I never intended to go onstage.
Just buying the plane tickets had been a gamble. In my early 40s, but I felt 80, and I could barely remember my former self. I’d developed a slew of chronic and progressive autoimmune diagnoses, including Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sjogren’s syndrome, and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and hadn’t traveled in years. Don’t worry, I tried not to talk about it. If anything, I felt ashamed of all this illness and tried to hide it. I subscribed to stoic Montana culture, to cowboying up. One of my sisters also has RA, but unlike myself she has four kids to raise, and she does it beautifully, I might add. I’m certain her pain is worse, but she’d never tell.
I needed a new way to make a living and a contribution.
It seemed I could rally for short, deep conversations, especially if reclined in my pajamas, but I could barely muster the focus to write resumes, anymore. I wasn’t going to be able to keep it up much longer, so I’d invested all my money in a life coach training program. In theory, I could coach over the phone, in bed, helping people without the tiring and technical homework of writing resumes. Plus, the program was led by a writer whose every published word felt written just for me: Harvard trained sociologist, life coach, and best-selling author, Dr. Martha Beck. We were nearing completion of the 9-month course. Week in and week out, I had practiced transformative coaching tools over the phone with my study buddy, Kitty, and other members of our cohort. I’d been too ill to participate much in class, but Kitty and I had done our homework. While mastering the tools coaching each other around our real-life stuff, we’d developed a deep bond. And we’d never met. Our class meet ‘n’ greet would be held at San Luis Obispo.
The plan was simple. Sort of.
It would take three flights just to get there from Missoula, three more than I’d taken since I became sick. I knew the flights alone might do me in, but I couldn’t bear to miss out on one more thing. Not this thing. I wanted to meet Kitty, to experience Martha in real time and place, rather than awaiting her next book. And I wanted to revel in a room full of people who wanted to change the world. I had to go.
I’d sit in the back. If I got too sick, I’d duck out the door without disrupting the group. I planned to draw my energy inward, rest and listen and absorb. Kitty would sit near me and look out for me if I needed help back to the hotel room.
But instead, I was called to the front.
After lunch, a woman asked Martha something about past lives. We hadn’t discussed anything like this during the course. Julia spoke of her African ancestors, of being sent home from birth in a shoebox since she wasn’t expected to live. Some serious shit. People around me were crying. She was so raw. I was fascinated and, to be honest, repelled. I wasn’t sure what she was asking. Martha put her finger on her forehead and said, “Julia, in your mind’s eye, do you know what you are called to do but you’re afraid to do it?” And Julia touched the floor with both hands for an instant and wailed, “Yeeees!” Past lives? Callings? Not one part of me could relate. I supposed some coaches’ clients might have secret callings and face past life stuff, but mine didn’t. My clients wanted support with career transitions and difficult choices, but they never came to me with this kind of talk. I took notes on what Martha did next (just in case they ever did). But I burned with the more relevant question to me: What if Julia had said, “No”? What if Julia didn’t know her calling? How would Martha have coached her? How might I coach my own client looking for purpose? Luckily a woman with long multihued locks asked that very question.
I must have blacked out.
Somehow, I missed Martha’s answer! My pen was poised, but she’d moved on to answer several other questions from the room. It seemed the moment was lost. The topic had shifted. I couldn’t stand it. Almost without realizing, I raised my hand. Kitty raised her eyebrows. The microphone runner loped my way. I stood up. “Rainbow Unicorn over there (I gestured toward her colorful tresses) asked what you’d have said if Julia had answered, ‘No,’ to your question about calling. I didn’t catch your answer. Would you mind repeating it?” Rainbow Unicorn? I didn’t even know that woman, how rude I’d been! And how had I missed Martha’s answer in the first place? Martha put her finger to her forehead, once again.
“Do you have a calling?”
“No,” I answered. Obviously.
All at once, I yearned to be called. I craved Julia’s knowing, to feel chosen because I defied my shoebox birth or received images from past lives. I wanted to sense a secret calling even if it might be terrifying. But nothing like that had happened to me. No instructions boomed from angels or gods or Gandalf. No singular focus, skill, or recurring dream indicated I was destined to be an astronaut or nun or doctor. Nope, no calling here. I awaited Martha’s answer, a consolation prize for the uncalled. She’d know an exercise to help me craft a sense of purpose even though one hadn’t been predetermined. I clicked my pen and held it to my notepad. “Come on up here.” Wait, what? I blinked. Kitty smiled. And I made my way to the stage, wincing inside with each painful step. What about my plan to conserve energy, to stay in the shadows? Forget that. I needed to know my calling.
What happened next changed everything.
My recollection of the conversation is a haze of excitement, laughter, fear, resistance, and relief. Martha asked some questions. I remember telling her I’d dreamed of leading transformative adventure retreats in Glacier Park and around the world. But that couldn’t happen now.
My optimism dam cracked, spilling deep, secret fears. How, now that I was sick, it was surely too late to be called. I would never be able to live my real life, the life where I was an adventurer and traveler and loved somebody and trusted myself. Like back in my 20s when I was a river guide and trail guide. Back then I got clues from the universe all the time. Not calls, just knowing. It was nice.
But now? Now I was broken, unlovable.
How I signed up for coach training because I wanted and needed to find some morsel of meaning within this hard knock life of pain and fear and fatigue and loneliness. That if I could help others maybe my life wouldn’t be wasted.
But oh how I wanted my vitality back, my whip smart wit and nearly photographic memory, the energy to play outdoors and share nature with others, to feel the crisp breeze on my face and pine smell in my nostrils as I shushed my snowboard through powdered trees, not just to lie around sick and tired.
