Courage and Resilience in Following Your Life Dream

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A friend of mine recently posted on social media reflecting on whether it was time to give up her life dream profession and choose an “easier” path.
I know what it’s like to have a bad day at work, even doing the work you love. The other day I asked my husband if I was just being stubborn in persisting with a project that doesn’t seem to be getting off the ground.
My husband replied that, “Anyone who attempts to do something great has to have determination.”
He’s right. Following your dream requires courage, fortitude, and resilience. It takes grit and an irrational optimism.
Our culture has the idea that when you “follow your bliss” it all falls into place effortlessly. That’s a lovely idea, but we do ourselves a disservice when we believe it.
The fact is that following your calling, even when you’re on the right path, will stretch you. Your buttons will be pushed. You will have hard days. You will be called upon to step outside your comfort zone and you will do it clumsily, at least at first, because that is how we do things that are new.
This is what we need to normalize: that you can be on the right path, bringing your gifts to the world, doing the good work your soul intended, and occasionally you will still feel like you got your butt kicked. Luckily, there are some ways to make it easier.
Here are a few things that help me to stay the course when the next thing on my to-do list feels frightening or when I’ve just heard another “no” or I begin to question why I’m doing this instead of just making lattes at Starbucks.
  1. Don’t take it personally. When we pour our heart and soul into the work we do, it can be easy to confuse someone passing on our offer with being rejected ourselves. You are not your work. Developing a habit of not taking it personally will boost your resilience and capacity to stay in the game long enough to hear “yes.”
  2. Take care of yourself. Invest in doing the things that nourish you. Be gentle with yourself. Though there may be times you stretch to meet a deadline for an opportunity, find a balance where your work-life – even the work you love – is sustainable.
  3. Surround yourself with people who love and support you. Success is a team effort, even when you’re a solopreneur. Connect regularly with people who believe in you and believe in what you’re doing – and reach out to them when you’re having a hard day or the next step feels challenging or flat out scary. Imagine them standing with you when you take those scary steps.
  4. Collect positive feedback. Of course it’s helpful to have testimonials or reviews for potential clients or customers, but it’s also helpful to have your own collection of kudos and thank you notes that you can review on a regular basis. Rereading a note or feedback a client shared about how your work has impacted them will help you remember why you’re bothering to do this.
  5. Spend time with others who are following their calling. Share what’s working for you and ask what’s working for them. When you encounter a new task you haven’t done before (like building a website, for example) ask your professional community what made it easier for them or what they learned in the process.
  6. Keep your spirits up. For me, things like a regular meditation practice to connect with spiritual support and a gratitude practice both help me come back to a place of feeling grounded, held, peaceful, and ready to carry on. I remind myself that the divine within me has a plan – and I thank this divine part of myself for making it obvious what’s mine to do and not do.
You might wonder, like my friend, if there’s ever a right time to change course and steer away from the calling you’ve devoted yourself to up to this point.
What I’ve seen and experienced is that our life calling is not a fixed destination, but often evolves with some twists and turns as we grow. If your heart really isn’t in it or you feel drawn to something else, it’s probably time to move on.
In the meantime, know that I’m cheering for you.
Having a supportive community is vitally important for anyone who wants to walk the path of meaningful work and a purpose-filled life.
Who are the people in your corner that believe in you and your vision?
Who are the mentors, coaches, or people ahead of you on a similar path who can make the learning curve easier?
Who else would you like on your team?

When What You Want Scares You

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How to Persevere Past Self-Doubt | True Radiance Healing Arts

(Reading time: approx. 5 minutes)

When I was first offered the opportunity to teach a workshop years ago, my heart said, “oh yes!” but my head said, “oh no!” Deep within me it felt absolutely right to be leading a workshop, but my mind was full of fears and doubts…
“Who am I to lead a group, to present myself as an expert?”
“What if I stand up in front of the room and forget everything?”
“What if they hate it? What if they get up and walk out in the middle?”

Like many people in this country, I dreaded public speaking when I was younger (ok, true confession, part of me still gets a bit nervous). Even the thought of standing up in front of the class and delivering a short talk at school made me queasy. It was like all the blood would drain out of my brain, rendering it useless, and into my face, lighting me up like a beet.

