I attended a conference today--an organization development (OD) conference. These are odd gatherings. Most of us work in the world of business, whether it is in enterprise or like I do in government in the world of the people's business. Yet, OD crosses barriers unlike most other professions. On one level we work on making organizations better very much in the here, now, and tangible world while on the other level we do the sacred work of soul and spirit in our workplaces. Most of us don't talk about it a lot except with each other, but that is what we do.
Unlike most others, I did write and speak of the spiritual dimensions of work a lot...in the 1990s. Three books and lots of speeches. That was a time when I had a very clear sense of my purpose and the legacy I was here to leave. That was then; now is now. I seemed to have lost touch with my life's intention. I still do many of the same tasks and activities, but they feel like going through the motions in the physical world instead of filling me with passion, zeal, and purpose in my very soul as they once did.
The life got tough about a dozen years ago, and somehow in the struggle to just get by, I lost all of that. One of my coaching clients once talked about it as losing her spark. That's a good metaphor, because it does seem like I've lost my fire most of the time.
This morning I glimpsed again. Although I felt like I should be a in a session about organizational resistance, but instead I went to one on legacy. It ended up it wasn't about "legacy" at all, but that's OK. I got into the right head space anyway.
The focus of the conference was on innovation. I researched creativity/innovation and leadership in graduate school, and I think that is how I discovered my soul. Maybe it is more appropriate to say that I became conscious of my soul--awake to it. Creativity, it seems, is a deeply spiritual subject--not one that I could easily study without dipping into my own spirituality. Having those conversations today took me there again.
I had been so sure that I was on my path back then, and today I felt it so clearly again. For a while this evening, I wondered how I could have so lost touch with who I am, but as the hours passed, I knew. I have always been on my path. I just didn't know where the journey would take me and I did lose touch with the feeling of truly being alive--being me. But, in my heart I know that I've always been on my journey, I just didn't know I was. I hadn't focused my attention on that intention in a way that is spiritually ignorant--ignoring it, if you will.
We are all on our journeys...all the time: sometimes we just forget to notice and to honor the journey for what it is.
I wish I could say that I have a crystal clear view of my legacy. I don't. What I know now that I didn't know this morning is it is time for me to be conscious of being in my legacy...again. My soul yearns for it. Those who have been reading this blog know that for the last several months I've written about feeling "pregnant"--feeling something in me was about to be born or has been tightly in bud and wants to bloom. This evening I am sure it is more like waking up to what has been there all along. That is my legacy--not words to describe it--but really feeling it, stepping into it, being it. That is all there is.
When I wonder am I on my path, I recall being on the golf course. My ball had wandered off the grass and into the woods. I found it and it occurred to me that from that view point it was hard to believe that I was still on the course AND I knew I was. So when I feel off course I stop, remember that moment, and trust that I am only a shot away from the green.
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