Throughout all ages, people have been searching for their true calling, wanting to find self-realization in life, to do work that inspires and at the same time brings benefit to this world.
In this article, I will share my story and use my own example to tell you how I was able to find the path to my calling and once again live life with joy.
How it all began
It all began 5 years ago, when it seemed to me that I had lost my calling, and managing projects on employee motivation and re-engineering business processes no longer made my inner voice whisper. And from the very morning, my eyes wouldn’t open with joy…
I lost my health, my head was splitting into a million pieces every day, my spine refused to obey me, my marriage was falling apart at the seams, work brought no joy, I stopped feeling. I suddenly lost all desire for everything.
All I wanted was to sleep, to withdraw from the world, and to dive deep into myself — to the most incredible depth, where I could once again hear my Self…
To start, I decided to get to know all of my shadows and had no idea they could turn out to be so interesting and resourceful!
A seminar by Alena Starovoitova — Dance with the Shadow — helped me to recognize each of the shadows.
The blues gradually transformed into an interest in life. My heart filled with a warm light.
My very first personal meditation appeared:
“My sun is within me, my sky protects me, my water will quench my sorrow, my earth — gives me the strength of the day!”
I would hum it every morning, which would greet me — with a clear sun inside me, and then one day I suddenly wanted to get to know and understand my inner child better.
Read also: The Computer of Life, or Why Seek Your Purpose
Find out what connection exists between your body, soul, and unique abilities in fulfilling your life’s mission.
Life is a bowl of cherries!
I returned to my little girl, breaking down all her fears, resentments, secrets, inspirations, joys, and sorrows into molecules.
I cherished and nurtured her, coddled and warmed her inside myself! It was wonderful, because I felt — very soon, life would be nothing but a bowl of cherries!
I took a jar of jam, stuck a label on it that said “a bowl of cherries,” and from that moment on, my world changed completely! I started turning to positive psychology every day, and it was as if I had my colored pencils again, with which I colored my world.
I took right-brain drawing courses and learned to draw beautifully. I especially loved picking up a brush, dipping it into several different paints, and watching mountains, fields, seas, and clouds emerge from under it.
On one of those days, my brain finally loosened its grip, and it dawned on me. This is my calling! It had been right there with me all along! Back in school, at one of the “sparklers” — that’s what we called our kids’ parties — I dressed up as a gypsy and predicted the future profession for all my classmates.
And it all came true, my prediction worked, which I found out 15 years later at our first school reunion. I started remembering more…
When I was tasked with reducing a large number of staff, I suffered so much. Because I had to hand out those dreadful layoff notices to all the people for whom I had just recently developed a motivation system.
And it was in that stress that I found a solution and started helping people find jobs according to their calling. And that layoff ceased to be a horror for them. Only later did I realize that I had already created my own career guidance program back then. There it is — a bowl of cherries!
Read how empowering others can help you become stronger yourself.
Colliding with Limitations
What happened next? Then came my limiting beliefs: “Nooo, it can’t be! I have to sit quietly and work at my usual workplace, where I get paid my usual salary, on the 1st and 15th of every month following the current one.”
“I don’t know how to position myself! People won’t come to me… I don’t have a psychology degree!”
Then my inner support kicked in: “But I do know how to conduct interviews and easily fill vacancies, and I see the talents of everyone who comes to me!
I easily facilitate sessions, I easily united two tour operators with different cultures: European and Eastern, and I created a project motivation system for building settlements for miners.”
I easily motivated people to achieve things, and they changed their lives for the better. I was becoming that generator that gives strength and energy to act and walk the path of one’s calling. But I refused to believe in my own intuition about myself.
And I decided to survey my circle: Why do you choose me? What valuable thing do you take from me? What is my main resource for you? How do you feel being with me in general?
So many amazing surprises awaited me, because they called me a “hope-giver,” a “faith-instiller,” and a “positive sun.”
But I definitely didn’t want to believe it — I can’t be that good, and it’s much more comfortable to simply not notice my influence and keep digging into myself.
See also How to use negative personality traits to your advantage
And suddenly I realized the main truth. I don’t see my calling for only three reasons: I don’t believe in myself, I don’t approve of myself, I don’t love myself.
It was a terrible blow! I had to rebuild my relationship with my adult self all over again. Learning to believe in myself, to thank myself, to acknowledge and realize my love for myself.
To turn to my personal mirror and say to myself: “Darling, I love and accept you exactly as you are! I support you in your personal choices, even if it’s scary, but it will be an amazing journey into the world of self, into the world of other people, into the world of true calling — to help people choose their profession, and companies choose their mission, goals, and values!”
It’s wonderful — to support the amazing world of people whose hearts light up from the realization that they have found themselves and made the choice — to be themselves.
Check how much you love yourself. 15 signs that indicate you love yourself
What will help you find yourself
What do I want to convey to you, dear readers?
Choosing yourself is scary, but important, because only you yourself are responsible for who you are right now and your present will determine who you will be tomorrow.
A true calling is something that comes to you with ease and is always with you; you don’t need to search for it, you just need to realize it, clear away the mental clutter, and see your true Self.
How to do this?
There are several techniques that also helped me in my time:
- The morning pages technique, where every morning you unload information from your head onto a sheet of paper, and your thoughts become clearer;
- Positive affirmations for removing limiting beliefs, which help to simply cancel negativity. For example, this one: I cancel all limiting beliefs that constrain and prevent me from living, loving, breathing, being healthy, purposeful, joyful, feeling unity with myself and the world;
- Right-brain drawing and neurographica;
- Acting and dancing;
- Each page of “keys” filled with powerful techniques that help you understand who you are and sincerely believe in yourself and trust yourself!
See also Is it worth looking for your purpose and how to see new opportunities for fulfillment
The world is dual, and we are together with the world!
You have both a plus and a minus, and the most important thing is to accept this plus and minus within yourself with joy. My mix of qualities is individual, just like the mix of every person born into the manifested world!
And it was precisely this personal mix of positive and negative that helped me figure out who I am, what I am like, why I am this way, why I have exactly these shadow sides, what resources are in them that help me be successful in expressing my calling.
What do I have now?
I believe in myself, I trust myself, I believe in my environment, and I take care of myself, I accept myself with joy and love.
People who drained my energy and robbed me of joy have left my space.
And do you know why this happened? Because I myself stopped draining and robbing myself of joy, and chose to live a happy, fulfilled, and interesting life.
See also How to find an activity you love. The collective paradigm of thinking and the generation gap
And to you, dear readers, I wish with all my heart and soul to accept yourself.
You are beautiful in every single one of your expressions, take care of yourself, rejoice in yourself, and you will surely discover within yourself true love, true joy, and your true calling — to be yourself!