IN WHICH I BEGIN TO EMBRACE SELF-LOVE, BEGINNING WITH MY TALENT.
Transforming my diamond-in-the-rough self into the dazzling brilliant I was always meant to be (Talk to me, Harry Winston!) would require chipping away at several facets. It would demand a steady dose of self-love, showing up for myself, again and again, with every choice, starting with career — hence my job change. After all, we spend at least a third of our lives working; our livelihood should not simply keep us alive, it should make us GLAD to be alive; the very prospect of it should make us spring out of bed in the morning! Yet so many of us are among the Living Dead, resigned to merely having a pulse as we trudge like zombies through an unfulfilling work day.
Enter TALENT. That gift we all come into the world with, that thing we often do better than anyone else, or at least, most, and we love, love, love to do. This is our gift, and in my humble opinion, not only our source of divinity but our gift to the world. I once read a quote from Frederick Buechner and he put it so nicely: what we are meant to do in this existence, is “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s great hunger meet.”
When getting to know someone new, I often like to ask them, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Because this question is not relevant simply to children: ideally we are in a constant state of growth. After all, to not be growing is to be dying, that is the law of nature — there is no such state as stagnation.
Many people I encounter have a job — and not the calling which is their “deep gladness” — and they are enslaved to this drudgery for no other reason than to pay the bills. The irony of this situation is the money from this job only enables them to sustain a secure but miserable existence; until the rat on the wheel steps off, the only given is a hellish, life-long journey treading to nowhere. Our work should, in fact, be nothing of the kind: it is meant to be play.
Who do you, dear reader, want to be when you grow up? If money or any other factor were not a consideration, what would you do? If your fairy godmother granted you your dream vocation, what would it be? And for those of you who don’t know — who can’t remember that spark that lives deep inside you since childhood — what was it you loved to do when you were ten or eleven years old? Therein lies a valuable clue to what your very essence calls you to do. Accessing this talent and using it is the ultimate in self-love and healing, because it invokes the wholeness which is our birthright, the glue which unites our previously unhappy, fractured self. To heal means to make whole, and as a whole person, using our talent, our lives change dramatically for the better.
It isn’t necessary to go cold turkey — no need to run off to Tahiti to paint like French banker Paul Gauguin did, leaving his wife and children in the lurch, certainly irresponsible behavior despite his subsequent brilliance as an artist. But at least make a plan, and solidify it with your vision board, and your actions; just taking steps to your dream reality will put a spring in your step and make your daily grind far less pulverizing — now you know you are going to escape! Sign up for that acting class; buy that second-hand guitar; volunteer at the animal shelter; look into getting that catering license. We’re not getting any younger –why tolerate less than fabulous even a second longer? And it’s important to always remember: YOU GET WHAT YOU SETTLE FOR.
While you’re releasing that toxic job, go ahead and give the heave ho to those toxic hos in your life, or indeed ANY scenario in which you are not loved, honored and respected. You don’t DESERVE to tolerate or accept those anymore, and the new You.20 ONLY accepts — and therefore attracts — that which makes you fulfilled and joyous. Of course, for me that includes an avalanche of hot men and romance, as we shall see.
Note to self: Now’s a perfect time for a cartwheel!
Yours truly,