Given this, you might think I’d be the last person to sign myself up to lead a group voluntarily. Yet, I couldn’t deny that teaching also felt absolutely right. There was a quiet voice in my core telling me that leading groups and workshops was one of my gifts and part of my purpose. How could I say no to that?

It turns out that I actually LOVE facilitating groups and leading workshops, even if it still sometimes scares me. When I teach a group – even one that goes late into the evening – I feel energized and even a bit wound up afterwards. But I would never have discovered this if I had listened to the voice of fear and declined the opportunity.

Over the years as I have worked with more and more people, I have found a common thread in this experience: many of us want to, or even feel called to, do something that scares us.

In fact, the more we feel drawn to undertaking a particular path, the more fear it can stir in us. This path could be related to our career, getting involved in a relationship or making more friends, having a baby, going back to school, or leaving a relationship. It’s not always this way, of course. There are times when we feel compelled in a direction that feels natural to us. Most often it seems there’s a blend, an irrational mix of comfort, confidence, and terror evoked by our desires.

One reason for this lies in the degree of risk we perceive to be involved. If an activity feels like part of our life purpose, it can be thrilling but also add pressure. When it feels like the stakes are high, fear and doubt are often close by. We can be haunted by questions like, “What if it doesn’t work out? What if I’m wasting my time? What if it turns out I’m no good at this? What then?”

Now that I have more faith, I’ve realized that, as long as I do my part, if I’m on the right path then my success is inevitable. Doing my part means being active, taking steps toward accomplishing my dreams. It means braving up and following the little inner voice to do even the things that scare me.

On my own journey and in my work with hundreds of people, there are strategies that I’ve found helpful in persevering past doubt. Here are a few of them:

  1. Rehearse Ease. Whenever we do something unfamiliar, the brain’s threat watchdog, the amygdala, goes on alert. In fact, the amygdala scans all incoming information from our senses and from the cortex. Since the cortex is spectacular at imagining things, the amygdala reacts to scenarios we are imagining as well as events that are transpiring in real time. That’s why even *thinking about* doing something that scares you can elicit the fight, flight, or freeze response (otherwise known to some of us as the “eat, binge watch TV reruns, or get lost in FaceBook” response). Luckily, we can use this to our advantage by imagining ourselves carrying out the activity with ease. This works best if you imagine it just a few minutes at a time, frequently (daily works well), and in as much sensory detail as possible.
  2. Break it Down. Another way to help avoid triggering the amygdala is to break down a goal into small, manageable steps. Again, the key is to take action a few minutes at a time, repeated over time. This repetition creates and reinforces a new neural pathway, which is the structure of habit in the brain. Make a date with yourself to do just a little bit toward your goal most days. If you find you’re not getting to it, make the step even smaller. Over time, you’ll find yourself feeling encouraged by the progress you’re making, which makes it even more appealing to keep going. (You can read more about this in the blog post, The Neuroscience of Changing Habits.)
  3. Focus on the Supportive Inner Voice. We typically have many aspects of ourselves that contribute to our inner dialogue. Often there will be a part of us that knows we are on the right track and fully capable of achieving our goal. Simultaneously, there will be other parts of us who express doubts, perhaps dredging up past failures and generally raining on our parade. It can help to “talk back” to the fearful voices by saying to yourself, “Thank you for your input, and right now I’m choosing to listen to the Part of Me That Knows.” Over time, this supportive inner voice will get clearer and louder, while the voices of fear and doubt will lose gusto.
  4. Collect Reasons to Keep Going. The voice of fear and doubt will offer us a myriad of reasons to give up. Like a detective building a case, start gathering evidence that you’re on the right track. This might include positive feedback and compliments from friends, family, clients, or others. At times it can be easier to accept someone else’s positive evaluation of us than it is to accept our own. Other people see gifts and talents in us long before we are ready to own them. For me, my case for continuing also included intuitive information and night dreams that encouraged me.
  5. Build Trust. One way we can begin to open doors to new ways of thinking is to ask ourselves the same question over and over. Try playing with the question, “What would it be like to trust that things will work out?” or “What would it be like to trust that I’m capable of doing this?” See if you can feel that trust, even 2% more than you did a moment ago. Our plans don’t always materialize the way we had hoped – sometimes things work out in a way that’s even better. Trusting that things will work out means trusting that, even if it doesn’t transpire the way you imagined it would, in the long run there will be aspects that you can genuinely appreciate and enjoy.
  6. Get Support. Just knowing that someone else is on our team, walking the path of challenge and celebrating with us, can go a long way towards our success. You aren’t the only one who has fear come up around something you really want in your life. It can be a powerful asset to have a supportive person you can reach out to just before taking a step that scares you, someone who understands what it means for you to do it, and who can give you a big “Woo-hoo!!” and reflect the depth of that accomplishment back to you once it’s done.

