 Recently, the late great Congressman John Lewis wrote an essay and requested that it be published in the New York Times on the day of his funeral.
In his letter, he urged all of us to “answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.” What would you say is the highest calling of your heart? For a lot of people, this is a pretty tough question. That’s because most people aren’t asked to listen to their heart, much less its highest calling. From the time you’re little, you’re usually told what you’re supposed to do, based on what everyone else is doing. Does any of this advice sound familiar to you?
In my work as a spiritual life coach, I meet so many people who’ve tried to make a go of this route and have ended up miserable. Many find themselves unfulfilled, and some even distressed. That’s because the life they were told they “should” live wasn’t in alignment with the life calling inside their heart. If you’re unsure what direction your heart is calling you to, it might help to ask yourself some questions. Here are a few to get you started:
Take one of the questions and contemplate what comes up. If you’d like, you can even journal on any or all of these questions. If you want to receive powerful answers, the best way to do that is to ask powerful questions. By simply asking the question, you activate your own abilities to listen to your heart’s calling. Whether you realize it or not, your heart is constantly communicating with you, calling forth the highest and best for your life. You receive the communications of your heart when you feel excitement and joy, when you feel alive and connected, and when you feel time doesn’t exist. Imagine if you experienced joy and the vitality of life each and every day. And imagine if other people around you, all throughout the world, also experienced this same joy and vitality in their lives. What a world we would be living in…full of wonder and possibility. I believe that when Congressman John Lewis wrote these words, encouraging you to “answer the highest calling of your heart and to stand up for what you truly believe,” he spoke from this highest vision of what’s possible for every person, and what’s possible for our world. I share in his encouragement. My intention and my prayer are that you live your life with vibrancy and joy, and in service to your heart’s highest calling. What is your heart whispering to you? And in what ways are you called to answer? Go ahead. Take a step in the direction of your heart. When you do, be willing to be surprised by how the Divine Love of this Universe shows up to greet you. Abundant Blessings and Namaste. ** I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's article. Please feel free to leave a comment below.  Is there something in your heart that you’ve been wanting to do for the longest time, but for whatever reason you haven't been able to do it?
For me, I had this brilliant idea and dream to write a book. In my mind, it was going to be a best-seller! Thousands, maybe millions of people, from all over the world were going to buy it and love it. But what happened is, year after year, I just didn't do it. I had so many different reasons that came up. “Oh, I'm so busy. I have to work on this first.” “I want it to look this particular way, so I’ll just wait until I have all the other pieces in place and lined up first.” “I’ll get to it next month.” Do you know when I first had the idea to write this book? 12 years ago!!! All these excuses, year after year, for the last 12 years. A few months ago, though, I made the decision that I wasn’t going to wait any longer. Let me tell you what happened to make that change. I realized that a lot of my focus was on all the hype I placed on the book...that it would be a best-seller, that millions would love it, or that it was the pinnacle of all the key lessons I’ve learned in life. In other words, my book had to be perfect. I continually stopped myself from even writing the first word, all because everything had to be just perfect. Have you ever stopped yourself from taking any action towards your dream vision, all because everything had to be perfect? I finally took action when my business coach, Shawn Shepheard, gave me a writing exercise to help get my writing juices flowing, just to get any words on to a piece of paper. For this exercise, Shawn asked me to write five short stories that defined my life. I happily agreed. Five short stories. That seemed simple enough. Anything to get the writing flowing. In less than a couple days, I picked five defining moments in my life, and I wrote a short story about each of them. Let me tell you. A defining moment isn't a simple re-telling of a walk in the park. A defining moment, by its very nature, is an experience that ultimately changed you and the trajectory of your life. As I wrote, I remembered the challenges and the frustration I faced in each of these moments. I recalled when I had to turn to others for support, or when I had to dig deep to turn to my own inner reservoir of strength that I didn’t know that I had...all to overcome different challenges in my life. After writing these five stories, I realized how powerful my experiences were. And each moment contained a life lesson that could be shared with others. That’s when a lightbulb went off in my head. “OMG! This could be my book!” In fact, it was the start of the book that I'm working to finish now. Since then, I've added more stories from my life, and I've added life lessons to each of these stories. These last couple of months, what helped me to get over this hump of not writing a book for the last twelve years was to simply take action. You see, it’s when you take action, when you take the first step, that you actually get more clear on your vision. How many times have you heard this nugget of wisdom from others? How many times have I told my clients to do the same thing? Sometimes, the person that needs to hear your wisdom the most, is yourself. And so my coaching question for you today is: What's one thing that you've been wanting to do for the longest time that's in your heart but you haven't done it yet? Now, think about one little action step