On My Yellow Brick Road...

I've found there is a very fine line between what you believe it is your duty, what you believe is your inspiration and what you believe is your true mission.  I guess it all started out when I graduated high school and was given the enormous responsibility of choosing a major in college.  This task was so huge for me, so overwhelming that I avoided it for as long as I could.  During my first two years, I stuck to the tried and true and followed my mathematically inclined left brained and received an A.A. in Accounting.  When I moved on to a state university, I changed my major to Economics, since I found Accounting to technical with not a lot of room for creativity.  Economics on the other hand was a total different language.  Its theoretical approach and three page-long problems defied my views of what I thought mathematics were and challenged me to go on to a new level of thinking.  Daily grind and preoccupations, however, stirred me away from finishing that degree and shortly after I joined the Police Academy.

Today, over a decade since I left the "college" world and didn't find a very convincing reason to go back – because every time I went back to finish my degree, I felt uninspired, learning something that I knew was of no relevance to the person I had become and questioned every second how whatever it was that I was learning would benefit me 10 years down the road, not only professionally but personally as well.  I sought after a type of education that was more encompassing of what life entailed.  I searched for a teacher who could talk to me in terms of life experiences, life lessons, life quests and gave me answers for questions that had mulled inside of me since my meager age of seven.

I have been incredibly blessed to have found this teacher, "university", and many students who were in the same path as me.  In search of something deeper, more meaningful, lessons that can be passed on to other people, and our children included.  Answers that satiate the hunger of our souls' knowledge and come from dependable sources with no second agendas. No egotistical intentions and no save-face type of teachings.

My true dilemma now with what I have learned is that I believed I was learning something that I could practice with others and help them as well.  As I have slowly and painfully discovered is that my sensitivity of working with others cause me to feel too vested in the outcome of the session.  I become too energetically connected with the client and lose my own "essence" during the process. Last week, as I worked with a couple of clients, I did great with some and not so great with others.  This is by no means the clients' fault, for I feel extremely grateful to them and to myself for having the courage to dive right into the work and discover what it was to work with people and see the transformation hands on.  It has been an incredible learning experience.  I have an utter respect for the work I was taught and believe it deserves to be delivered to the clients by people who resonate working one on one with others.  I, for now, still do not feel at that level.  That I felt was my duty.

My inspiration lies in writing and raising my daughter.  And it's heavily intertwined with my mission in life. Working one on one with a few people deepened the awareness inside of me that writing is undoubtedly my bread and water, just as much as Anastasia's voice in the morning and her beautiful laughter. Writing lifts my soul from the darkest of depths.  It relieves my my heart from self-imposed obligations.  Writing renews my energy, revitalizes my body and refreshes my mind. Anastasia on the other hand is the oxygen to my lungs and the inspiration for me to keep living the life of my dreams so that she can mirror herself in my own actions.  The days I don't feel like getting up from bed, I remember her and she gives me the jump-start I need to get up, and get myself together and organize my vision for the future.  More and more that vision has become clearer and the paths have opened up.  It's an unmistakable entanglement what these two things inspire me to accomplish within my own life and in turn in the life of the thousands who are touched by what I write and share.

Finally, throughout this self discovery path of mine, I have discovered that my mission is nothing else but to serve others while I'm here.  Serve them the best way I know how.  Telling stories.  I believe my yellow big road has just began.  I certainly feel like Dorothy as she carried Toto in her little basket, not yet knowing she would meet the Scarecrow, The Tin Man, The Lion, and finally The Wizard.  I'm on my way.  And, as I meet the most inspiring, incredible people on my path, I have yet to figure out which one is the scarecrow, tin man, lion and the wizard.  Perhaps, many will play the role of one, or one will play the role of many. The mission is clear.  And, what is most enticing is the journey I have embarked on. What I had set out as an expected plan of action has revealed to me early on that that is not the way things are meant to go for me.  I'm thankful to have been as open minded about the change of course and ready for it.  Maybe deep inside, I knew all along what the turnout would be.  The journey continues however and where it will stop, it doesn't concern me.  I just focus on never stopping.