How to Make a Transition Career Move after Being Laid Off during a Pande...

🎈NEW VIDEO How to Make a Transition Career Move after Being Laid Off during a Pandemic in 2020.
In this video, we hear career advice from recruiter Barbara Indiaan, a talent acquisition specialist on How to Make a Transition Career Move after Being Laid Off during a Pandemic in 2020, whether it's in pandemic times or not. Barbara talks about the reasons one might change careers, how to go about it and how to prepare accordingly. She gives specific tips on how you can make a career change.

Top 5 Essential Oils for Sleeping Soundly and Longer

Hey Guys! Check out my new video!
🌺🙏 In Top 5 Essential Oils for Sleeping Soundly and Longer, Monica Fernandes with Evolution Essentials discusses what essential oils are good for sleep. Monica goes over which essential oils to put in your diffuser, some deep sleep essential oil blends and she goes through each of the top 5, plus 2 bonus ones, that means her favorite 7 essential oils to help you sleep.

Will you change a life?

With everything that is going on in the world right now, I feel life has greatly shifted. The past few months with COVID-19, the world has stopped in mushroomed attempts to put out this invisible fire. I felt the calling to help. With a compromised immune system, my options were limited, so I thought about reaching out to friends in different continents, different countries and ask them how they were dealing with stress in times of crisis. You see, these friends and networking contacts are experts in their fields: from doctors and life coaches to teachers, healers and business managers.

The strangest thing happened though: I thought their advice would overlap and that they would have the same stress-reducing tips. Boy was I wrong. I realized through this process that because everyone is unique, that they are also unique on how they deal with stress. Some turn to music or nature, others to meditation or exercise. The list is really endless. And speaking of lists, a few even talked about lists: gratitude lists, to-do lists, 6-12 months plan for a future crisis.

https://youtu.be/vA7dPNCRRKk

I will be forever grateful for these generous souls who took the time in their day to chat with me over Zoom. My technological learning curve is steep: not because I wanted it to be, but because I realized that for me to help those that are having a hard time, struggling with stress and overwhelm during the coronavirus months, and probably in the aftermath, I needed to grow my brand new channel. These Evolution Talks, as I named them, are part of this series of How to Deal with Stress and Crisis, and for them to be useful, I need your help.

I need your help in sharing the channel. I am not a celebrity, and my reach is limited. So, if you share it with your loved ones, friends and communities, and someone you know watches it and they are secretly struggling with pandemic stress, they might feel inspired or not alone, or maybe they take one of those tips and implement it into their routine, it could change a life. Will you help me change one life?

Here is the link to my YouTube Channel: https://rb.gy/lwmt9d

You will be in my gratitude list. Thank you.

When the crisis is over

How do you define yourself before, during and after a pandemic?

I can’t say that the common person was prepared or even thought about the possibility of one occurring. I bet lots of people who weren’t paying attention in school won't even remember that 1918 saw a pandemic. 1918 seems so long ago, over 100 years and so much has changed since then. The world had seen its first World War, and we had a second one, even more devastating.

Watch this episode to make sense of all of it

It seems like the more time goes by, man finds ways to be more belligerent and assert his power over others. Boasting this unrepentant superiority complex, we are not civilized at all. We consider ourselves to be the top of the food chain, but we treat others and the planet worse than any other species. We also suffer from selective memory as humanity as a whole obliterates much of the good it creates by harming others and nature. Nature that has given us so much bounty; nature, our savior, can also be our destroyer.

Why is COVID-19 happening? Why now? I am not talking about where it came from but referring to its existential cause. Could it be nature’s way of teaching us a lesson? Our karmic destiny? Will we change as a consequence? Will our leaders reassess priorities? It would certainly be the right time to do so.

There are many occasions I can be a positive person, but I fear, in this case, my skepticism is king. I fear that the powerful will, more than ever, want to hold on to it, and this carelessness about the future of the select few who could make drastic fundamental change will be guided by fear and the obsession with power, control and greed.

If this pandemic taught us anything positive thus far is that we are much more dependent on one another and that together we can really make a difference, even if our togetherness seems skewed and mostly done virtually. The commonality of love for others has propelled the essential workers to become superheroes and this planet may propel others to make changes, but is it strong enough or will others resume their selfish isolationist ways, where survival of the fittest is at the core of a species that cannot learn from catastrophe to save itself?

