Trust your Heart

Jobs that find you

We are so very blessed at Quest for Life with amazing staff, who put their heart and soul into their jobs and make our organisation what it is: A safe place for people to land, when dealing with life’s greatest challenges. I am working today and enjoying the quiet while everyone else takes a break. And in pops an email from Suzanne, one of our most treasured staff members. And attached…..was this blog post. I thought it a fitting time of year to share……it’s all about following your heart!

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Exactly what you need will find you.

For me I was looking for a job.  I had applied for many jobs and found one and was due to start work.   THEN I had a call for an interview at The Quest for Life Foundation.   What is that saying a “bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.   Well that saying went totally out of the window when I took action on a gut feeling.  I had accepted another job that I had no interest or connection with.  This is where it gets interesting.  I took a leap of faith.   I told the employer I was about to start with I had an interview I had to attend (which was the one at QFL) and passed up the job.   I had no reassurance I would even get to a 2^nd interview or even get the job, but I did.

I think now sometimes we really have to listen to ourselves when something is not right for us – we feel it, whether it is tightness in the chest, shoulders or clenched teeth.  Quite often we settle for second best and pretend it is going to be ok.   But the magic lies when we take a leap of faith, just with the knowing there is a chance we will find greatness.  If you are still and you listen to your heart you will find what you need.

After starting work at Quest months and months later I found a list of my perfect job –  to be able to juggle it with family life, I will enjoy, I have the skills, I will be appreciated and actually hold meaning  in the role.

Guess what? My job at Quest ticks all those boxes.   I am thankful I listened to my heart and took that leap of faith and not just settled.

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Thank you Suzanne for your reflections. Now go back to being on holidays! x

Have you ever had a job that found you? We’d love to hear about it.

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Finding Peace in the Midst of Suffering with Petrea King

Staff at St Vincents

Petrea was invited by the Pastoral Care Department of St Vincents Hospital to speak at Grand Rounds in October 2011. Her subject was Spiritual Pain and Suffering and how to be helpful to patients who might be facing end of life issues. The auditorium was packed with the highest number of attendees ever recorded at Grand Rounds. The audience included all medical and administrative personnel with many Heads of Departments as well as the CEO of the hospital attending. This talk is also shown on the in hospital CCTV system so that patients have access to it as well.

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Sitting Like a Mountain

Sitting Like a Mountain

One of the definitions of meditation is having a steady mind, and the aim of meditation is not to identify so closely with thoughts but rather, just to watch them come and go.  In daily life, you usually react to what is happening in the mind.  When you feel happy, you call a friend or write a poem; when you’re feeling down, you might pour a drink or turn on the television.  The discipline of meditation allows you to sit like a mountain with all kinds of weather passing overhead – storms, sun, wind, rain.  Nothing that is thrown up causes a great reaction; you are just aware of the passing weather.  The mountain remains firm and solid and steady, not rocked by the changes that happen all round.  Meditation allows everyone to develop such firmness and dignity.

The Meditation Year
Jane Hope

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When is the best time to plant a tree?

When is the best time to plant a tree?

Another beautiful post from staff member Suzanne. We are going to have to make her a regular on our blog I think!

It is amazing when you come across the answer to a decision you have been struggling with by chance…

I recently had the answer drop into my lap with an issue I was having…actually a Chinese proverb found its way to me (thank you!)

When is the best time to plant a tree?

The answer? Twenty years ago.

When is the second best time to plant a tree?

The answer? NOW!

I myself was struggling – should I commit to a course or not? After some time and consideration I was no closer to a decision. However upon reading this proverb, I thought to myself – yes I probably should have done the course twenty years ago. Will I still be debating the pros and cons twenty years from now? As the second best time is now, I completed my application and have since submitted it. I must say it is so empowering to finally make a decision, take the action and enjoy the leap of faith where ever it may take you.

Have you had something you have struggled with only to find the answer just appears?

Do you have anything you are putting off, perhaps a course or lifestyle change?

Because the second best time is NOW! Is there a tree you want to plant?

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Peace: A Message from Petrea King

Peace Becomes Possible

Crisis in our personal life is often the catalyst for major uplifting transformation. For the past 27 years I (and others in our organisation) have been working with people living with a personal crisis – cancer, HIV/AIDS, grief, loss, trauma, depression, anxiety, violence and abuse.

When individuals realize that we can’t always change what happens to us, but we can change our response to the events, challenges and traumas in our lives, peace becomes possible. Too often people settle for mediocrity until the stimulus of deep suffering creates an opportunity for new choices, creative responses and inspired change in our lives.

It would seem that collectively – globally – we are creating this shared possibility of a new future as environmental collapse, climate change, over population, diminishing resources, political upheaval, economic collapse all contribute to increased personal, community, national and planetary suffering. It seems that this collaborative shift is happening through a combination of our yearning for evolution to a higher human expression of our conscious through the stimulus of our shared suffering. Peace is definitely possible.

We have witnessed the almighty capacities of the human spirit that refuses to be defined by the challenges we experience and instead evolves to a profound state of peace – the peace that passes all understanding. Of this we are all capable and it is a joy to be part of a community of people consciously evolving regardless of whether we are stimulated by suffering, insight or inner wisdom.

Thank you for your company.

Petrea King

Petrea King
N.D., D.R.M., D.B.M., Dip Cl. Hyp., I.Y.T.A.

Petrea King is a well-known author, inspirational speaker, counsellor and workshop leader. She has practiced many forms of meditation since the age of seventeen and she is also qualified as a naturopath, herbalist, hypnotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher.

In 1983 Petrea was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia and was not expected to live.  Meditation and the integration of past traumatic experiences became paramount in her recovery, much of which was spent in a monastery near Assisi in Italy.

Since then, Petrea has counselled individually or through residential programs more than 60,000 people living with life-challenging illnesses, grief, loss, trauma and tragedy. Petrea sees crisis as a catalyst for spiritual growth and understanding and as an opportunity for healing and peace.

Petrea has received the Advance Australia Award and the Centenary Medal for her contribution to the community. She has been nominated for Australian of the Year in each year since 2004.

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