Kids are back in school and I am getting up early again. It feels good. So much is moving, happening that I can barely keep up. I feel like I am riding a huge wave and that all there is to do is stay up and really enjoy the ride. It's moving fast, yet there is also this feeling like it is both carrying and holding me as I ride it. It is actually an amazing experience and a paradox. I am riding this wave that is a force unto itself and yet I feel more held, and centered in my being than when I am standing on solid earth.
Last week I made one of the most powerful decisions of my life. I decided to WALK the first stage of the Celtic Camino this fall, AND to lead a group of women on the first leg from Santiago to Leon. I want to share how this happened.
While Grace was away with my brother, Nick, and his family, Sharon called me one day to mention that she had woken up that morning and was very clear that she was to walk the Camino this fall. Was I game? That one conversation was THE catalyst that rearranged all the molecules and got everything moving.
What has been going on simultaneously to this is that Whitney, Jeanie and I had been making the decision (another decision that actually had a huge impact on the decision I was making around pilgrimages) to complete Own It, Sister! Radio at the end of August. Another big decision as we have all loved doing the show, have had great guests, over 35,000 subscribers to our show, but no dollars coming in. Without the financial support to keep it going, and the show becoming self-sustaining, it was clear to all of us that it was time to make a decision. And so we did - a consciously chosen decision to end the show and go dormant with Own It, Sister!. There's the saying that as one door closes, another window opens. What opened my window was that I knew that what's next for the three of us was to really, truly, deeply own our "it". The radio show with all of our wonderful and rich conversations prepared us to step up and really walk our talk. I can see coming back in a year or two and recording a podcast with each of us sharing what "owning our it" really looks like and what's possible, what's available through owning it. Now that is going to be a powerful conversation!
I spent last week then deeply processing and getting coached. I knew that I wanted to get to a resounding YES. I was in a "yes, but..." but not the full committed yes. I was reminded at the "More Life" conference that I went to recently that everything starts with a decision, and nothing happens without one. I knew I had to make a full and resonant decision if I was actually going back to the Camino. I also knew that now is the time to make DreamWeavings, my coaching business, a financially successful business. It's no longer "either/or" - the time is now for "both/and." I could hear myself playing out thoughts in my mind, "well, I'll go on the Camino, and then when I come home, I will figure out how to bring it all together."
Thanks to brilliant coaching from Maggie, my new business coach, Melissa, one of my co-coaches, and Reggie, my Dream coach and mentor, I found, felt and spoke my YES. When Maggie challenged me to go for creating a group to lead - when she said, "Sarah, what do you have to lose by going for it? So what that it's last minute...just go for it.", I realized that I had such a golden opportunity to claim fully who I am and what I am doing. I also realize that a key piece in my decision was the loving and generous support from Steve and the kids. I am amazed that they just keep stepping up and opening their hearts to support and love me, even when it means that we will be apart for awhile.
I AM A PILGRIMAGE COACH, AUTHOR AND SPEAKER.
My choosing to lead a group is my being a pilgrimage coach in action and in actuality.
Each hour of coaching that I received last week moved me forward into my YES and also supported me to refine, clarify, and commit. Reggie asked me, "Are you willing to go on this Celtic Camino even if no one can, even if Sharon backs out? Is your passion and your commitment for this bigger than any one person? These questions asked me to dig really deep into myself and beyond my fears of doing it alone, and find my deep, resounding, soul- spoken YES. It was when I said YES to my going no matter what, that I knew in my heart, soul and body that I had made my decision. YES, YES, YES.
The word "decide" comes from the Latin dēcīdere, literally: to cut off, from caedere to cut (dictionary.com) as in when you decide to do or be something, you cut off from all other possibilities. In my decision, while I could feel cutting off from a host of other choices and possibilities, I also felt a connection and a cohesion occur within me. In saying YES, I owned who I am, and what I truly want to do and how I want to serve. I committed to my life's divine purpose as it is unfolding now. I am owning my "IT".
I keep thinking of Goethe's words:
Until one is committed
There is hesitancy, the chance to draw back
Always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and Creation)
There is one elementary truth
The ignorance which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
That the moment that one definitely commits ones self
Then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
That would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision
Raising in one’s favor all manner
Of unforeseen incidents and meetings
And material substance
Which no one could have dreamt
Would have come your way.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. ---Goethe
I repeat these words because this is exactly what I have been experiencing over the past week:
That the moment that one definitely commits ones self
Then Providence moves too.
Providence feels unifying to me. All these events, connections, resources, and whatever else is needed line up to support you, to impulse into actions and results that move you forward, step by step, along your path. I am amazed and so grateful for each and every expression of Providence that has come my way to support my walking from Santiago to Toulouse, and ultimately, the whole Celtic Camino. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We each have a powerful and sacred dream inside of us that we are here to express and fulfill. I believe this with all of my heart and soul. This may be one of my most fundamental beliefs. Mine just happens to be to walk the Celtic Camino, to be a pilgrim, and to coach, lead and support others to be a "pilgrim" in their lives. Being a pilgrim means that you are willing to do the extraordinary to find your path and walk it, live it, express it, share it and fulfill it, whatever that path may be for you. It may be a sacred pilgrimage in another country; it may be in the midst of your life right here, in front of you. It may be both. The question comes down to how do we live our lives with the openness of a pilgrim? How do we simply take the next step forward knowing that we are walking toward our destination, but that the journey is the pilgrimage, not the arrival? How do we live as a pilgrim when we don't know what or where our destination is?
I have a client who is exploring her decision to commit to her pilgrimage of relationship. Intimate partnership is her big hairy monster in the closet, so to say yes to relationship is to say yes to a journey that is far bigger, more scary and more rewarding than creating a month in Amsterdam with her 4 year old child as a single mom. And that was big, and wonderful, and challenging, and fulfilling in and of itself.
There is a pilgrimage in each of us that is calling us - calling on us walk it, explore it, and live it. It is the journey of the unknown, that requires us to step out of our comfortable life and open ourselves to what we don't know that we don't even know we don't know about ourselves. This is where the magic and the juice are. This is where we can open ourselves up to our soul's path, and live a rich and fulfilling life connected to who we really are, to what we really want, to why we are truly here on Earth, at this time, in this body.
Do you know what else I learned recently? Whatever it is that we truly, deeply desire - the means to fulfill it already exists. Do you get that? The means to fulfill what we really want already exists.
This idea, this truth was a game changer for me. It completely overturned my old paradigm and gave me a new, empowering, get out of the way paradigm to operate out of. This may be in and of itself the catalyst, the new stone in my foundation that is making my walking the Celtic Camino, leading pilgrimage groups, writing my book and then speaking about it, all possible. If this is what I truly desire, and IT IS, then I also know that the means to fulfill all of this is already here. I just have to get out of the way, be open, receive the guidance and impulses to move me into aligned and right action around it, and trust.
What do you deeply desire?
Suseya!
Sarah
No comments:
Post a Comment