We are not taught to listen to our soul, in fact, we are often taught to ignore it, to build our lives around the expectations imposed by society, our parents or other people around us. We live that way, starving our souls until it begins to invite us in our own way. We can choose not to make room in our lives for it. We can ignore the call of the soul until it becomes urgent, and we are depressed, or we get sick, or some unpleasant event drives us into denial.
We can learn to recognize the ways in which our soul communicates with us – I told one student who did not know how to recognize her vocation.
What is the first step? What did it look like the first day you actually found your vocation? How did you recognize it?- asked the student, searching for knowledge of her vocation.
Quite simply, it came from being relaxed and surrendered to it.
You gave up your medical career and a huge education, started seeing people as a Reiki therapist, a huge step that is usually socially damning. How did you overcome the expectations of others around you, as well as the clients who visited you?
After deciding not to work at an official medical institution, I happened to meet a middle-aged woman who needed help – a psychiatrist not a clinical psychologist but a friend. I listened carefully to her, trying to understand and empathize with her. I was much younger than she was and I have to admit that part of me was worried if she would see “through me” and if she would resent me for not having enough experience and knowledge. I ignored that inner struggle and simply gave in to my heart.
I must note that this is what you do today – she laughed.
Yes. When I was done, she looked at me and said:”You are so young, and you have so much knowledge and experience.” Then I was sure I had found my vocation.
So I just need to surrender to my heart despite the fear and expectation of others?
Especially despite the fear.
Did I find my vocation?
I think you discovered the skeleton of your vocation, but you still don’t know what it’s all going to look like. I am sure you will pass on the knowledge of story and writing, but whether you will be a professor, coach, consultant, writer or blogger, whether it will be the story of your profession today or something else, we will see.
I haven’t been in my job for a long time, so it’s not my vocation. Are you saying that everything I have accomplished in my 20-year-long career may be completely unnecessary and irrelevant to my invitation to find it tomorrow? That I might not be teaching students what I’ve been teaching for 20 years?
If this is not your vocation, this will certainly not be in vain. You just may not fully understand what you have actually learned in dealing with your subject of interest up until then. For example, imagine you are at a spiritual school where your teacher entrusts you with a bowl that you should carry in your hands and in which you should collect water. You walk through life carefully collecting rainwater from your bowl, tap water, early morning water, seawater, midnight lake water. You slowly begin to notice that thebowl you are carrying is magical and that it is growing and growing wider and deeper by the amount of water you collect so carefully and carefully from day to day, month by month. After a few years, your bowl is so big that you can barely hold it with your hands and it’s full to the top. Proud, barely carrying, you go to your teacher and show him the treasure you have collected. The teacher is pleased, smiles, and says:”Well, now waste the water.” “Should I splash water? But I have been collecting it for so long and so carefully … ”“ I understand, but when you go to a higher level you will have to collect milk in that bowl, so you have to empty it. ”“ But what about the water? I chose every drop so carefully, and I collected it for so long … ”“ You didn’t collect water because of water. You collected it so that your bowl would grow and that you could now receive far greater mysteries and treasures. ”So it is with your career. Of course it wasn’t all in vain. But what has grown over the years in various jobs through different experiences is YOU, not your career.
There was silence in the room. I knew that my student had been overcome by the heat of the July afternoon and the feeling of serenity.
Stop wandering around looking for yourself anywhere. Turn to yourself, take a peek inside, surrender to your heart, tune in to what attracts you to a smile, and there you will find both the Source and yourself, and your invitation!