I don’t know how much of this I actually said.
Some of you were there, gentle readers. You might remember. What I recall is that I cried right up there onstage in front of 200 or so strangers, just as I’m crying now as I write these words. Talk about raw.
Sometimes Martha coached me. Sometimes she let me cry while she spoke to the group. Martha and I and the group all laughed together, too. She’s hilarious.
And then at some point Martha asked me if there were moments when I felt better, forgot about my symptoms for a little while. Yes, sometimes when chatting with a good friend I might even enjoy 10 or even 15 minutes’ respite. Laughing helps. She responded so tenderly:
“The prescription is simple, darling.
“Do more of what makes you feel good. Try some things and see what gives you a moment’s respite. Keep experimenting, listening all the while to your body’s symptoms and relief, let them guide you.
“Jennifer, do you know much about horses?
Not really, I’ve always been afraid of them.
“I’m no expert either,” she said, “but I’ve learned that training and riding horses is largely a matter of pressure and relief. The rider and horse don’t speak the same language, so the rider applies pressure, perhaps with the right knee in order to direct the horse to the left. The horse moves around, attempting to relieve the pressure. At some point, maybe by accident, it moves to the left. The rider relaxes her knee. Eventually, by relieving pressure when the horse responds ‘correctly,’ the horse learns to go where the rider directs. They’ve created an effective means of communication.
“Do you see where I’m going with this, Jennifer?”
I think that in this metaphor, I’m the horse, I laughed.
I am the horse. “Yes. And your soul is the rider.”
Since we don’t communicate in spoken English, my soul (or whatever you’d like to call it, gentle reader) applies pressure and incentives to guide me. “Pressure” comes not only in the form of physical symptoms but could also be, say, boredom, burnout, losing my job, anything that might catch my attention and let me know there’s something truer for me than what I’d been thinking or doing. Positive incentives come as relief, coincidences, winks from the universe, all forms of invitation, including curiosity, like the burning need I’d felt, earlier, to know Martha’s answer had Julie said, “No.”
While I might have received all sorts of guidance in various forms over the years, my health symptoms were most pressing now, so Martha suggested I start there. Pay attention to the moments when the pressure lessens, and simply follow them where they led.
Those moments of relief might be subtle and confusing at first, just as they were for the horse, but if I listened and responded, my soul and I would learn to communicate more and more efficiently.
It began to dawn on me that, while some calls clap thunder from on high, even more might mumble small reminders to pay attention, hint at our deepest truths, whisper to follow a yearning, sing softly through the symptoms and pressures of our daily lives to guide us.
I had no idea as I descended the stage stairs what my calling might be. But for the first time in a long time, I felt hope.
My calling? It’s taking form as…
I began to notice that I felt the worst (physically and otherwise) when I was trying to live up to shoulds, supposed to’s, and other expectations ingrained within my culture. My main themes boiled down to:
- Work hard, produce – I’m a workhorse
- Work means sitting at a desk or physical labor
- Sleep is overrated; needing rest is weak and lazy
- Play and free time are for children
- If I listen to inner wisdom or follow my soul’s guidance, I’ll go out of business
- If I rest, play, or indulge in self-improvement, I’ll get lost in a trance forever, be selfish and narcissistic, and never get another thing done.
So, dear readers, you can see that hidden beneath my gentle demeanor lurked a cruel master. Not much fun, was I? I can’t imagine my soul coming up with a list like that, and I wouldn’t either, not consciously.
As I surrender these beliefs, (which, by the way has been a crazy, challenging, ongoing discovery), I’m freed to follow my muzzle like a curious young foal. The whole world is foreign and new. What’s this? What do I like? Will it be fun?
My calling? It’s taking form.
The first whisper of intrigue I followed was to learn more about how to experience my body. One of my teachers, Abigail Steidley, specialized in the mind-body realm. I signed up for her six-month training, not because I planned to use it, professionally, but just because my body seemed to want me to.
Turns out that not only do I love the mind-body approach, so do my clients!
I get to support others navigating illness, chronic pain, and burnout, and even use mind-body tools in other areas of my business, like interview coaching and career strategy.
Other “just for me” experiments that I feared were foolish or unproductive seemed to benefit my clients and my business, as well.
Remember how awful I felt when I tried to write resumes? I hired a couple of amazing writers and trained them to write Rainmaker style. Now their resumes are better than those I crafted alone, we serve more people, and I remain closely connected to clients throughout the process and through coaching.
Speaking of coaching: Would it surprise you to hear that my clients do, indeed, want to talk about callings? That finding their sense of purpose is a driving force for almost everyone who contacts me, whether they hire me as a coach, a speaker, or to help craft their personal brand.
Clues come from the universe again, all the time, like they did back in my guiding days. Now I’m happy to interpret them as calls.
It seems I’m called to help people in transition realize their dreams by finding and following their callings.
As I release beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve, rest when I need it, play on the regular, try new things to see how my soul likes them, and relax into trusting myself and my guidance, a funny thing has happened. I continue to navigate symptoms, but my vitality has increased. My business keeps growing. I’m hosting my first Glacier Quest medicine walk retreat this summer.
I have so many ideas and projects in the hopper and the creativity and energy to act on them, despite, or just maybe because I lie down almost every single day and follow an invisible rider wherever she leads.
I am so curious where we’ll go, next.
How and where is your soul guiding you?
p.s. I’m filled with gratitude for Julia, whose wildly different experience sparked my own call to raise my hand. And by the way, Kitty, Rainbow Unicorn, and I reunited for a lovely and colorful master coach training in 2016.