I remember really wanting to go to Art School. Instead I ended up studying French Linguistics and Literature. For all the wrong reasons. After a year of pushing myself, I knew I made a humongous mistake, but not wanting to rock the boat, I continued to the point where I got my Master’s degree. After five years of hard work, I felt no pride, just relief.
As the people around me moved forward on what seemed to be a logical course, I had no clue who I was or what I wanted. I was stuck. For all of my life, I had followed other people’s directions. Now life had come to a screeching halt and nothing I tried worked out. Faced with my deepest fears, I hit rock bottom. A blessing in disguise, in retrospect, as it forced me to make a choice. I choose to live, really live. I decided I was going to get happy, not just happy, but as happy as humanly possible. The only thing was, I had no clue how. So, I went to the library and started reading self-help books by the dozen. Most of them didn’t make any sense, only some did, just a bit.
I worked out a vision for my life and started to pursue goals to get there. I did not realize that most of my vision was constructed, that I was pursuing goals that weren’t mine, or that I was numbing the pain pursuing them. But I did the best I could and I was happier and more empowered than I had been in over 20 years. I got fit, physically, mentally and emotionally, but the thing I still wanted most, a career, remained elusive. It frustrated me more than anything. When it came to work, everything felt backwards. Whatever I did, I had this constant nagging feeling that this was not what I was supposed to do. What is it I need to do? What is my calling? I would ask over and over again. It felt like going in circles. I wasn’t finding any answers, at least not where I looking for them. Instead, I got answers in places where I wasn’t looking, and it took some time, read years, before I recognized a pattern.
When my daughter was born, the first time I looked into her eyes I knew that she was part of my purpose. I knew I was meant to be her mom. A few years later, when I was healing a series of life-long traumas, I knew that too was part of my purpose. I knew I was meant to heal the overwhelming pain that had been stored in my soul. And there was peace, deep peace in knowing that. And somehow that peaceful knowing gave me the strength I needed to go on. After years of searching for my life’s calling, last year I finally realized that it is our purpose to live the life our heart is dreaming for us. And that when we do, we unlock our calling. Our calling is a deep knowing that surpasses the mind. It can’t be grasped rationally, but it feels natural and logical. Our calling is in the things we keep getting back to. It is in the things that give us peace and joy. It is in the things where we feel most connected to ourselves and others. It is in the things that make us feel unequivocally good, because on the deepest level of our being we perceive a vibrational match. And because who we are in that moment resonates with the dream that is living in our heart, we feel purpose.
Sometimes, it takes years for us to see. Or at least for me it did. But once we are willing to accept that our vision can’t be rationally explained, once we dare to follow that quiet whisper off the trodden path, then things mysteriously start falling into place.
photo by Leonardini