As we take our time to connect with our loved ones in different ways, I feel more than ever called to make some changes. I feel lots brewing in my brain, a cauldron of ideas spinning, and I have faith I am not the only one. Hope and love will always trump fear and hate.

Time, Gratitude and Daniela Ruah

Time is fleeting. It has been two months since any words made the page, except when my 19-year old cat had an emergency and we ended up making several trips to the vet.

As we (most of us, minus all the incredible essential workers tirelessly working during a pandemic) are all safe in our own homes, I reflect on how we all need connection, especially when our connections with others can only be made in words, calls and video communications.

For weeks, I have thought of the mental state of people and the psychological aftermath of COVID-19.

It’s at these times that the fear monster thrives and feeds off our worries, sucks our energy to the point of oblivion, making some of us apathetic, sad, anxious and desperate as if light could not permeate the avalanche of negative thoughts. We are bombarded by the daunting numbers and stories around the world. It's not easy.

Our minds are so powerful though. As fast as our spirit can feel dimmed, our thoughts can navigate us to more positive shores. We are the captains of our minds and we must accept the lack of control we have towards the virus itself. The extent of our control is in our actions of safety in quarantining, social distancing, washing our hands, using masks, and following other guidelines. We must focus on the things we can do and how we can wheel our actions to plant seeds of positivity.

The secret is focus. Focus on gratitude, on what we have and make an extra effort outward to connect with our loved ones virtually. When we focus on the love, the fear cannot penetrate. It will die, just as one day so will this virus.

Take the time that you have to be and to do, if so inclined. Remember to nurture yourself well: you have the chance to feed your body with beautiful foods, hydrate and rest. If sleep is not coming, try to quiet your mind with meditation, prayer, music and whatever else calms you. For me, it’s diffusing my essential oils, reiki and writing. Sometimes, I write just gibberish, other times, I do create something with words. Sow masks to donate, as I just saw on Instagram Portuguese-American actress Daniella Ruah do! I am a distant cousin of hers, according to my mother. Unfortunately, I do not have her sowing talent. Paint or draw if you love that. My friend Paula has the painting talent and her flowers on canvas are just spectacular. Exercise, move, get some fresh air, whether it’s opening a window or going outside responsibly. Make a call, connect, rearrange your closet or your house. Cook what you have always dreamed of.

In the meantime, I wish you all the best. If you shop online, make sure you leave the boxes outside and bring the contents to disinfect before allocating them. Stay safe and stay home, if you are not an essential worker. If you are an essential worker, I thank you for all that you do. My heart goes to the families of loved ones who have been affected by the pandemic. Remember, wherever you are, breathe. Do it again. Be grateful.

Are you crazy?

I heard that question a lot before I moved. I heard it from friends and family. If some of them had listened, they would have heard me talk over the years about how I would love to live near the beach and how I was sick and tired of shoveling snow.

When the snow fell during New England winters, especially when we would be hit by Nor’easters or some terrifying blizzard, I would be alone. My cats would not help me stock the house with wood. I kept the wood in the little shed in my front yard (the one with a red door I had painted a few years before), where I always would have to shovel a path to as the other main door was not near the driveway and the areas that would commonly get plowed or shoveled. I had to make sure there would be a path of access in case of, God forbid, loss of power. When you have low temperatures for months in a row, your oil bill skyrockets because your heating system is working hard to maintain your house warm, or at least to keep the heat in. Air circulation can be poor, as it is too cold to open a window and if you did, you might as well be throwing hundred-dollar bills out of it. I definitely do not miss those $600 bills every three weeks. Yes, the air gets stagnant and dry and your skin and lungs feel it deeply.

Unless you have lived it, you cannot judge how it feels or try to project on me some sort of notion that I should stay in the same place. On top of it all, I was going to be taken out of my Comfort Zone in the sense that I didn’t really know where I would ultimately end up.

Yes, it was scary to think that I would leave my network of friends and familiar surroundings. It was daunting to know that most likely what I could create as a home elsewhere would not be the same as my home of the last ten years. It was a huge risk, financially, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, to move over a thousand miles away, put my stuff in storage, drive down with a car full of stuff, my two cat babies and find a place to live with my partner of 2.5 years at the time when we had not lived together before then.

