
And the WOO part is why the heck did that happen? Why did I happen to run into this elderly acquaintance and just a week later find that I could have a lovely, honest talk with him about the organization, and a week after that, be HIRED?
It's just too much good luck. My brain doesn't know what to do with it, with luck...except be grateful.
But really. WOO.
(And if it can happen for me WOO can happen for others. I sure hope. My agnosticism hurts.)
:lol:
love,
Hops
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What a relief :) Thank god. Maybe the world isn't such a bad place after all, it's so easy for mind to run away with fearful expectations.
Been away from board for a while.
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Hops, despite all the yucky stuff I've had to hose off myself and climb up through over the years... I FIRMLY believe that there are wavelengths of light and goodness and kindness and "happy" that are always there in the universe; and "all the love that you've been giving has all been meant for you". It's the other kind of karma. Not Woo. Flip side of the bad kind of karma.
YES, there are people like this gentleman that embody that; are channels for that wavelength. And yes, chance meetings and long associations, even of a superficial type can yield amazing things. I'm trying to figure out a way to be/do that, myself. I've been the beneficiary of the same kind of thing a few times in my life. Time for me to find a way to continue the tradition, ya know? Clearly, it was YOUR TURN to experience this. You've been "in line", quite long enough.
A friend of mine, has young adult daughters that were adopted out of the slums of Brazil; the Favelas. There's recently been an up close & personal, life changing encounter with the truth that "life happens while we're making plans" for one of the daughters. Both of them, he discovered, still believed that if they were responsible for any dishonor or transgression that they would exiled from the family; sent away. (They had been sold into trafficking to drug mafias as small girls.) My friend took that personally at first ("after all this time and how we've cared for them!") until I explained that it may take the girls the rest of their lives to learn that yes, it's OK to trust in good things - they are just as real as the awful bad things that exist in this life. And the probability of the same exact bad things happening to anyone again, are extremely low. The girls simply haven't acquired enough evidence of that yet; it takes years and years. And every little bad thing that happens as a course of normal life, becomes a potential threat for the really bad awful shtf kind of experience again. Once burned, twice shy kind of thing.
It's something that I reflected, applies to us here a bit. We've all lived through and endured some bad stuff; to the point that it has affected who we are as people - until we start to peel that stuff off and find out who we really are; until we start to explore and discover the OTHER parts of life. Contrary to our fears, we aren't banned or exiled from the "good stuff". Being and feeling happy isn't guaranteed to bring an automatic mean & nasty response. I think maybe there's a lot of treasure to mined in that aspect of things... the good stuff... and why people don't simply accept that as openly as they do the bad karma that flings collateral poo everywhich way on innocent bystanders. (I KNOW there is for me; it's just a suggestion for you all.)
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happyhappyhappy
luckyluckylucky
gratefulgratefulgrateful
And here's some inexplicable WOO WOO (to cheer anybody who's not doing a happydance just now...). In my long-winded way:
There is a nice gentleman from my childhood church I normally run into about every 15 years for 5 minutes. I usually say hi, remember me, I'm X and Y's daughter and he always says, Of course! How are you, etc? And that's it.
So. Here's the woo woo part. Two weeks ago, I ran into him at a grocery store and we had a nice 5-minute chat in front of the produce. It was nice and as ever I felt very touched that he remembers who I am from 30+ YEARS AGO. I mean, really! My parents didn't even stay at that church...when I went to college they went to a different one.
So a week after seeing him I spotted this job listing, went to the organization's website and noticed that HE IS ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. So you betcha, I called him and just asked for his insight about organizational issues and any wisdom (telling him up front I was applying...). And when I did go to the formal interview, the first thing the director mentioned was that she'd just seen him. I wondered whether she'd find that threatening, but I just said Oh he was great! I called to ask his wisdom about what the issues are. And she just wanted to know what he said, and I shared it all transparently. And she seemed to feel fine about it.
It's not the only reason I got the job but it had to have helped.
And the WOO part is why the heck did that happen? Why did I happen to run into this elderly acquaintance and just a week later find that I could have a lovely, honest talk with him about the organization, and a week after that, be HIRED?
It's just too much good luck. My brain doesn't know what to do with it, with luck...except be grateful.
