Posts Tagged ‘Dreams’
What Is Calling? – A Podcast Series
Calling. It’s a word more and more of us are thinking about, and using in our day to day lives.
Calling speaks to our desire for purpose and meaning. It causes us to ponder what we really wish to do with our lives. It whispers to us in our imaginations, and makes us wonder whether our life might just be about something bigger than ourselves.
Calling and vocation can, however, be easily misunderstood.
So every day on my podcast this week, I’m going to be unpacking this subject, and these a bit more.
You see, many often talk about calling in terms of one calling for life. These
Read MoreLiz Gilbert & Why Our Calling Doesn’t Have To Pay The Bills
Author Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir ‘Eat Pray Love’ sold 10 million copies. But what many people don’t know, is that she was a ‘successful’, paid writer before that book. Maybe not to the degree that she is now, but still relatively successful.
But even so, as Gilbert shares in her recent book ‘Big Magic’, she only gave up her day job once ‘Eat Pray Love’ went huge. She had been freelance paid writer before then, but had kept a day job the whole time.
Because she saw – and still sees – writing as her calling, her vocation – whether it’s her day job or not.
Which highlights one of the biggest and most dangerous myths around calling:
That to pursue a vocation or calling means it has to become our day job, our primary source of income – otherwise we’ve failed in our calling.
And it’s a total lie.
Read MoreHow Will You Be Transformed in 2016? #OneWord365
Each year is a season. Each year, we undergo a process of transformation, of some kind. We’re never the same person departing the year as we were walking in. Whether we’re intentional or not about this process, transformation always happens. For good, or for ill.
Ironically, the word transformation was one I chose for my ‘OneWord365’ for 2015 (I’m going to talk more about One Word 365 and how it’s impacted my life, and how it can impact yours, in the podcast on Wednesday.
There’s no doubt my life as a whole, and especially my perception of life, faith, spirituality, and creativity, has transformed in 2015. And as happened in previous years, the word I chose has become true in many more ways than I could have foreseen.
But what I’ve learned is we are always in a process of transformation. Whether we like it or not. The choice we have is not whether we’re going to be transformed, but how.
Read MoreLetter To Me: Rhiannon Hall
In 2014 I ran a series of guest posts by writer friends, all writing a letter to themselves – either a past self from their present self, or to their present self from their future self.
This inspired my friend Rhiannon Hall, who wrote a letter to herself, and shared it with me. I loved it so much, I got her permission to share it here.
Rhiannon’s is a powerful, moving & courageous letter. So here it is:
Dear 37 Year Old Rhiannon Hall,
First, breathe.
I swear that I remember sitting there starting to reading this… I know you feel that tightness in your chest and you think you are about to cry because you want answers and life seems so complicated and scary. Just do us a favor and breathe for a minute.
Then read on. (And I know you are now fully crying and that’s okay.)
I am proud of you for getting where you are at the moment you are living in. 2015 changed a lot of things for us, didn’t it?
You risked so much to become whole and truly live your authentic life.
Read MoreBe The Best You
It’s so popular in our celebrity culture to say “I want to be like [insert name of well known successful person you admire]”.
Celebrity idolatry is at an all time high. Fortunately, over time many people have learned to recognise it for what it is, and to avoid it.
But there’s a subtle, much more significant issue at work too. That of ‘wanting to healthily model the person I admire’.
At it’s best this is healthy. In some ways to learn from and aspire to be more like others who have walked a similar path, can be a good thing. It’s important to look at others with similar gifts and callings, those we respect, and learn lessons from them.
But if we’re not careful, this can lead us down the path of essentially becoming copies of those we admire.
We can become so busy trying to become like someone else, that we forget to be ourselves.
And even worse, we can use our ‘trying to be like someone else’ as a way of avoiding being who we were made to be. Maybe even to cover up for a belief that we, in ourselves, on our own, don’t have value or legitimacy, and nor does our work.
And it’s a horrendous lie.
Read MoreWhat Time Taught Me About Authenticity
So today I’m exploring more about authenticity. I imagine some of you are already asking ‘Another post about authenticity? Really?’.
Stick with me. There’s a reason I’m using this word.
Which brings me to time.
Time is a powerful thing. We can’t resist it’s power, no matter how much we try. It claims all of us eventually. But time is invariably wise too. It has much to teach us.
In my case, the years have taught me much about the meaning and importance of authenticity.
Truth. In life and work.
Read MoreWhy Talent Is A Sacred Gift, Not A Possession
I love to write. Tapping a keyboard, putting words into a document, for the betterment of others, it’s what brings me most joy. It’s my therapy, it’s my solace, and yet it’s also the medium I do most good in the lives of others. It’s both my most public and most private voice. The space which is mine and mine alone.
I’ve often worried about dying young, and not fulfilling my potential, and leaving nothing behind. But over Christmas, watching documentaries about Freddie Mercury and how he approached his own death – which unlike many of us, due to his condition, he had time to prepare himself for – one thing stuck out.
He threw himself into his creative work.
He knew that was his legacy, and like all great artists, when you listen to the words and music of his later life, they all seem like a goodbye message to us all. They’re some of the most authentic songs ever written. All with a raw honesty which suffering and death tends to expose in a way nothing else does.
For me, it was a reminder of the sacredness of every single word I put on a page. And I suddenly felt a sense of responsibility. That my words are a gift which has to go beyond myself.
Beyond, even, my lifetime (which hopefully, has a while to go yet).
And isn’t this the beauty of creativity?
Read MoreWhy ‘Transformation’ Is My One Word 2015 (#OneWord2015)
For the last two or three years I’ve adopted a ‘One Word’ for the year. The concept is to choose a word which will define your year, which will guide and direct all you do and be at the centre of everything that year.
For 2014 I chose ‘courage’. And this turned out to be very prophetic. I was confronted with the worst of myself and the best of myself.
The best? That I have a writing gift which God wants me to use to benefit others for good – and which actually makes a difference in the world. That I’m well-liked, respected person and writer with a lot to give to the world, and have infinite value and worth as I am.
The worst? My abysmal management of my finances which was going to land me in major trouble unless I took action. How disconnected I’d become from God, and from my own calling. And in what bad health I was in, physically, mentally, emotionally, professionally and spiritually. And above all, my epilepsy-related depression.
This is what happens when you choose a word for the year. In some strange, cosmic way, it comes to challenge you, and incapsulate everything you are in that year. And it’s not exaggeration to say it changes your life for the better.
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