In 2003, I stepped into Canadian soil with the desire to change my life—both professionally and personally. Looking back, it seems that my expectations have been far exceeded by reality. Changes (on both levels) have become a way of life that continues to amaze and bring me joy!
I passed the phase of making plans about what I’d like to do, then take action accordingly.
I have gained enough experience that could be useful in this regard. However, living in Canada opened my mind to new perspectives and proved to me often that not only my plans don’t always pan out as expected, but life has much more twisted plans for me!
The unexpected changes of direction it pushed me through turned out to be much more interesting than what I thought I wanted! In time, I learned to trust what life offers me… even if it seems meaningless at first!
The winds… the ocean waves… mentioned by Eminescu* are omnipresent in my Canadian life.
Every time I think I’ve reached the lower limit—or had to make a tough decision—an energizing thought inspired me to take action… often in an unexpected direction… and with fascinating results!
I kept talking about the 2016 burnout that pushed me to writing, when I started worrying about what would happen to me if I couldn’t talk for the rest of my life (I couldn’t speak for four months, and it took a few more for my voice to get back to normal). However, while writing my first book, I fell in love with the writer’s life and the potential to help many more people this way!
By then, I had already changed careers (from engineering to coaching, in 2006), but it never occurred to me that doing daily workshops could take out almost all the energy from an introvert like me! It drained my energy to such a point that it affected my physical and mental health. It led to burnout, which in fact became a blessing in disguise: life opened a new path that suits me better! Probably I would have not considered this direction if I wasn’t having health problems that made it difficult to even walk.
But it got better from there!
Writing helped me regain both my physical and mental health, while the burnout symptoms vanished gradually. Once I learned how to publish and promote my first book, it opened up my appetite to publish the two photo-coaching albums I created earlier (for self-coaching). And in less than three years I published ten books, including those translated into French and Romanian.
It’s interesting how the new direction also answered a question I had since I created my first photo-coaching album in 2009: what format should I use to make the self-coaching available to more people without investing a large amount of money and time for printing, promoting and shipping? Happy to find the answer: Print on Demand services from Amazon and IngramSpark! Even better, now I have also the option to have some of my books available in electronic format on various platforms (Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, Nook).
I wondered for years why I did an MBA, besides having that opportunity while still in Romania.
I knew that I wasn’t interested in getting a management position. But it proved very useful—along with the other skills I had accumulated (in the technical field, coaching, marketing, business…)—when I wrote and launched my first book in 2017: it became a bestseller in 9 countries and won an award the following year. To me, it wasn’t just a book: it was a very useful product that I needed to help, to reach many people! And it did: 3200+ downloads within the first 36 hours and many more since!
Soon after—eager to help other immigrants like me who were interested in expressing themselves in writing—I started the Immigrant Writers Association (IWA) with other twelve immigrants who believed in my dream: to make more immigrant voices be heard, express their thoughts and insights, share their stories… thus building bridges that enrich us all! We published an anthology together in 2019 (Building Bridges), and we are about to publish the second one (Grow Together).
The desire to help other immigrants was present long ago.
By then I had already accumulated a decade of experience in applying coaching to employment counselling… until the burnout hit me! Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised by the opportunities brought by my first book: I was invited to give presentations at various organizations, at conferences, and I ended up teaching Business Communication and do coaching sessions at York University—Glendon Campus. Although I had thought before that I’d like to reach this level, probably the time had not come yet.
However, the COVID19 pandemic—which has brought the whole world to its knees since March 2020—sharpened my desire to express myself more.
As many people lost their jobs during this time, it reminded me of 2012 when the organization I worked for unexpectedly eliminated my job. Maybe that experience wouldn’t have been so devastating if the manager hadn’t pushed me to choose between two options, one more difficult than the other.
Losing that job opened the artistic path for me!
It started with an invitation to do a photo exhibition, which led to creating another one (Metaphors) as part of Le Labo mentoring program for artists. To my great astonishment, the photographs I included in this new exhibition—accompanied by the text they inspired me—portrayed exactly the emotional journey I had gone through a year earlier, after being laid off.
I totally forgot about that exhibition until the COVID-19 crisis, which affected many people especially emotionally. The memory of my emotional journey—and the way the Metaphors exhibit was received—gave me the courage to publish recently the content of that exhibit in the book Metaphors: An Emotional Journey. I’ve added an essay at the end, on how to manage emotions, hoping that it will help those who are now going through difficult times, with or without losing their jobs.
It’s interesting how the meaning of our experiences becomes more obvious over time, isn’t it?
Especially if we do not get lost in emotions, we’re patient and open to see things in more depth. Who knows what the future will hold for us? Or, as we say in system coaching: who knows what’s good or bad?
I am confident that the future will bring something good.
Life has shown me too many times that it’s not good to judge a present situation through the perception filter we’ve created over the years. There is a better way to live our lives.
As Eminescu mentions in his poem Out of hundreds of Masts, I too have moments when I’m confused or don’t know which direction to take…
However, I’ve learned not to get worried, to have confidence in life and pay attention to my intuition: it will help me clarify my thoughts when it’s the right time… or let me know when I’m ready to start a new chapter!
~ Gabriela Casineanu, MSc, MBA, ORSC
Amazon.com/author/gabrielacasineanu • GabrielaCasineanu.com
*Mihail Eminescu is regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet, the first modern poet in Romanian literature.
Note: This article was first published in Romanian in the Observatorul newspaper (distributed in Canada and US) part of their Romanian Destinies in Canada collection for Canada Day 2020. It was a great exercise to look back and notice the winds and waves that I encountered along the way, and where they led me. I highly recommend this exercise!