But really. WOO.
(And if it can happen for me WOO can happen for others. I sure hope. My agnosticism hurts.)
:lol:
love,
Hops
Hopsie, sometime I think the universe/God/karma or whatever you want to call it looks down and says "Do you know what, this one needs a bit of fairy dust sprinkling her way". And equally that's true for the people that have hired you; some organisations want and welcome honesty, proactive staff and opportunities to hear what might need a bit of work on because they want to improve and be the best they can be. They've got a great asset for their company now and you've got a great job so I think you've all experienced a bit of woo woo just recently and I think, most importantly, YOU VERY MUCH DESERVE IT!!! :) XX
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Ahh, thanks Tupp. That's a kind fantasy.
I guess my best answer to the woo that puzzles me is that life became inexplicably compassionate and something good happened and in the sense that I talk about those things a lot, I ought to allow myself to believe in the hopeful things I wish for others.
Evil is banal but there's a mystery to good things happening. As a child I was taught the word "grace" but there's no good thought system (for me) in which grace gives me a nice new job but doesn't pluck a toddler out of the sea. "Mystery" works better for me. I guess I have to just re-accept that compassion exists, and keep feeling and accepting it. Even if I don't understand the source, it sometimes appears.
There are tsunamis, and there are crocuses poking through snow. Neither makes sense, but both exist. What allows me to enjoy the crocus is good luck intersecting with receptivity. It also means I better not forget to be grateful and to share. Because every day afloat is a gift.
Who knows, maybe the subconscious contains the woo. And mine sent a chat to the wrong inbox.
Maybe my own deep mind and/or inner child rescued me. It was wooful.
And now I have looked the gift Clydesdale in the mouth so deeply that my sneakers are about to disappear down his throat.
Hops
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Hops:
I'm overcome every time I meet kind, compassionate people who're willing to take astep or more out of their way for other good people.
You're the kind of person people want good things to happen to, Hops.
I can't tell you how relieved I was to read this thread.... I feel buried in a white cotton cold virus right now, but......
this is a balm.
Truly: )
Congratulations, Hops.
This is so exciting!
Lighter
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Congrats Hops & YAY for the WOO WOO!
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Contrary to our fears, we aren't banned or exiled from the "good stuff". Being and feeling happy isn't guaranteed to bring an automatic mean & nasty response.
Great post, PR.
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I just had a roomful of friends watching Downton here, with my pooch working the room.
She's trained them all. Other than food, she is motivated purely by being close to people
and being touched. She is a hoover for love!
It was so much fun to perch in my chair (she'd come jump on my lap for a bit now and then
for my particular pats) and watch her go from one lap on the couch to another lap in another
armchair, and then stand over my pal on the big floor pillow, and later gently nose the dog-shy
neighbor who's fallen in love with her. Every single time she'll just quietly turn up right beside
someone, and offer them her Very Persistent Patience until the arm goes out and the hand starts
moving and her bliss begins. Then she'll look across the room at me as though to
say, "This is just the coolest thing. You all stare at the noisybox and I'm getting this!"
If she were a cat she'd be purring. She is so tired after these marathon love-sessions (we
always watch the repeat of last week's show and then the new one) that after they leave
she staggers off to bed on her own. Just cracks me up.
What a tangent. What I really meant to say is that it hit me when I trundled off to bed
that opening up VESMB and reading all these extraordinarily loving and incredibly genuinely
supportive messages is just as real as the 3D friendships and in many ways more intimate.
I can't thank you all enough. (And hello, Ann!)
For some reason I went back and read pages of my posts going back 10 years. It's like
a journal and I couldn't even take in all the things I've lived through during this time.
All I know is that I think you people are the very reason I have made it so far. Nobody
has been so patient, so responsive, so repeatedly welcoming, almost ever in my life.
Thank you, every one. And Doc G...hope you know.
With much gratitude,
Hops
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You sound so centered and happy, Hops.
It's a joy to read your update: )
Lighter
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Hopsie stuff like this makes me happy :) I have this lovely image of you now, N Boss relegated to to the past, lovely new job on the horizon, woo woo moments with nice man who sounds like a good egg and a room full of friends with happy pooch and Downton! Something I think is a good by product of going through bloody awful situations is that you can have those lovely moments of simple pleasure - some good company and a bit of security and all is well. Hooray for Hops :) xx
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Very happy for you Hops. Well deserved too.