I found myself in a one-bedroom apartment on an island right on the beach thinking to myself: “if this doesn’t work with him, I will probably know pretty quickly.” They were close quarters and we were tired of being on hyperdrive mode moving from hotel room to hotel room in different cities every few days. It was stressful but it didn’t feel daunting. I knew this was the person for me, but there was always a sliver of a chance that we wouldn’t live well together. At this stage in our lives, people are settled in their own ways. The routines and the habits are established. But I had faith and I had hope.

After one week, I relished in the fact that even though we hated our full size bed in our rental (he’s almost 6’4 ft or 1.95 m) and I am not little either, I was living my dream of being near the beach and we were getting along better than I could have ever imagined. Even though I knew in my soul that we made a good team, the “what if” nagging possibility of a total bust was there. I knew then I had made the right choice, despite the sacrifice of leaving my loved ones and risking everything. Embarking into the Discomfort Zone, as my friend Pilar so eloquently puts it, and into the waters of the Learning Zone and landing on the Growth Zone where you live your dream.

There were still lots of challenges ahead: missing my loved ones was in store, we had to area hunt, house hunt and find a more permanent home, which we did six months later. I was looking forward to exploring.

We have now been in our home for 2.5 months, and we are steadily settling in. I still miss my friends, more than they could ever know. Now I have the opportunity to start over in a new place and I am looking forward to more discoveries. Not only of new places, people and experiences, but of myself.

Moving 1,300 miles with two cats

I sold my house of 10 years. The day before the closing, I put my two cats in their carriers into my old Honda Accord and with every crevice of the car full, I drove to Westerly, Rhode Island where my boyfriend lived.

The adventure began. I had medicated the two babies, Lucky and Rocky and I didn’t hear a peep the entire ride down, which took about an hour.

Two days in Westerly were traumatic enough for Rocky, the youngest at 13 years of age. Guilt washed over me like a typhoon as I felt I had ripped them from their home and everything they knew: their comfort, their territory, their corners, where it smelled familiar and where the daily routines had been ingrained for a whole decade. In contrast, after a few curious strolls around the house, Lucky plopped on the bed and slept, or looked outside the window at birds or the occasional car, and his change of scenery didn’t seem to faze him one bit.

Rocky, on the other hand, found any corner to hide in, behaved aggressively and transformed into this feral creature I didn’t recognize, as he hissed, growled like a panther and scratched the living daylights out of our skin. He had passed on his anxiety and fear onto me a couple months back every time I had to remove him during an open house when car rides and strange houses were involved.

Lucky

The vet had sold me two things: one was kitty Prozac and the other was a pheromone spray to put around the carrier or space 15 minutes prior to their presence. He told me I should start the pill two weeks before leaving, but after two days, I had stopped, because these boys were not themselves. They were shadows of their normal selves and I only resumed drugging their food two days before departure. We left Rhode Island on May 3^rd, and these guys were nearly comatose. I almost thought that the spray was more effective without side effects for them, just a lingering unpleasant smell that was still faintly present in my car, three weeks later.

Rocky

Our first stop was right off the highway in a place I had never heard of, Emporia, Virginia, then two days in Myrtle Beach, SC, a place I had always wondered about, but will no longer, as I found it to be too commercial for my taste even though we did find the best tasting Thai sweetened iced tea on the planet somewhere in town. Then two days in Saint Augustine, Florida which were very pleasant, and finally we spent an entire week at a La Quinta in Fort Pierce, FL right off the highway, where the ample room didn’t do much for Rocky’s unhappiness. He kept sleeping in the smallest of carriers, and it didn’t matter if we were in the room or not, it seemed he didn’t leave his cage.

Lucky at La Quinta

While at La Quinta, we would leave them in the room, and we would venture off looking at places to rent. It wasn’t easy to find a place that would be willing to do short term rentals, accepting of cats, but after what seemed  million phone calls, we lucked out and found a 1 bedroom 1 bath condo on a gated community right on Hutchinson Island, a miserly 3-minute walk from the beach, one of the reasons we were relocating.

Rocky at La Quinta

After lugging the contents of our cars into the 2^nd floor unit, we couldn’t believe we were steps from the ocean – we could even see a little bit from our screened narrow balcony. I opened the oversized glass sliders, and the cats immediately ventured outside. The sound of the birds, the hot breeze and the scent of the sea provided a cocktail of hope for us and the curious cat kids. Deep down, I knew we were going to be alright.