writing for self-discovery

Sometimes I wonder…

What if I’d taken that job with Pan Am Airlines and had become a flight attendant at age 19? How might my life have been different?

That’s a wasted What if. It’s in the past and there’s nothing I can do to change the outcome of that decision. But there is tremendous power in a What if that imagines something different in future time. A What if is the first step toward change. Often it’s fleeting, a mere shadow puppet that dances indistinctly through the mind. But it leaves traces of itself that bring about random ideas and a niggling discomfort that perhaps there’s something I could be doing differently? Perhaps there’s something waiting for me that will manifest when I realize what it is.

What if I could do something I loved instead of this job that’s killing my soul?

What if I could be mentally, physically, emotionally healthy?

What if I could get out of debt?

What if…?

The reason why those thoughts rarely change anything is because they’re overridden by old programming that sounds very much like, it won’t work, I’m too old, too young, too tired, it’s no use, I’ve tried before, I’m too broke, it’s too late, it’s a silly thought, I’m better off than most, why can’t I just be satisfied?

That programming is solid, unyielding, and unconscious for most of us. It grew out of our first impressions of the world before we were old enough to filter information. It’s buried deep in our subconscious and it informs every single decision we make. It’s the reason we have thought patterns, and patterns of behavior that repeat, sometimes beneficial ones, too often destructive ones. It determines the kind of people we attract to us. In a nutshell that programming runs the show.

To ask the What if questions and to allow them to become dreams before the programming shuts them down, requires help. Take a look at my life and tell me about patterns!

Married and divorced five times

Pulled up stakes and moved every two years or less

Rarely stayed in a job for more than a year

Lived from paycheck to paycheck

Accumulated credit card debt

Wore a happy face that masked the emptiness inside

Then three of my closest friends died within a year, all younger than me. It shook me to the core of my being. I asked myself, If you were told that you would die tomorrow, would you have regrets? In a terrifying flash I knew that not only would I have regrets, I would feel as though I hadn’t yet lived. That my years had been spent living someone else’s life.

That was then.

The journey from there to here was taken in incremental, logical, strategic, and sometimes serendipitous steps. As discovery writing exposed old programming and uncovered my truth I knew what to do and when to do it. I entered a kind of effortless flow that exhilarated and amazed me.

And it brought me to a dream that is bigger than anything I could have imagined back when I started to rethink my life. My definition of happy now looks nothing like what I accepted as happy before. I have connected with my path, a calling, a life purpose and the joy in that is indescribable. Utterly indescribable.

My dream is only mine. It isn’t everyone’s idea of bliss to move to the other side of the world and live on a tropical island. (How cliché is that?!) But it is everyone’s dream to be happy, to live a fulfilled life in tune with your reason for being.

Yesterday my daughter e-mailed my Tantric Numerology Reading for 2015. It spoke to thoughts that have been weighing in on my consciousness for the past few months. And it affirmed my desire to pass the information I’ve learned on to others:

You cannot accept and use your gift unless you feel that you deserve it. Remember, this gift is already yours. Relax, use it and enjoy it. Your gift is the ability to teach. You will find it easy and pleasurable to teach others through your actions and words. ( http://www.3ho.org/tantric-numerology-reading)

As I read this the truth of it settled into my bones. “Yes,” I said. “Of course.” And the inevitable tears trickled down my cheeks.