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:D
This is wonderful news Hops! Well deserved!
I look at this way - you always worked hard and kept your head up and took the high road! That is smart and practical! You are in an excellent position to say "I can work well/collaborate/manage/fill in the blank with anyone and get results" and actually have the experience, skills and tenacity for that to be a complete and true statement. Take confidence in that!
On the "woo" side, what you did was "passing the test" and "blooming where you were planted" and you did it well. God/The Universe/Karma/Synchronicity/Law of Attraction, whatever you choose to call it/believe in, recognizes that. You didn't quit, or crumble or turn malicious or manipulative and thus, good things came your way.
You made my day as well - I came here just to see how much progress I have made and was happy to see you have moved on as well! Lets hope 2016 brings good to us all here at the Board!
All the best to you Hops and everyone here!
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Oh bless y'all. Every one. And long-missed GS and Ales, thank you
for chiming in! Tupp, Boat, Lighter...your good wishes warm my heart. Thank you.
Ales...you give me way too much credit, though. Though I mostly
contained it, I was swallowing so much malice toward Nboss that
by the end I felt as though it really did sicken and change me.
Still. I am rebuilding my sense of security, shaking off the PSTD (well,
lower-case ptsd, to not disrespect vets) of spending 8 years with him.
I will start liking myself better after a time of dealing with benign folks.
The oldsters and my coworkers too.
I really do think I'm beyond Nboss' reach now. But I'm not eager for
him to hear about my new job, as I wouldn't put it past him to
try to undermine it. Somehow I think even his special powers
don't reach that far, though. I'm respected in the community (and
my face and voice are still all in the TV ads, which is funny...people
mention it to me all the time--he hasn't replaced me yet!).
Comforted myself today by reading about cults, so often headed
by Ns. And I realize that I really did see him for what he was, and
fought back against the mind games as hard as I could. Not one
soul (save my officemate, and even he's cut me off for now) from
my workplace of all those years has dared reach out to me. (Nboss
made it clear "there would be no benefit" in staying in touch.) He
rules by fear, manipulation and distortion and I am so so so well
rid of him.
Thanks for all the support and your congratulations, which mean
so much to me after how you've all listened to my victim bleating
for so long.
love
Hops
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Hops - I know you feel like you complained and were victim bleating, but sometimes the solutions seem simple, but the feelings are hard. Or the insecurity of the situation wears us down and into fear mode which inhibits good decision making. You made good decisions. Take the credit - complaining on this board is a good outlet and a constructive one. If you were malicious, you could have twittered about evil NBoss. :)
Your description of "swallowing malice" intrigues me... I wonder if there is any way to deal with that problem. I can relate to feeling permanently changed or defeated by these people and making it harder to move on... Wish I had an answer to that one. I know some new-age people talk about "cutting cords" and letting things go... but how does one actually do that besides changing jobs and phone numbers or similar things in the external world. What about the internal world?
Anyway, glad to hear you are moving forward. Enjoy your new place and make it a success!
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Victim bleating?
It was survival bleating.
When I think back on the creepy meetings he called, the way he wanted you to expose yourself emotionally to that pet sycophant of his..... how he handicapped you, sabotaged you, assigning himself head pubah mediator over everyone, like it or not....
honestly, it gives me chills.
And you stood up to him. Amazing.
You did that, and you talked about it here so you didn't implode.
No bleating about it.
You vented, and coped, and overcame.
I'm glad you're out of there, Hops.
Lighter
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Just want to apologize for fading nearly away (TEMPORARILY!) and posting such short comments when I do pop in.
This is about my first few weeks of New Job, which is overall feeling wonderful...wonderful!
But I tend to be tapped out at night (learning curve and all that).
Lighter, thank you.
And everybody...sending much love and promises of future long-windedness!
xxoo,
Hops
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Hops, you are a success! I just luv you...
Yep, second that :) x
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Thank you, TT!
