Helpers

I've learned a lot this week from working on the book I wrote.  Almost every page has seemed to offer a spiritual lesson that I'd been choosing to ignore.  Just yesterday I was reading/writing about spiritual helpers--those people who are in our lives to help us learn spiritual lessons, to perform spiritual service, and to encourage development and use our gifts and talents. 

Sometime they are people who are there in an obviously helping way.  My friend Amy Frost has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since we met after she read Leading from the Heart right after it came out in 1996. She has done more to bring The Game Called Life into the world than anyone. Thanks, Aim!

Other times our spiritual helpers are difficult people in our lives, but they present us with lessons we need to know but with which we struggle.  I find it extremely difficult to make the leap from intellectualizing that they are spiritual helpers there for me to actually being grateful for their challenging presences in my life. There are a couple in my life right now, but I won't mention any of them by name.  I will say that my friend Evelin was sent as a spiritual helper to support me in some of those lessons.

Often spiritual helpers show up in a most unusual way in our lives.  I met Amy in the elevator at a conference in Mexico when she recognized my name as the author of the book she'd just read on my name badge. Another reader/helper ended up appearing in my life over Easter Dinner at her daughter's home, both of us from very different parts of the country brought together at a still different part of the country to provide me encouragement at a time when I really needed it.

Most of the time, we don't recognize spiritual helpers as such.  They are just people in our lives.  Today I talked with a spiritual helper that I was certain was there as a spiritual helper even as we spoke for the first time.  Darwin Gillett and I have communicated by email for at least a couple years, but we couldn't remember how we knew each other.  We had a conversation that would not have happened if I had not been furloughed.  He had shared by email that he's between books and wants to refocus his business more specifically about the role of heart in building an effective business.  Since that is something I did for many years, I thought I might have some useful thoughts to share, and I had time to actually talk with him this week.

The miracle occurred as I spoke with him.  I needed to hear what I was saying to him about allowing the business to grow organically, the right people finding me, and listening to my heart.  I spoke about how totally aligned I'd felt when I was writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting. I am so grateful for this furlough and so grateful I decided to reach out to him.  As we spoke, I finally honored my knowing that I have several books to get out.  Choice Point has been gathering dust since the late 90s, and Leading from the Heart has been crying for a second edition since Butterworth-Heinemann closed the division that published it and The Alchemy of Fear over a decade ago. 

When I think about how lifeless and under-utilized I feel on my current job and how energized I've been this week, working on my blog and my e-book, it doesn't take a magician to figure out what I should be doing.  But, then there is that money thing.  I don't know how that part works out, but I do know that I am awake again. This afternoon I am able to feel who I AM again.  That's all I need to know for now.  I am confident a spiritual helper will come along to show me the way.