My Life Changed When I Was More Concerned With LIVING the Answer Than HAVING the Answer

Circa 2019

Years ago I began my spiritual journey much like the rest of us....through an identity crisis. I had plenty happening in my life that wasn’t working and I was spiraling with thoughts of fear, worry, doubt, and judgment just to name a few. 

I set out to find every so-called “self help” book I could. 

I was desperate to soothe myself and establish a rock solid belief in SOMETHING besides what I was experiencing. 

I abandoned the God of my childhood. Religion had taught me to both fear and love God, and at this point in my life I could not reconcile them. It sounded exactly like the relationship I had with my parents as a child, and I had definitely outgrown it.

I became obsessed with reading and learning. The trouble was, I was experimenting with EVERYTHING I got my hands on. And just like a mad scientist, I was making a mess of things. 

I didn’t think having someone to guide me through it was really necessary. I knew I was smart enough to figure it out~which is exactly what Life let me do. It wasn’t pretty. I discovered that isolating myself in an effort to prove I could “do it by myself” was just largely connected to the ideas I held about my own worth and value.

A couple of years passed and I found myself attending “motivational” workshops and seminars  feeling jazzed by the experience. I made my way to large auditoriums with thousands of others who were also hoping to radically change their life in a week.

I got hooked on “learning” and the energy of these you-can-do-anything cheer sessions. The trouble was, these motivational experiences weren’t showing me the real issues in my life. They were bandaids of “positivity” covering up all the sh*! I wasn’t willing to face. 

I was spending all this time encouraging people, being positive, affirming good things, and still...I wasn’t getting much farther than before. 

Also, I realized that the people who were speaking and “motivating” me, were pretty much just saying the exact things I had already read. They had success in certain areas of life and then had huge gaps where their life was falling apart.  I don’t mean, they were working on it, I mean, it was being completely ignored while all the focus was on proving the kind of success everyone in the world thought was valid....aka money and stuff. I attended one seminar in particular where the featured speaker bragged about his expertise in sales and money making, how he had risen to success after years of attending the same kind of seminar, and tied it up with you “can live a life like mine!” A couple of years later I found out he was divorced because of his unfaithfulness in marriage.

Needless to say, I became disenchanted. This smacked of everything I had grown up around. It was just packaged differently. 

I began to seek out legitimate mentors. People who had DONE THE WORK, not just built a successful business, or had a great relationship, they were living a WHOLE life. 

I didn’t care if they were millionaires...I cared if they were authentic. 

I didn’t care if they had a blissful relationship...I cared that they didn’t fake it. I cared that they valued commitment. 

I didn’t care if they were a body builder....I cared that they valued themselves. I didn’t need them to be a perfect size. I cared that they respected their body and treated it with love. 

I didn’t care if they were highly motivational every time we connected....I cared that they acknowledged the Truth. I cared that they were responsible. I cared that they knew who they were. 

This wasn’t an easy find. I’ve worked with so many people along the way. And, I stayed committed to my vision of partnering with authentic, spiritual, practical, loving teachers. 

After much trial and error, I was finally connecting with people who wouldn’t post some positive new thing online and call themselves a “guru”. I could no longer sit under the teaching of someone who has the answer, yet their life reflected the complete opposite. It was a transformative experience, and yes at times, a painful transition.

Firstly,  I had to grow past my own irresponsibility. I had to be willing to release and shift my own limiting paradigms that kept me in the frequency of inauthenticity. Because, honestly, I was in complete denial of my own self. 

Secondly, when I cared more about LIVING the answer than HAVING the answer, everything (I do mean everything) changed....for GOOD. 

Finally, I had to heal my relationship with God. This was not the God of my childhood; the capricious God I had been raised under. God. Source. Life. All that is. I even had to learn how to say GOD again with no negative energy. I had to accept who I Am. 

So, today, I am no longer looking for perfection in others. I understand that we are all figuring it out. Some of us are just a little further down the path than others. And that is a good thing. Especially if those on the path care enough to guide those who are still moving forward. There is no one for you to look up to. No one. I don’t care how amazing they are. They are you. 

Our world is shifting so fast that anything inauthentic will be burned away. We don’t need anymore know-it-alls...the world is begging for the live-it-alls. You making YOUR life work is the biggest gift you can give to the world. This means you have to do the work of unlearning all the nonsense that has kept you hidden from the world. You have to walk it out. You will have to teach yourself again and again when things pop up to knock you off course (also, you’re never off course-it’s an illusion, but that’s for another time). You will have to do the work of surrounding yourself with people who out think you, because they are further down the road. You need people in your life who hold the highest vision of you. You need people who won’t support or sympathize with any victim ideas you have. 

Growth isn’t optional. 

You’re here for it. 

You can resist it, though it is happening anyway. 

You can embrace it, and experience the JOY of it all or you can be dragged along kicking and screaming (I’ve done both, I like the first one A LOT better). 

Totally up to you. 

I am grateful for every person along the way. I stand in reverence of those willing to lead themselves, go deeper, and do it all with the idea that they are answering the calling of their own Soul. 

In your unattended pain you can focus your efforts on “healing others”, but you can’t help anyone move forward into a place you aren’t willing to go. So...go! Do the thing! Learn who you are! And let the world experience the glory of God because of the Life you live. No contribution is greater.