This morning while cleaning out my nightstand, I came across an old journal. In it I found an entry from September 2, 2017, where I asked myself the question, “How do I want my future to look?”
In blue italics are all the excerpts from what I had written:
“That is a big question that keeps popping into my mind as of late and I gently show it the door and tell it to come back later.”
Ah, avoidance. Typical me.
“But how much later? And why haven’t I tackled it? Part of it is because I’ve realized that whatever it is I want, I can create. I’m in charge. I’m the author of the story of my life. And since I’ve discovered that, I’ve made it happen. I’ve realized I’ve got to be really careful about what I ask for next. Which is the cause of the hold up. Because - what do I actually want?”
I go into detail discussing my home life, lifestyle and other areas I feel content with. Then I get into the real reason I started tackling this question to begin with:
“So that leaves me with one final area in which to tackle: a career. A life purpose. And the two shall be combined. I speak of wanting to help people live authentic lives. I see a lot of suffering because people live their lives as they think they “should” and not as they desire to. And I was one of them. And that was painful. And sad.”
“And it helped no one. Most especially, myself.”
“But the trickle down effect from living an authentic life has been great. It far surpasses the trickle down effect of living a lie. Of living a life you don't really want to be living.”
For a bit of background on my life story, I lived the first part of my adult life being married to someone I didn’t really want to be with, raising children in a town I didn’t really want to live in, working somewhere I didn’t want to work and living a lifestyle I didn’t want to be living. To top it all off I also got a college degree in a field I didn’t want to work in and struggled with immense self-hatred and an eating disorder, probably fueled by my intense discontentment with my life at the time and my lack of motivation to even try to change it.
While I understand that it is all my own fault and no one else’s, I did a lot of the things I did because I thought that I was just doing what I was supposed to do: get married, have kids, make money, survive, don’t complain about how much it sucks, be happy anyway and if you’re not happy just pretend you are, stay together for the kids, try to find gratitude even though nothing is how you want it to be, smile through the pain.
When we tell people to have gratitude for a life they don’t want to be living, we’re telling them to ignore their inner feelings that something is off and needs to be changed.
When the pain got too heavy to hold any longer, I finally started making changes to make my life look how I actually wanted it to look. I know “they” (whoever they are) say that you can be happy no matter what, and on some wavelength I agree, but I also know it is a whole lot easier to be happy when you aren’t fighting a losing battle with your own soul every single day because nothing in your world is truly in alignment with who you are on the inside and how you really want to be living.
While I used almost every single tool I could find to help turn my life around, learn to love myself, overcome all of my own internal and external battles, and start making changes to live a life that felt like it was in alignment with who I was on the inside, the number one tool was cultivating a connection to my soul and with the divine. My definition of the divine is simply “the energy that exists around us and within us, supporting us on our life journey.” At the time of this writing, I had been peeling back the layers to my authentic self for several years. I had made a lot of changes that brought me closer to who I truly was and how I really wanted to be living, but I still had a way to go on my journey.
I continued in my journal, writing about the connection to the divine:
“Yes, I’ve made a connection and intend to continue to cultivate that connection with the divine. That, in particular, has been the most influential of every single thing I have ever done for myself in my life.”
And here’s where I first start to talk myself out of making a career out of this connection:
“But I can’t pass that on as a career. Unless I want to be a minister and I don’t.”
Note the limited thinking going on here. In my mind at the time, I thought the only way to talk publicly and make a career out of having a connection with the divine was to be a minister. It probably didn’t help that I had given a couple of guest sermons at my church at the time (Unitarian Universalist) and was repeatedly approached afterwards with praise and suggestions for me to become a minister.
It seems my mind might have picked up that I had put out a limiting belief, and so then I continue writing to bring up more reasons why I can’t do what I want to do for a living:
“Also, I feel like you can’t “charge” for that, because it only comes through you, not from you. It’s not yours to charge for.”
This is a common struggle for those who find themselves being the ones to provide healing to others. In the beginning, I convinced myself I couldn’t possibly ask for money and I would just donate my time to give people Reiki. A lot of it had to do with my own self-worth and not feeling valuable enough to ask for money.
