I am fired up for life these days.
I’ve been teeming with ideas, overflowing with stories and reflections, and feeling totally energized to do the work before me.
In so few words, I am remembering, now:
“This is how life can feel when you are in the flow of claiming your calling.”
Of course, it hasn’t always felt like this in my nearly-12-year journey as a creative entrepreneur. And, the journey often doesn’t feel like this, day-to-day! And, just because I’m in a really exciting, engaging flow right now doesn’t mean that it will feel like this, forever.
I know that I’m in an external, expressive flow — a specific aspect of the cycle of creativity that meets an eventual pause or turning in.
In years past, I thought that feeling “in-flow” like I am now would last forever. I hoped that it would, too, because I equated this feeling as being proof positive that I was finally “making it.”
And, I completely dreaded when the feeling dissipated — which it always does.
It’s supposed to dissipate.
Because our growth, our creativity, our learning, or our expansions are not continual but gradual and cyclical.
Every exhale meets its inverse, the inhale. Every spring’s growth meets an autumn of shedding and turning in. Every day meets night. Words cannot be spoken if not for the silence between them.
Everything is cyclical.
Shifting from a ‘Linear’ to ‘Cyclical’ Outlook
I know now, from a lot of lived-in experience, that this period of rapid expansion and energy will not last forever, because it’s not supposed to.
The difference between being in the cycle now as opposed to many years ago, is that I know to expect the “turning in” — and I know exactly how to receive it, and what to do with it, when it arrives.
Whether we’re talking about our personal journeys as souls, or the nature of the work that we’re doing, or claiming our calling — like finally beginning to write the book that we’ve been dreaming of, or transitioning from corporate into self-employment, or building a platform for ourselves as healers-teachers-creatives — it’s vital to remember that everything moves in cycles, not in linear trajectories.
In my work as a coach over the years, I’ve seen many folks mistake pauses as setbacks or “inhale” moments as stuckness.
Really, they are simply finding themselves in a different, lesser-known, more-easily-misunderstood portion of their journey.
Unfortunately, our society oversimplifies the definition of success as something that eventually is granted to us by playing its rules, abiding by its expectations, and simply “showing up for long enough” to be “qualified” to succeed.
Most of us are unfamiliar with experiencing stillness as a requisite component of a creative, expressive, or growth-based journey.
Most of us are also very uncomfortable with stillness, or anything other than constant motion, continual effort, and endless motion.
When we equate stillness, gathering back into ourselves, or simple pauses as setbacks or failures or “lost time,” we begin to dig ourselves into a hole of our own making.
We start to feel like we’re failing on our path to success — and, oftentimes, begin to equate the feeling of failing at “what we do” as reflective of being failures, ourselves.
From there, it can be a long, steep, uphill climb out of the hole.
The hole is where self-doubt runs amok and second-guessing spins us into overwhelm, stretching ourselves too thin, and trying to do too much all at once — a desperate, panic-fueled attempt to get out of the hole as quickly as possible.
In turn, we lose sight of our true goals.
We disembody our values, rather than stay aligned to them.
We start to dismiss our intuition and feeling-states, which guide the moving-force of authentic desire, and start to follow “tried and true advice” and “one size fits all” methods. We start to listen to what others say we “should” do because “it’s the only way you can do it.”
And all of a sudden, the beauty, joy, and gift of claiming our callings feels more like an existential crisis of our own making…
Getting Out of the ‘Hole’ of Our Own Making
You deserve better than being in that hole.
If you’re in one right now, I want to help you get out.
If you’re not in a hole right now, I’ll help you get aware of what, exactly, we do to dig us into it, so you can avoid doing that.
Over the next 10 days, I’ll be sharing daily lessons, reflections, prompts, and stories — all of which include invitations to consider joining me in Claim Your Calling℠, my new coaching collective and thought leadership incubator, which we’re building to be a dynamic and responsive support system to uplift and enliven your journey as a budding leader, emergent change-agent, author-speaker, or healer-teacher.
Our world needs each of us to stand in the light of our inner leadership today.
As we each claim our callings, we begin to actualize our leadership and affect the positive change that we aspire to see, all around us.
If you’re not interested in Claim Your Calling℠ or the timing isn’t right, you still have plenty to learn and all this advice is free, so please stick around!
If you’d prefer to opt-out, you can do so at any time over the next 10 days by clicking the appropriate link — all while still staying subscribed to my usual newsletter, Chronicles of a Self-Storied Life.
Finally, I’ll be inviting you to join me on a free sample call modeled on one of the fun new Claim Your Calling℠ group coaching containers that members will be experiencing, every month: the monthly Roundtable series featuring Spotlight Moments, which will be happening on Thursday, February 4 at 3 PM ET.
How to Claim Your Calling
My journey of claiming my calling has, perhaps like yours, both been long and flown by; exhilarating and exhausting, all at once; studded with wonderful moments and far more obstacles, challenges, and missteps along the way.
The journey of claiming our callings is like this; like nature.
There are highs and lows, ebbs and flows, celebrations and sadness.
This is the real experience of claiming our callings.
But you don’t have to navigate the lows on your own, anymore.
You don’t have to mistakenly dig yourself into holes of self-doubt and second-guessing.
You can get the support you need, the camaraderie you deserve, and more easily navigate pauses and stillness with grace, poise, and confidence — so that you know exactly what to do with them, in preparation for your next flowing, expressive cycle.
It is something special when things begin to click into place and you start to see the fuller picture of your calling taking shape.
Aren’t you ready to see yours?
If so, take a look at Claim Your Calling℠ by clicking through to this secret page I put together, which is full of short videos (under 4 mins each!) describing exactly what this coaching container is, who it’s for, and what you’ll receive as a member.
Speak to you more tomorrow,
