A couple weeks ago, the results arrived. I was shocked. I felt like that man in the commercial, who had spent his whole life thinking his ancestors were German. He had learned German customs and dances and even acquired traditional German costumes. Then, his DNA determined that he was Scottish.
My results weren't quite that different. I have a very Irish name, and quite accurately, I knew that I was Scottish and Irish with a little Dutch and French. The DNA tests confirmed all that with a bit more broad representation from the British Isles.
I also learned that I have 7% ancestry from Northern Spain, a place that I've gravitated to over the last half dozen years, and I've said many times that I could retire to Barcelona in a heartbeat. Walking the riverfront in Bilbao on a Sunday afternoon three years ago felt like home. Who knew that there might have been an ancestral attraction to the region? Certainly not me. Perhaps even more shocking was the 7% from the bridge between Finland and Russia and Scandinavia. Really? Never heard anything about that before.
The real shocker, however, was not in these surprise pieces that are part of my ancestry, but in what is not in my ancestry...at all.
For generations of my family, the mythology has been about my Native American great-great-grandmother. I have been curious about it since I was a little girl. One of my favorite dolls as a child was a Native squaw with a papoose strapped to her back. As I matured, my grandmother told me how I had the Native cheekbones of her grandmother, as did my father. When sorting through photographs after my father's death, I asked my great-aunt (my grandmother's sister) who the woman was in a very old photograph. She reported it was her Native great-grandmother.
As I grew older, I have been intrigued in learning about Native customs and have even incorporated some in my coaching and consulting practice. On occasion, I've made a traditional Indian pudding, and I've loved reading and occasionally presenting on the foods of the first Thanksgiving. I've even had going to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian to work with their genealogists to learn more about my Native ancestry on my to-do list for several years.
Fiction. All fiction. Like the guy, who needed to trade in his lederhosen for a kilt, my DNA proves that our family mythology was complete fiction. Zero percent. I am more than a little curious about how such a story could have passed along for several generations, even through those like my great-aunt and grandmother, who actually knew this mystery woman. But, I can't dispute the science.
This shocking news arrives at a time when I am really trying to figure out who I am on a more existential level, The combination has left me feeling like I am in the midst of a hurricane with everything I've believed about myself spinning around me, and most of it blowing away.
For most of three decades, I have either been passionate about preparing for or having a career in organization development (OD) and coaching. OD is a broad enough field that my career has morphed in a number of directions since finishing graduate school: putting together a joint-venture in China, taking a corporation global, leading communication and change management for a project across the whole federal government, leading a culture change that dramatically improved satisfaction in the organization, and even facilitating a 20-year roadmap for an organization. I particularly enjoyed several years during which I helped executives as they sought to spiritually align the work lives and businesses with their spiritual purpose.
My coaching work has gone in as many directions as the people I've coached. Writing has provided a rich means for processing what I've learned about myself and others along the way. How could I not love this work that made the lives of people at work so much more satisfying?
How could I not, indeed? But like my mythical Native ancestry, when I work in OD these days, it feels like I've put on someone else's clothes that neither fit nor suit me anymore. While I still love to write, and when I have the bandwidth, I love writing this blog, I no longer have no passion for writing books. I have at least eight or nine that I've started over the years, and I can't even muster the interest to finish an hour's work that would be needed to finish publishing The Game Called Life electronically. One hour! And it has been on my desk for 18 months awaiting a handful of edits.
It is a very dark and rainy day in Washington, so I decided to skip church this morning and have an extended time of prayer and meditation about what's next. To say the things that floated through my meditations were all over the map is an understatement. Working on a political campaign, working with a non-governmental organization (NGO), especially with refugees, doing something artistic, developing gluten-free foods...
The next wave took me deeper in my core existence. I wrote: feels like home, service, positive, helpful, resourceful, solution-focused, learning, solid relationships, and using my significant experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. In many ways, the shocking DNA results seem like a message to me to just give up anything I've thought before and just make myself available--like stripping away everything I've thought about work and making myself available for what God wants me to do next.
I've been in similar situations before, and one time I packed my house and moved across the country. What followed over the next few years was amazing--totally in flow with the divine. Another time, I dillied and dallied for 30 months. Eventually the transition has worked out, but not nearly as easily. I've often wondered what would have happened if I'd followed 30 months earlier. That is a mystery of time.
I truly hope that this transition will not require a move--I love my home and Washington. However, I do know that I will be available when and where I am guided. I will let God be God.
