Searching

Let’s agree to disagree - if you will - that job searching is a job in itself. You wake up and the hunt begins, sometimes you even dream about that Love Monday’s advert. Today you are working on your CV, it’s always your CV, you know you have worked on it countless times and it still feels as though it need more tweaking.

A few months ago job searches would drive me down rabbit holes of hell. Work felt like shit and I started to feel like shit, and this was reflected in my searches. My depression made me believe I wasn’t worthy of jobs that I actually wanted and was more than capable of doing, my work conditions were the evidence needed to really cement this feeling. 

As I recover and learn and as my spirituality grows I realise that I had given the reins of my happiness to outside sources, I looked outside for joy instead of looking within. I had lost control of my life to these and didn’t even realise it. My depression was the best worst thing to have ever happened to me : would not recommend 1/10.

I got back the reins of my life and found God, I found her frantically trying to get me to let her out. She was trying to remind me of my worth and the purpose of my life but the outside was so loud I could not hear her. 

The shackles were broken, I was let loose free to run wild and to cry just as wildly. The more in tune I became with myself the more I learn God. 

I have always had an interesting relationship with religion and church. Church choirs and praise teams have always been my favourite part of most churches, they had the ability to grab my soul and reassure me that the love of God was like the love of family but like 10x more, and without expectations or conditions and it felt warm and cuddly. Praise made me feel like the love of God was like the mother’s womb. That feeling finished immediately they finished. 

I stared churching on Ad hoc basis food, praise and giggles were the magic words to get me into churches. Some of the food wasn’t would be so bad that the giggles would then come into to remind me I wasted a Sunday for trash food. Some of the praise was trash, even when it was trash PRAISE was still that guy. Anyone going through it I promise you gospel bangs and holds you differently. 

The most constant thing I felt was the emptiness of the preachers words, while everyone would be intoxicated and hanging onto the preachers’ all I heard was the gaps between the words. 

Pastors always felt out of touch with their congregations and the prevalent prosperity preaching was boring and repetitive and left me feeling all we do is ask God for money. One pastor at a student church encouraged broke ass uni students that if they sow or offered their last £5 God would double it. I didn’t understand it then and I still don’t understand it now, while I know that God can and will provide this felt almost dangerous to tell a bunch of gullible broke students. Why not encourage budgeting and smart money management, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is this advice is irresponsible financial advise.

Another pastor during a youth service shared that someone in youth had approached him because she was masturbating too much, on impulse its somewhat easy to first chuckle, you shouldn’t. This man spent a whole service talking about how masturbation is of the devil and all this shit. Now I am not denying that one can masturbate too much, especially if your life is now on hold coz you are flicking the bean profusely - get help there’s plenty of resources I would like to think - there is nothing inherently wrong with exploring your body, it is yours, if touching yourself brings shame and is sinful, imagine the message and complexes being spread, this again is neither here nor there. The point is this is also rather bad advice. 

My point is I did not find salvation in churches or in the bible - I can admit theres lessons and take home tidbits - but by feeling the power of he who created me. If I was created why couldn’t I embody some of the characteristics of she who created me, after all I mirrored my mum and had my father’s features, why didn’t I have the creator’s? Then I started to deep that I had always looked like my mum, but I never saw it because I went out of my way to not see it, the truth was I had some of my father’s features, I just didn’t know where I got them after all they were on me and as a result mine right? 

Everything I was ever created to be is already within me, I just went out of my way to not see it, I am filled with God’s love and favour, I just never recognised it. I had survived things that on paper should have ended me, I didn’t even realise there was only one set of footprints in the sand. 

I am not saying I LOVE job searches, far from that. When I do the searches now I am fully aware and accepting of what I can bring to companies, it’s a fucking lot. I am going after the jobs I want with my chest. I am doing x, y, z and it feels good. 

Solidarity to all my Job seekers, we got this and we are not defined by our jobs - if you want to be defined by your job more power to you. 

P.s -Some experiences transcend language. But semantics also mean that even as one may try to share an experience the limitations of language mean that the significance or true impact of their sharing will not be understood. And may only be felt. I am not christian, but understand and deeply feel that we were created by God/ Jah/ Yahweh/ Okaka / Onyekeruwa.  For me a big part of this has been defining for myself what I believe and feel to be true, after all life is trial and error and this spirituality and getting in tune with my inner self has been fruitful and beautiful in the most life affirming ways. I can finally sing.