The Call
The best of life (and the hardest) is that it is always changing. It is good to remember... that is the entire point. You can do this.
Go.
There is a time in all of our lives when we are called.
Go.
It matters not how loud the call is, nor when it comes.
Go.
It may come at a time where the last thing you feel you can do is leave.
Go.
The journey will be hard. You will be challenged.
Go.
The things and people you leave behind may not be able to follow.
Go.
The destination is unknown. The circumstances even less so.
Go.
The call is sent for a reason. It will not wait.
Go.
It will be worth it. It will be what you deserve, because you DO deserve goodness.
Personally, the hardest part of life has been knowing my place. Whether in my career, relationships, or general personal life. I knew what was expected of me from a young age. The fears and hopes of my parents were placed on me, because they have always wished the best for me. I knew how to please certain people. I know what I needed to draw from within myself to do what was demanded of me. I knew, at a basic but fundamental level, how to do what was needed.
Never had I learned how to listen to my heart. Sure, diving into vices and desires was easy to do. The repercussions and consequences of doing that so blindly? Less easy to do, to say the very least. Listening to your inhibitions is one thing. Listening to your heart, to where it needs you to go, the things you need to accomplish, is a different thing. It takes confidence in your character, and faith. Whether that be God, the power of love and family, or yourself. It takes self reflection, patience, and an understanding that you will not always succeed. I won’t speak for a general population, but for me? It took an innumerable amount of heartbreak and mistakes. Misdirection and strife. It took failing and falling. It took me reaching the end of that path to realize my path lied elsewhere. It took having to backtrack and start over.
The funny thing is that when you are broken and lost, you find the reason for your strife. You learn it is a rebirth. It was always only ever a lesson. The less funny thing is that you have to listen to yourself, to your heart, for it to make a difference - to have an impact.
My oldest sister taught me the power of listening to your heart and gut (love my little yogi). My second oldest taught me the power of knowing your limits and yourself (love my little cat lady). My father taught me the importance of choosing your happiness, my mother the strength of your belief in yourself. My stepdad taught me the value of living authentically, my brother the value of being kind. Truthfully, I could go on for just about forever in terms of how much my family has taught me.
The issue for me is that it never taught me just how to do. How the call would come, nor when or why. Not that it is their fault - that is just the nature of things. When I was resentful, unhappy, and reliant on any means of not being in my body and aware of myself, I made it about pain. I told myself it was the trauma. I was depressed because I was mentally unstable. I was reckless because of PTSD. I was miserable because I had been hurt and used. Not to say that none of things played a role. They did. I respect myself and my story enough to say so.
Truthfully though, it was that I was not ready to face my issues and the things that needed to change. It was also to an extent, I enjoyed being a victim. It meant my life was hard, because of things out of my control. If you relate to that sentiment, please know that it does not make you a bad person. You are not bad for wanting to shift the hurt you went through and the actions that have sourced from it. It just means you are human. We are responsible for our lives though, as unfair as that may seem. So let my story be your warning.
When you ignore who you are and focus on what you have been through, you will be unhappy and unfulfilled. You will not feel satisfied in what you do, because you do not know who you are nor what your purpose is.
For myself, I found my identity in the work I did, how well and how much. I found my identity in my pain, and brought what was in my past to my future. As a result, I made decisions that did not serve me. I held onto things and people that did not understand me - I did not understand me. I had to learn that if I wanted to be happy, something had to change. I had to grow. I mean honestly? The whole growing up and getting wiser thing is tricky as hell.
It happens though, whether you want it to or not. The important part is knowing how to proceed. The only way to know that, is to know yourself. You have to be aware of your shortcomings and strengths. You have to acknowledge when you weren’t a good person and when you were. You have to appreciate the traits that make you the person you are, and the story that made you that way.
When my whole world felt like it had crumbled, there was no way to recover, I was a failing, and hope was lost, is when I heard my call. There was no way to mistake what the feeling conveyed - it was time to grow in a new direction and immediately.
When you have nothing, the only thing you can do is gain. Insight, inspiration, and experience. You are not a bank account, you can not be in debt when you have lost all. You can only learn, grow, and gain. It gives you the opportunity to understand why you are acting the way you are. To understand who you are and who you want to be.
Mine was a feeling in my heart. Before I was conscious of it, my heart was screaming at me to change course. I used my responsibilities to ignore it, and my trauma/pain to justify that ignorance. Eventually you cannot block it out. Going where your heart knows is no good for you, only results in more heartache.
So I hit the bottom. I was joyless, angry, and inconsolable. Then, I started paying attention. To my patterns, to my dreams and ambitions. Most importantly, to the signs I was not where I needed nor should be. Our hearts are much smarter than we think, and when our heart and mind are not aligned, it causes frustration, resentment, lack of tolerance, and pain. I thought I was godforsaken and rotten, because it was a shortcoming. In certain ways, it was. In others though, it was that I was not granting the respect intuition deserves. I simply was not where I was meant to be. I had been originally, but things change. Life changes. If I had been attuned with myself, I would have recognized that. All our mistakes are lessons though. So I started taking notes and making changes. Most notable, the choice to be happy. A friendly reminder, you can always choose that.
It was a lengthy process but one worth going through. I rediscovered my purpose, and realized that I was not serving it. My heart called, and I knew I could not disregard it any longer. I evolved, changing my path, my patterns, my behavior, my outlook. I chose my happiness, my meaning, my heart, myself. From there, everything and nothing changed. Who I was, what I felt, my emotions, and my reactions changed, even though my current environment had not. I was still afraid, almost embarrassingly so, but also emboldened. I knew the changes I were making were serving me even though I was basically terrified the entire time.
My life is mine now, and the happiness I feel in this moment is unparalleled, because I fought for it. Because I lost who I was and earned earned myself back. My call came, and I did the work to answer. If you are still in the before - do the work and answer your call.
More than that, I cannot tell you. Your journey will be different with mine, it will present different trials and have different lessons. All you need to know is that if you are somewhere you are not happy, you have the choice to change that. If you are not happy with your community and self, you have the choice to reflect and change as needed. Really, you just have to pay attention to yourself. What you feel is key to what you do and who you are. I couldn’t even describe the feeling of when you get back on track except for that there is a rightness to it. When you get back on your path and listen to your heart, you will feel the difference.
Have faith, and answer the call.
Go.