As time went on I learned that it was a choice I was making and I was choosing to use my energy in a way that benefited others and I was not only allowed - but as I later was taught - should only ever offer services for an exchange of some sort, otherwise you leave your own self energetically depleted and leave the other energetically indebted to you. And as one of my early clients reminded me, “You have to eat too.”
I continue on with another way to talk myself out of following this path by pointing out one of my weaknesses at the time: self-discipline. If I hadn’t already convinced myself enough that I couldn’t possibly create a career out of what I truly wanted to do, I insulted myself just to be sure I didn’t somehow think it could be possible:
“Also I do not want to be self-sufficient work wise because I am too often lost in thought and/or writing and will have no self-discipline in getting work done.”
So then I recommit to the life I was already working towards anyway. You know, the future that if I had actually really wanted it, I wouldn’t have had this question continually popping up in my mind to begin with, nor would I be spending any of my time journaling about it:
“This is why I choose teaching. And I can still do my “life purpose” work.”
I had briefly mentioned some of my life's purpose earlier in the journal, where I wrote about helping people live authentic lives. Following the line written above, I added onto it a bit:
“To soothe souls. To listen. To help.”
So there was my answer to my question of how I wanted my future to look and of what my life purpose was, written in black ink and scribbled out across the white lined pages of a cream colored journal with the following quote by Eleanor Roosevelt written in gold letters on the cover, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
But apparently this version of me missed the quote, failed to connect with the beauty of my dreams, and continued to talk myself out of what I really wanted to do:
“I can still write. I can write a book every year if I want to. Yeah, it would be great to have more time to spend on writing. But with summers off, I will.”
(For clarity purposes: all my life I felt I was meant to be a writer, but I never knew what I would write about. During the time I was making this journal entry, I was writing almost daily about all sorts of things - some journaling, some experiences of life or with the divine, but never sharing any of it with anyone, ever).
As my journal entry continues on, I try to tell myself that I will have enough time to do what I want to do, just as long as I become a teacher. And I also worry a bit about money and talk about how writing is only a part of my life and doesn’t need to be all of my life. I am actively downplaying the importance of writing in my life and remind myself that as a teacher, I’ll be able to help my students learn how to live authentic lives. I’m trying to convince myself that my purpose will be served just the same by being a teacher.
And just in case I get any ideas about thinking that maybe my purpose won’t be best served by being a school teacher, I go on to remind myself not to mess with the universe and its own timing by being some sort of advocate for the divine:
“And the connection? It’s awesome I have it; it’s awesome I found it. But that is just it. I found it, with no help. No one else, just alone. If someone is supposed to find it, they will. Don’t go f*!king up the universe’s flow.”
So by now, I’ve convinced myself that I am not here to help anyone at all and just worry about my own self and teach kids in a school system and make some money, do a little traveling, spend some time in the summer volunteering to help others and write then, you know, in my off time. But at this point I probably would have talked myself out of writing too. Because now I really put myself down:
“You’re just another star in the circle. You’re not here to light the whole damn cosmos up. You just do what you need to do, do your part, and leave the rest up to the universe to do.”
I say a few things about the universe being able to handle it all and everyone will always have what they need and some more spiritual bypassing about how the universe is always on time. And that’s the end of the journal entry.
It was written on September 2, 2017.
I talked myself out of everything I really wanted. I put away my journal and planned to continue on my trek of being a health and physical education teacher. It was going to be a good, safe job. And the rest of my life looked how I wanted it to look so it was okay to have a trade off in one area, right? I mean, come on, what did I think? That I really could have everything I wanted?
It’s slightly humorous yet also slightly sad to read back on that journal entry now - especially knowing what transpired in my life just a little later on.
Because by May 2018 - not even one full year later - I had clearly changed my tune. I left college and gave up working towards the career I never fully wanted and I opened my business.
It started as a brick and mortar space where I did Reiki and gave intuitive readings, and then I gradually expanded to include a host of other classes, healing sessions, yoga offerings, and collaborations with other businesses.
