Be Your Own Ending and Beginning

It’s not always easy walking a path that doesn’t make logical sense. Your very reasons for doing it will be rocked…unless you are your own ending and beginning.

I’m in the midst of a grand experiment. After years of trying and failing to piece together a career that didn’t feel like settling, didn’t drain the life out of me, or feel like a means to an end, I quit it all to tune in and let intuition be my guide. As I type this, I’m about a month into the free fall and what I have to show for it so far is not some new direction or a be-all end-all solution for my life and career. Instead, it’s been an unexpected month of introspection and finally feeling emotions that have been shoved under the rug for decades. It’s certainly not something that pays the bills or quells loved one’s logical fears and worries, but it’s somethin’.

So yesterday when a loved one picked up the phone and directed our conversation to the state of my life and shared their fears, worries, and perspective on it, it rocked me for a moment. This was the second conversation of this sort in less than a week. I had only just licked my wounds from the first one and here I was being forced to face it all over again. On the timeline of this leap of faith journey that I’m on, I am just a toddler learning how to walk. I’m wobbly and unstable, desperately hoping for reminders of the floating hand of support at my back when I need it and the reassurances that I can do this. But this was not the message either of them were sending at all.

My loved ones were getting cold feet and urging me to think practically, to run back to what I had just literally leaped from, to give up on the experiment I’ve only just begin. And for this reason it stung. Whether they meant it this way or not, it felt a lot like they had no faith in me or trust that I’m proceeding from the surest place there is – my own intuition. Dished up on a platter were their practical worries, their fears, and their perspective on the way the world turns and I very nearly took a bite.

In the aftermath of this second conversation, I saw how vulnerable it can be to rely on or expect the support of those around you to do what you feel called to do, especially when it’s the path less traveled. It’s not their job to reassure me that my intuition is telling the truth. That’s my job. That’s my connection to strengthen and believe in unwaveringly, regardless of the differing external opinions and perspectives.

I’m grateful for both of these conversations because I needed that reminder to go within and believe in myself more. Be your own ending and beginning. Close the loop. Don’t leave room for other’s doubts and fears to seep in and destroy what you know to be right for you. Live in the moment and tune in to your own well of wisdom for the gauge on what’s right or wrong for you. Be your own supportive force, the hand at your own back saying go, go, go for it.