It’s common to both really want to do something and be frightened by or anxious about the idea of doing it. You don’t have to let fear be the boss of you. You can do it! Start today using one of the strategies above or by approaching it in a way that has worked for you in other situations.

The Neuroscience of Changing Habits

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The Neuroscience of Changing Habits | True Radiance Healing Arts(Reading time: approx 5 minutes)

Our culture tends to promote a “go big or go home” approach to changing habits, but it turns out that this is completely counter to what works with our brain.

Have you ever thought about changing a habit in your life – maybe starting an exercise routine or getting back into a creative hobby? We tend to make big plans for ourselves with goals like this. We might say to ourselves,

“From now on I’m going to _____ every day,” or “I’m going to set aside a whole day to _____”

These are examples of big changes in habits. Occasionally we’re able to carry out a big change like this for a little while, like a New Year’s Resolution that lasts for a few days or maybe weeks, but we typically don’t sustain them.

When our best laid plans begin to come apart and we find ourselves not sticking to the big goal we set for ourselves, there’s a tendency to beat ourselves up. We think the reason we weren’t successful is that we didn’t try hard enough, we got lazy, or we just don’t have enough willpower.

In fact, the number one reason our attempts at changing habits fail isn’t because of any shortcoming on our part – it’s because of our brain.

Deep in the midbrain is a structure called the amygdala. The amygdala is responsible for our fight, flight, or freeze response when we encounter a threat. This part of the brain is always on the lookout for things that are different – and it equates differences in our usual routine with potential threats.

Because the amygdala is closely tied in with the brain stem and the nervous system, it can trigger a reaction in the body before we think about it. When this happens, we often find ourselves on the couch watching TV, grabbing a snack, or pretty much doing anything except for the new goal we meant to do.

This system, while of great benefit when survival is at stake, is less convenient at other times. For example, when you decide you’re going to start exercising every day when you haven’t been exercising at all for a while. Since it’s not part of your usual habits, the amygdala can perceive this big change as a threat. The amygdala sounds the alarm and suddenly you find yourself in fight, flight or freeze – doing nothing, or perhaps chowing down on a donut, but almost certainly *not* exercising.

Meanwhile, wrapped around the midbrain is the cortex. The cortex handles all of our complex thinking: language, creativity, imagination, and strategy. When the amygdala is triggered, all of those resources are temporarily offline and the amygdala is in charge of our behavior.

This means that although we can use our cortex to set goals for ourselves, to imagine changes we’d like to make in our lives, and to make choices in our long-term best interest, all those best laid plans can come to a halt when the amygdala detects a difference in our routine.

Given this sensitive tripwire in our brain, how can we actually make the changes we want in our lives?

The Neuroscience of Changing Habits | True Radiance Healing ArtsThe most effective way to make a lasting change or make progress on a big goal is to break it down into small steps. This approach is called “kaizen,” a Japanese word meaning “incremental daily improvement.” In this case, we’re talking about taking very, very small steps to accomplish a big goal or develop a new habit.

Making changes using small steps allows us to sneak past the amygdala without setting off the alarm bells. Small in this case means 30 seconds to 5 minutes at a time, repeated over time.

Besides being an effective way to change habits in general, a kaizen approach to a changing habits is ideal if you haven’t been able to find the time or energy to start, if you’re a perfectionist, or if the idea of making the change is overwhelming or maybe even makes you a bit nervous.