My business became everything that I had really wanted and identified as my life purpose: I help other people live authentic lives. I help them see that they don’t have to live their lives as they think they “should,” but rather as how they truly want to live. I soothe souls, I listen, I help. I get to write as a part of my job, not just during my “off” time.
I help people connect to the divine. I help people connect to themselves. I help people find and remove their limiting beliefs - just like the ones I once had - so that they can step into the versions of themselves that they truly want to be living.
I remind people that this life is what they make it.
While my business has evolved alongside my own continued evolution and will continue to do so, it won’t ever lose the foundation of why I wanted to create it to begin with: to help others live authentic lives, cultivate a connection with the divine, and above all, their own selves.
What if my arguments against my dream life had ultimately won? Where would I be right now?
Interestingly, my trajectory with school would have had me finishing up my student teaching semester right now and graduating with my teaching degree in May of 2021. I would be almost finished school, assuming that the pandemic didn’t mess up anything or affect student teaching in any way. I’d then be setting out to find a job teaching health and physical education now, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, when schools are cutting funding and programming and hosting many classes virtually, and quite possibly may never look the same again.
Instead of any of that, I’m sitting at home, writing this blog post. I just launched a new online course about working with the energy of the moon to manifest changes in life. I’ve been running a program for massive change, called Four Weeks to Freedom, since last June. It helps people to really dive in deeply to figure out who they really are, what they really want out of life, and clear the blocks keeping them from actually making it happen. Some graduates have quit jobs, started businesses or amped up existing ones, and made major life changes. All of them have stepped into a closer alignment with their own selves.
I see clients virtually for distance Reiki sessions and intuitive readings. I teach others how to do Reiki and many of my trainees have gone on to open up their own businesses.
I have been able to work with hundreds of clients and watch as people step into the versions of themselves that they truly want to be living. I have helped people connect to the divine in a multitude of ways.
And I am not even three years into this journey. I am just getting started! There’s so much more to create, so much more to write, so many more lives to touch. There’s so many more souls to soothe, so many more stories to listen to, so many more people to help. And I will do it all.
Because I’ve learned not to talk myself out of all of the things I really want in life.
And neither should you. If you have a dream, follow it! If you want to change something, do it!
If all aspects of your life are where you want them to be except for just one aspect, don’t tell yourself that it is “good enough.” Don’t tell yourself that something is good enough when really you want more. Go for more!
And if you get where you thought you wanted to be and you find that you aren’t really truly happy there either, don’t think that it’s because you must have made some sort of mistake or you don’t deserve happiness or everything you truly desire. Instead, look a little deeper. Because when things are really how you want them to be, happiness is a natural by-product. It isn’t something you need to force, or try to make yourself believe is true, or do a ton of gratitude journaling about. It is just there because it exists all on its own.
You are the creator of your own life and you are the creator of your own happiness. You can choose to find and live your life purpose if you really truly want to.
Just like me, you’ll probably battle a bunch of internal demons on the way to living that dream. You’ll probably talk yourself out of it a hundred plus times. You’ll probably want to throw in the towel more times than you can count. You’ll probably wonder if it is all even worth it.
Well, I am here to tell you that it is.
It is so very worth it.
I could have probably made a “good enough” life being a teacher and writing on my summer breaks. But my heart and energy was never truly in that space.
My heart and energy are in the work I do now. My heart and energy are in the realm of helping others live authentic lives. My heart and energy are in the realm of soothing souls. My heart and energy hold the key to my happiness. And so do yours.
Follow your heart. Let your energy lead the way.
Dream with wild abandon, but instead of talking yourself out of it, find a way to make it happen.
If you need help, don’t forget this is what I do for a living.
Until we meet again,
Erica
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Hi, I’m Erica
I’m so happy you’ve found your way here! Take a look around at the blog posts and things I have to offer, and sign up for the email list to stay on top of new courses and offerings.
It is with a happy heart and all of my energy that I write and create to inspire and challenge people to live the lives of their dreams. This one and precious life you have is yours to do what you want with it! It is never too late to make changes in your life to live from an authentic, heart centered space. Your soul will thank you. <3