Remember Who You Were Going To Be

This afternoon I saw a bumper sticker that admonished, "Remember who you were going to be."  I literally stopped in my tracks and stared at it.  "Hmmm!" I thought.  "Remember who you were going to be."  I thought again, "I haven't a clue who I was going to be."  I mean really what I wanted to be.

This evening I watched a movie in which a man knew that he'd always wanted to be the world's best barista, and the female love interest, who is an excellent human resources manager, always wanted to be an illustrator.  As I watched this scene of the movie, it reminded me of the bumper sticker.  I muted the TV during the commercial and thought about it again, but I wasn't any closer to an answer than I'd been a few hours earlier.

I am not sure if it was when I grew up or where I grew up, but options were never there.  I started to write, options were never available, but, of course, that isn't true. There were lots of options; I just didn't know about them.  Then I started to write, options were never presented to me.  That isn't true either.  Well, it is.  Options weren't presented to me, but a lot of things were not presented to me.  I found them anyway. That's just an excuse. 

Pretty much girls in my high school in Indiana had three options: become a homemaker or go to college and become either a teacher or a nurse.  Since I had an aversion to blood, being a nurse was never a serious consideration.  I was pretty smart, and I loved to learn.  Not going to college was never a consideration.  That sort of left being a teacher. 

When I was about 16, I attended a church camp "life recruit week."  The intention was to get kids to become ministers, missionaries, and the like.  I was inspired.  That is what I would do.  But, of course, as a girl, I could only become a minister of education--that's a fancy name for a teacher and/or being in charge of teachers.  But, I really did feel called to do God's work, just not the way the people at the camp had in mind.

The truth is I have a number of gifts and talents, and I've enjoyed a lot of things I've done.  Yet, I've never really had a drive to be any one thing.  It ends up that teaching is something I'm fairly good at, and it has ended up being part of almost every job I've ever had.  I particularly enjoy mentoring people.  I think it is the one-on-one customized teaching of mentoring and coaching that I like best.

I've also been writing since I could hold a pencil, and it ends up that writing has ended up being part of every job I've even had.  I can remember having the realization when I was almost done with the first draft of Leading from the Heart that my commitment to serving God 20 years earlier was finally coming to fruition.  My ministry was the business world, I thought, and my medium was the written word.  As the books become popular, I started doing more keynote speaking.  It was kind of teaching, just to a bigger classroom.

A few years later when I created the intentional living intensives, I was sure I was exactly where I should be.  They allowed me to be out in nature with clients and to move around.  At the same time, I was able to engage my love for healthy but delicious food as I cooked for my clients.  Best of all, I was able to see each of them find the truth of who they were.  I remember thinking several times that it just couldn't get any better.

My writing, speaking, and coaching business was really joyful and fulfilling, but not because I had dreamed that life, I just sort of slid into it.  Compared to those who have an inner drive to be something, it almost seems like cheating, but I was so happy.  Should it matter how I got there?

As it ends up, the economy went bust, and my business went bust with it.  It didn't matter any more.  Since then, I've been teaching, writing, speaking, and coaching in a number of different settings, but somehow I've never reached that deep spiritual "flow state" in which I used to live most of my life.

This week I was at a continuing education training for coaches.  The teachers were sharing lists of questions, and after a few minutes, I spoke up.  I said, "I'd like to advocate for intuition.  I've been coaching for over 25 years, I said, and I've always been able to be still, listen to my heart, and just hear the perfect question....Even when the question makes no sense to me, it always makes perfect sense to my client." That is how I wrote too...and spoke.  That is the world I used to live in. 

This evening after pondering "Remember who you were going to be" for several hours, I have come to remember what I used to know.  Being who you were going to be doesn't have anything to do with choosing from a menu of careers and intellectually choosing what I will be.  Being who I was going to be has everything to do with what I said to those coaches, "being still, listening to my heart," and doing what I hear. 

So it was that I got to my flow state life.  It isn't cheating.  I think that is how we were designed.  Listen to our hearts, and they will always guide us.

All those things that I've struggled with over the almost-year I've been writing this blog? There should never be a struggle.  There should only be listening to what my heart knows.  That is what this blog is about.  I am most grateful for today's bumper sticker for reminding me how to remember.  The heart always knows.