Here are some examples of changes that work really well with a kaizen approach:

  • Developing a writing habit by writing for 5 minutes – even just writing one sentence – a day
  • Starting an exercise routine starting with simply putting on your exercise shoes, doing one stretch, or walking to the end of the driveway and back
  • Drinking more water by filling a glass or bottle with water in the morning and keeping it with you
  • Learning to meditate by reminding yourself to take a deep breath periodically throughout the day or by focusing on a mantra or affirmation for a few minutes at a time
  • Practicing gratitude by sending a text to a friend every evening with one moment you are grateful for that day
  • Getting back into a hobby you used to love, such as painting or swimming, by imagining yourself doing it, in as much sensory detail as possible, for one minute a day

The small step may seem absurdly small. You might wonder how such a little step could actually get you anywhere, but consider this:

  • Even if you’re only writing for 5 minutes a day, that’s 25-35 minutes over the course of the week and about 2 hours in a month. That may well be more time than you’re spending on it now.
  • Make the bargain with yourself to do the small step. If you feel like doing more, you can always do that. For example, if you set a small step goal of putting on your walking shoes and walking to the mailbox, you can always go to the end of the block and back instead if you’re feeling inspired.
  • All our habits have corresponding neural networks in the brain. Those neural networks get reinforced and strengthened through repetition – not duration. In other words, in building a habit it’s much more effective to do something 20 times for 30 seconds at a time than it is spend 10 minutes doing it just once.
  • Taking these small steps tends to make a goal feel more manageable and it increases our motivation to do them. We get a taste for it and after a little while it feels easier than it did before we started.

How small is small enough? Your small step should be easy enough that you can’t help but do it. If you find yourself not getting to it, take that simply as feedback that you haven’t made the step small enough. Lower your expectation of yourself even further until you can easily do it.

Given how minor and relatively quick it is to do, it helps to put a structure in place to help you remember to do it. A few examples of structures that work well are having a friend or partner do it with you, setting a reminder on your phone or calendar, or putting a sticky note reminder in a place where you’ll see it every day.

One last key to success with small steps: Give yourself credit for doing even the tiniest of steps toward your goal. It may feel a bit ridiculous to part of you (the part that thinks if you haven’t gone “all the way” then you haven’t done it all), but celebrating these small actions acts like gasoline on the little fire you’ve started. It stimulates the reward center in the brain, releasing neurochemicals that help to reinforce the new neural networks you’re building.

If you’re curious how a small steps approach might apply to your goals, I’m happy to talk to you about it. Just send me an email or give me a call.

Dreams Point the Way Toward Your Life Purpose

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Dreams Guide Us to Our Life Purpose | True Radiance Healing ArtsWhen I tell people that my dreams have been a guiding light in finding my life purpose, I get some strange looks.

I’ve always had a strong sense that our lives are not accidents, that we come to this life for a reason. By the time I was in my 30s, I knew the general direction to which I felt drawn…creative arts, supporting other people, spiritual exploration…but I couldn’t seem to get any clarity on what I had to offer the world that was uniquely mine.

I took every class or workshop that I could afford on an array of topics from personal productivity to shamanic healing and everything in between. I developed a great breadth of understanding about how we as human beings can thrive in our work and personal lives.

My strategy was a kind of shot-gun approach: if I learned everything then I would cover all the bases. Surely one of those things would be my life’s work.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this feeling…that there is something you’re meant to be doing, but you just can’t pin it down. For me, it was deeply frustrating. I felt like I was hitting my head against a wall – and wasting precious time.

A clear sense of my life purpose finally came to me when I stopped running around, looking for signs of my life path out there and started looking inward, at my dreams.

Our dreams are messages from our Higher Self and they include guidance on everything from health to relationships to our life purpose.

When I began to take the time to understand my dreams and actually make decisions based on their input, my entire life changed. My life vision became clearer; I quit my “day job” and started my full-time practice supporting people in removing obstacles, changing patterns, and healing wounds using my own blend of life coaching and energy healing.

Over time, I’ve learned I can trust the information I get from my dreams. I’ve also found that if there’s a decision I’m pondering, or a choice I’ve just made, I can get feedback the very next night.

