sliding to persistence

I can't believe I hardly posted for the last month. I have been pretty stressed out at work since my manager's gone, so I've had to handle logistics all by my lonesome (with some help from the boss and salespeople). Normally it wouldn't be too bad, except that we had a slew of quality issues with one product and a few other headaches that came up. Things are slowing down a bit now, and they hired a new logistics manager, so I have someone else to take the burden off my shoulders.

I did manage to learn a few things about myself through this ordeal though. I learned that whenever something goes wrong, if it is related to my responsibilities, I have a tendency to think it's my fault, so I start criticizing myself and seeing ways in which I could've prevented the situation from happening but didn't. I end up putting much more stress on myself than necessary. Through the Michael teachings I learned that my biggest fear is the fear of vulnerability (and, in turn, fear of criticism), which they call the "chief feature" of Arrogance. People who have a fear of vulnerability can either manifest it as 1. what we typically think of as arrogance, 2. shyness (as in, "I think I'm so important that people watch my every move and is always ready to criticize, so I watch everything I say and do"), and/or 3. fear of making mistakes ("I need to do everything perfectly so that no one can criticize me"). I manifest 2 & 3 for the most part.

Another good thing that came out of this is that I was so stressed out that it bled into my life outside of work. As a result, I desperately sought ways to relieve the stress. I went back to Abraham's teachings, which I had read but did not continue to follow through. Abraham is an entity not unlike Michael, but with different teachings channeled through Esther and Jerry Hicks. Their teachings focus on conscious creation, particularly how the emotions are like a guidance system that tell you if you are aligned with your desires or out of alignment. On their emotional scale, love and joy are at the top and fear/depression are at the bottom. Just re-reading their book The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent helped me feel better, since I was reminded that the stress/frustration/overwhelment I was feeling were obviously not in alignment with my desire of job satisfaction and peace of mind. I will probably find some time to do more of the exercises from their books this weekend.

That and I was driven to meditating regularly. I knew meditation would help calm me down, and it's something I've wanted to do on a regular basis but had a hard time focusing. I recently got a meditation CD with a bunch of 8-minute meditations by Bodhipaksa. The guy is Scottish (Bodhipaksa is his Buddhist name) and so has a lovely accent in the guided meditation. I've been meditating everyday for a week now, and I love the short meditations since I don't have much time to meditate in the mornings. I feel ready to move on to longer meditations now, so I'm getting his other meditation CD's as well.

So that's all for now. I have lots of blogging material, since I transcribed my Michael channeling session. I just love talking about Michael's teachings. In addition, my aunt recently met a new boyfriend under extraordinary synchronicities, and I love stories like this so I may post something about it.