that you can take towards the direction of that vision. What’s that one baby step? The smaller and easier the baby step, the better. Then, go ahead and take that step. It doesn't matter if that step is going to ultimately be a part of the picture of your vision. What taking that first step does is open up and activate the energy of possibility. Taking that first step leads you to the next step, which then leads you to the next step. You can take my own learning in writing my book as a lesson. Take a step and be willing to be surprised. And then watch as, what for me was 12 years in the making, will soon become a reality. Abundant Blessings and Namaste. ** I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's article. Please feel free to leave a comment below. Have you ever done something that you know probably isn't the best thing for you to do? The reasons you do it are one, because you like it and the enjoyment outweighs the cost, or two, because you can't really imagine yourself doing anything other than doing this. I bring this up because I see this often in some of the prospective coaching clients that I meet with. Some tell me about how much they hate their work, or they really don't like their boss or the people that they're working with. And yet, many continue to stay at their job because they have trouble imagining doing something else, or because the pay is good enough, so much so that they don't want to let that go. In those particular conversations, I like to share what I call “The Hamburger Story.” Years ago, a spiritual teacher and leader named Terry Cole-Whittaker shared how much she loved eating hamburgers. And yet, she knew that hamburgers weren't the best thing for her body, meaning she knew the burgers didn’t agree with her digestive system and she didn't feel so good after eating them. So she came up with this practice where, as she ate the hamburgers, she would use the power of her mind to transmute the properties of the hamburgers so that they would be more nutritious for her. With each bite, she would speak her affirmations and declarations, proclaiming the hamburger was being transmuted and received nutritionally and healthily by her body. Perfect digestion. Perfect assimilation. Perfect elimination. Every time she ate a hamburger, she would engage in this ritual that required a lot of her energy and focused attention. She loved her hamburgers and she wanted to do whatever she could to eat them without causing major disruptions in her body. Until one day, she had an epiphany. She had a light bulb moment where she realized she was exerting so much energy every time she ate a hamburger when, instead, she could eat other foods that were already more agreeable and nutritious for her body. Right then and there, she made a decision to eat hamburgers no more. (Please note that I'm bringing up the hamburger story to illustrate a point and not to diss hamburgers, which I absolutely love eating!) I bring up the Hamburger Story because I see situations where clients are doing things that they know might not be for their highest and best. As I mentioned earlier, the example I hear often is people continuing to do work that they absolutely hate. A common response is to try to transmute those situations, to make lemonade out of lemons. One of the common things people do is engage in stress management, like taking walks, meditating more, or getting out their frustrations at the gym during the evenings and weekends. These activities help alleviate their stress so they can be more resilient in the workplace, to build up their "spiritual armor" when they enter the "minefield" they call work. Another thing people do is focus on cultivating practices of patience and non-attachment, so they don’t get riled up easily at work by their bosses and co-workers. Let me be clear. Stress management and cultivating patience are great practices. But if people are doing these practices to avoid the underlying cause of their stress and worry, then they just might be mimicking the actions of Terry Cole-Whittaker. They’re eating metaphorical hamburgers (for example, working in jobs they hate), knowing they’re not the best for them, but doing whatever they can to transmute the situation to make it more manageable and palatable. However, Terry Cole-Whittaker eventually learned another path. That pathway is to choose those things that are in greater alignment and ease with who you are. With this story in mind, the questions that I have for you today are these: Where in your life are you eating metaphorical hamburgers, meaning you’re engaging in things that may not be for your highest and best? And where can you invite a more easeful way of living, and in a way that's in right alignment with who you are? Simply ask yourself these questions and take stock. The truth is, you really can experience more ease and grace in your life. Life doesn’t always require an extraordinary amount of energy for simply living every day. Ultimately, though, if you really, really, really want to eat that hamburger, by all means go ahead and do it. You always have the power of choice available to you. You get to choose. And yet, my intention for you, as always, is that as you choose, choose with an expanded and loving awareness for what's possible for you, including your highest and best. With that greater awareness, you get to see and discern whether the cost of what you're doing is actually worth it, or if a more easeful path is calling you forward. Which path will you choose? Abundant Blessings and Namaste. ** I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's article. Please feel free to leave a comment below. |
About JoselitoJoselito is a spiritual life coach helping people create a purposeful, spiritual path to career and financial freedom. Popular Blog Articles Beware (Be Aware of) these 5 Unhelpful Money Stories How my body told me to quit my job How I was offered an all-expenses paid cruise after making my Vision Board Today I choose to live my GREATNESS You are not your stories. You are the story-teller. Your job is not your Source. Archives
August 2020
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