The Death of My Life
Do you want to change your life? I mean really change your life? Do you long to tear it down to the last thread of its current existence and weave a new lifestyle, livelihood, a new identity? If your answer is yes, you are among the millions who are searching for something bigger, something more fulfilling. You yearn for a lifestyle change. You expect more from yourself; you are seeking a greater return on life.
Life is full of movement. Change is the ebb and flow, the breath, of our existence. We learn to move with the winds of desire, opportunity and inspiration. However, what if those winds whip us against a corner, whisking away opportunity, forcing us to take action, make rash changes or settle for less? The current economy has done just that to millions. Real estate and jobs have been lost, families struggle, the individual questions the system. Many sulk in the corner after that whipping, immobilized by fear and constraint.
I have highlighted a grim picture of our current plight. Is it really this bad? To many, the answer is an emphatic yes. It is difficult to focus on anything more than restriction and lack when treading through the muck of these hardships. But, is it? Can a refocus on new positive changes be possible? I believe anything is possible.
What would happen if you used upheaval and failure to create the life you have always wanted? Could you imagine doing such a courageous feat in the face of defeat? It is time to move towards your true life path. This is something that needs attention whether you have suffered a loss or not.
The time is now.
I am addressing those who have been forced into unsavory life situations, because that is the most challenging position to move out of due to the debilitating wounds of a fall. However, anyone can restructure and redefine lifestyle. It does not take a tragedy to desire more out of life. The yearning for personal evolution and truth exists within us all.
Do you want more out of your life? Of course you do! It is time to CREATE the life you have always deep down felt you were meant to live.
Allow me to share my personal story of loss, growth, courage, fear and transformation. I was raised with high financial morals. At age 14, my mother made it clear that if I wanted a car at age 16, I would have to buy it myself. I got my first job waiting tables at a small, local café and slowly earned, diligently depositing every cent of my income into my new savings account. Two years later, on my 16th birthday, I bought my first car with all my saved earnings. This was the beginning of my perfect life. Or, so I thought.
I lived the standard life. You know, the life that parents, peers, scholars and society pushes, the one that trucks you along from school to college, from job to career, from renting to home ownership in hopes of delivering the great American dream of material happiness and eternal gluttony. I reached the pinnacle of this dream in my early thirties. I made it. I had the college degree, the career, the home. I paid all my bills in full and on time. My credit was so shinny clean; I could see my own reflection in it. And, believe me, it reflected perfection. I was a success by society’s standards. However, never once did I ask what my standards were, nor did I wonder what it was I considered to be true perfection.
I was so devoted to the principles by which I thought I should live my life that I failed to look at what it was I truly wanted. I thought I wanted everything I had. I thought I loved consumerism. Ironically, I was the one being consumed. Something was wrong.
By the time I realized that my life was incongruent with my greater wellbeing, I was firmly set within it. My house, which had lost value due to the economic downturn, was a giant cement block attached to chains that coiled around and imbedded into my legs. My career paid the bills, yes, but lacked the luster it once did, painting my daily routine in the dullest of colors. I was fading behind obligation. My inner light flickered in desperate attempts to ignite some former passion and enthusiasm for a creative, fanciful, courageous and bountiful future that no longer seemed to exist.
I was so consumed by the life I thought I should live and the things I thought I should own and the person I thought I should be that I was not cognizant of any of this. I clung to society’s ideals. Oddly, I was still considered a success.
Then it happened.
I was a commissioned corporate employee, and as the economy slid down the muddy hills of defeat, my income dropped like a sack of rocks. It crushed everything in its path. I watched in horror as my house and flawless record shattered around me in tiny shards of imperfection reflecting back at me. I curled up in a ball of failure, embarrassment, lack, fear, disbelief and shock. The wounds caused by those jagged little mirrored shards, bled the life right out of me.
This was an absolute blessing in disguise.
The life that bled from my devastated body was no real life at all. As I slowly uncurled myself from that agonizing ball, something greater within me began to unravel. I awakened. A fire started to smolder, and I began to fan the flames of new possibilities. I questioned everything. My values, career, lifestyle and self-image were suddenly splayed across the butcher block to be trimmed or discarded. I knew there was something more within me, something I earnestly wanted to uncover and celebrate. I began to see a clear ray of my true essence where there were once only clouds of obligatory accomplishment shrouding my reality.
This is what I discovered.
I am a precious being with a compassionate heart full of love and wonderment. I am connected ever so delicately with all other life forms and natural elements. I am ONE with the earth, oceans and the skies. My spirit vibrates to the pulse of the universe. I am raw and awake. I am that wild animal with keen senses, untamed, alert and excited. I am the wind, the sun and the rain. I am the lightening that streaks across the darkened night, fierce and poignant. My body has its own intelligence, aligned to my soul’s path. I flow with the synchronicities of life. I am life. I inhale wisps of tranquility and exhale healing harmony. I am everything I have ever imagined. I am every dream that has bounced off my pillowcase. I am that wish upon a falling star from the milky heavens. I am adventure and exploration. Bliss twinkles from my eyes. Curiosity rolls over my lips. I am pure. My life energy is gentle yet powerful, capable and captivating. I radiate like polished crystals. I am boundless, timeless, and priceless.
So, I quit my day job.
With this single choice, I stepped out of an insignificant life of limits, monotony, lack, fear, disharmony, worry, structure, and confinement, and I stepped into SIGNIFICANCE. As I tepidly stretched my foot over that threshold, I was tempted to maintain my familiar mediocrity by a lifetime of social conformity. It took every trembling ounce of courage and faith I had, but I did it. I took that step. I broke free. With my intuition ablaze and trust in my soul’s greater purpose, I changed my life.
I connected to my passion, my spirit and my higher ideals. I now have my own practice, and I work at what I love. I offer Reiki healings. I teach. I write. I create raw cuisine. I use my intuition in my spiritual readings. I coach others to connect with personal truth and to live significantly. My heart now beats to the tempo of my life work and my whims. Now that I flow with my life instead of force it, my work feels more fanciful and creative. It is my whim, for it is my muse; it is whimsical. As I allow myself to transform and grow, as a result, so does my effort. My passion and my labor have become synonymous. I invite change instead of confront it. I now sway to my own rhythms. I breathe in freedom. It is fresh, invigorating and inspiring. I can now see a fulfilling and abundant future.
I formerly believed that society wanted me to be that other thing, that unimaginative employee with the hefty mortgage and spotless accounting record. I thought perfection was owning that car, having the highest credit rating, making the safest choices, living within structure, and, ultimately, being an insipid enculturated debutante.
The irony is I followed my soul’s true path, and I now have more respect and more personal and spiritual abundance than I ever did before not because I am somehow now better, but because I am living a congruent, passionate, grateful, loving, positive, compassionate and free flowing life. I am living the life that used to occupy my heart in daydreams.
I faced my greatest fears. I took that step. Where there was once defeat, loss and a sense of failure now exists innate knowing, soulful endeavors, spiritual awareness and natural living.
I am exactly like YOU. We share the same inner brilliance. We are no different. We each have higher ideals and a heart opening, nurturing, healing, awakening purpose.
I know many of you reading this ache to embrace that greater calling. Whether it is leaving a dead-end job, selling a home, recreating a relationship, starting your own business or embarking on a dream you have always thought was just out of your reach, you, too, can live your highest Truth. It is more than possible. I now realize perfection is not defined by society. Perfection is simply and only divine. It is within us all. Can you feel it smoldering deep within you?
How will you create your divine life, the life of your unlimited imagination, the life you were BORN to live?
Leave Your Own Beautiful Trail
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Shana Dean Reiki & Lightbody Awakening 