This guidance is available to you as well. It’s comforting to know that we, with our limited human perspective, are not alone on this journey. We aren’t meant to stumble through our lives haphazardly, hopefully bumping into the right path for us; we are meant to have help.

In my years as a student, I’ve also learned how to have a “dream” while fully awake. The technique some call “journeying” is one you can learn. I teach it in my workshops and private sessions with clients. It’s very powerful and comes in handy when you don’t usually remember your dreams or when you don’t want to wait until you fall asleep!

If you are ready to get your questions about your life path answered, sign up for my upcoming workshop on Living Your Life Purpose on May 14 & 15 in Edmonds, WA. I hope to see you there.

Wishing you great fulfillment,
Susan

Life Purpose in Dreams

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Because our life purpose is so central to our lives, our dreams often contain information about it.

While the entire dream would have to be looked at to understand the full message, here are a few symbols to look for in dreams that comment on our life purpose:

1. A dream character in a position of authority or with a title, such as a police officer, waitress, doctor, or shop owner. Whatever gifts these character possess are yours as well.

2. Special powers you have in a dream are often a reflection of or symbolic of skills you have in waking life, such as the ability to see spirits.

3. Parties, birthday parties, or celebrating Christmas in a dream can be about your birth and the gifts you brought with you.

4. Receiving a gift in a dream often shows us the gifts we are to use as part of our life purpose.

5. Ships in a harbor can be a pun on birth (berth) and thus alert us that the dream is addressing our birth.

6. Dreams that symbolically show the birth imprint, such as leaving a building (often through a narrow opening such as a window) or coming down from a high place also typically comment on our gifts. Other examples would be landing on earth from a space ship or coming down in an elevator.

If you want to know more about how dreams show our life purpose, you can listen to the archived episode of my radio show about dreams, healing and guidance, “So You Think You’re Awake,” where we focus on dreams about life purpose.

Life Purpose: 8 Key Points

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shutterstock_365900042 compass

1. Having a purpose to our life is universal.
We all came to this lifetime with an intention. We have gifts we came to offer and learning we came to integrate.

2. Our life purpose is unique.
Each person’s life purpose consists of their own blend of talents and struggles, carried out in their own way.

3. Living our purpose asks us to be courageous.
Since we all have our own unique path, if you are truly going to follow yours then at some point you are likely to feel you are making a choice that other people don’t understand and wouldn’t choose for you. Friends and loved ones may advise you in a “logical” direction that is counter to the choice you feel intuitively drawn to make. It takes courage to listen to your own sense of what’s right for you.

4. Our life purpose requires effort. 
Our life work is not always the easiest thing for us to do. Engaging with our life purpose usually requires patience and practice. I often see people get frustrated when they hit a bump in the road–for example, I’ve worked with many writers who felt that writing was part of their calling, but who begin to doubt their calling when they struggle with writing.

5. Opportunities arise when we are on the right path.
When we are engaged with our life purpose, doors will open up for us that would not have otherwise opened. Even though we have to show up and put in the work to make our life vision a reality, there are often synchronicities and opportunities that appear.

6. Following our life purpose is a process that reveals itself as we go.
There is a timing to some elements of our life purpose. When we stand back, it makes sense to us that our entire life purpose wouldn’t happen or be available to us all at once, but rather that it would be an unfolding throughout our lives. We can get impatient that things aren’t unfolding the way we want them to. In some cases, it may not be time yet. There is an important sequencing of events, both in our individual lives and in the greater world.

7. Difficulties have an integral role in our life purpose.
Dealing with the challenging aspects of our lives can sometimes feel like it’s getting in the way of accomplishing our life purpose, when in fact transcending and learning from these challenges is a vital part of our purpose.

8. Both giving and receiving have a place in the purpose of our lives.
Just as it is part of our soul contract to offer our assistance in various ways during our lifetime, it also part of other people’s contract to assist us. I’m not talking about a sense of entitlement or “he owes me” kind of thinking. I do want to point out that receiving is just important as giving in the grand scheme of life. Our culture tends to promote the idea of self-sufficiency to the exclusion of accepting help. Being willing to receive support as well as to give it is a major life lesson that many people in this country are working with.