I'm eager to try that with just one concern:
My hair is SO pure white that it absorbs even the tiniest trace of color, and I wonder if it'd yellow my hair.
(I've bought what I assumed were wise products, natural oil based...and boom, yellow pretty soon. Olive oil for one...duh.
Would distilled white vinegar work as well topically? I could take the natural ACS (with the "mother") internally though.
Hugs and thanks,
Hops
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TT:
Thanks for the pointer.
Lighter
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This vinegar is a home remedy for a lot of things. And yes, there are likely some active enzymes in the mother that are the real secret. I think the vinegar fits into the theory about alkaline-acid balance in our bodies. (This gets a little woo-woo, so bear with me...)
If you consider that things like brain function and heart function are kind of "electrical systems"... you could see how the balance of acid-alkaline fits into being part of the "battery" balance. When a battery's innards are no longer balanced, it corrodes. Well, the "input" port into our bodies for these kinds of systems, is our stomach. And a bit of ACV, this time of year particularly, can help with that allergy tickle at the back of your throat, keeps the stomach juices regulated and in balance (yogurt being the other half of that equation)... which in turn provides the fuel to regulate a lot of the other systems in the body.
We now return you to your regular programming.... :D
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Well, fortunately for me, my new job is amid loads of people in their 80s and 90s, so ain't nobody but me staring at MY head for glimpses of scalp...
:lol:
xo
Hops
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Hops. It sounds like you are the youngster in the crowd. I hope for great reward for you.
Btw, I loves Braggs as well. Love your helpful explanation Skepikal! But consider adding one more supplement. - primrose oil helps tremendously with hair loss.
Love to you.
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It took a big push from the universe and a wild moment of being a lion to get you out of your soul destroying situation at work. I think you were very brave and crossed the abyss over some harrowing seas full of uncertainty and self searching. Bravo! Also reminds me of a big, ole eagle when his wings get drenched, sitting high up in a fir tree with his wings down and fanned out. Temporarily stalled because of rain and wet and cold. Very difficult circumstance for an eagle and when there is a break in the clouds and they get a chance to dry out their feathers, they are airborn again. Only a change in the weather will help.
you are not a whiner. Stop that. You shared a difficult part of your life and thanks for that. And what a happy ending to that chapter.
Lots of love
Sea storm
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Hooo, boy. Here it is:
I'm back to square one. The director (of the Assisted Living and/or retirement home), a dragon lady of about 75, decided not to keep me. Every manager (5) told me they've spoken to the board about her. But for now, she still has the power and that's what she decided. (Offered thin excuses that didn't remotely pass muster, per the HR person. The reality was, she's hyper controlling...and perceived me as a threat. Admissions procedures were complex and she refused to train me--wanted me to figure it all out from chaotic files and really ghastly existing records. No procedure manual, no nothing. And multiple legal and medical ramifications that she wouldn't explain, for every form (some of which were incoherent, redundant...or lost.)
I just about had finished updating and streamlining the process, but as to the marketing side, she wouldn't even allow me to manage a print ad (which I've done hundreds of)...so I don't think it could've worked, as long as she's there.
Long boring tale and a real disappointment--I did love the place. But...I am a determined person. I can, in fact, retire at the end of the month on bare-survival social security, if I want to. But I'd rather keep going until 70 (you earn way more SS for life if you postpone it). We'll see. I'm nothing if not resourceful.
You guys are SO patient.
love,
Hops
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Oh, Dear....
this isn't good. Why do they keep the crazy people, and let the good ones go?
Once I did designed and produced a POP display for Hitachi Power Tool. One of the people involved (not the boss who hired me) was a nutter, combative, ridiculing, and abrasive. EVERYONE involved knew what she was, but there she was.... creating discord everywhere she went, and getting paid for it.
I'm so sorry to hear this happened to you, Hops.
You'll find something else.... likely better.
::nodding::
Lighter
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Good grief. That is so crappy.
It is all experience and please try not to take it personally. One can retire and work on the side so that there is a cushion there. I believe you about the supervisor. There must be something about strong, intelligent women that threatens a lot of people and if those insecure people are in power, they won't abide the threat.
Dear Hops
There is something coming that is good and does not involve pushing a large boulder up a hill.
All the best
Sea