Stickers on my skin vs. the light within

Whenever I get complicated about my mission in life, I think of Adele.

It reminds me of the simple truth that to be able to be of service, to really touch someone else’s heart and empower someone on their journey, you simply need to share your own.

I think also Elizabeth Gilbert said it so wisely – Please, for the love of God, do not try to help me!

We don’t want someone helping us from their high horse, because that’s not really helping (except if I am really stuck in the mud, then yes, please pull me out, but spare me the lecture).

More than that we just want to connect with someone who is in similar pain, who has seen similar heart ache, and who is traveling the paths we are, just as lost or just as wondering.

Just like Adele. There have been moments in my life where she has connected with my heart so powerfully, which in turn helped me in its own way. She was not trying to help me, she was not trying to do anything other than express her own human experience through the gift that she has been given – her voice.

She is touching the hearts of millions simply by being her own, sometimes broken self and expressing it.

Searching for your purpose

Many of us are searching for our purpose in life. We look for our passion and our heart’s desires, which is all of course rather counterintuitive, as nothing is lost and nothing that is not lost cannot be found. But we search and yearn for our deeper meaning nonetheless.

I am no exception.

I have been searching for as long as I can remember, trying to discover my path perhaps without realizing that I have been on my path all along.

I’m starting to realize that the gist of it all is very simple. I don’t need to heal anyone, I don’t need to help, empower or uplift anyone.

I simply need to express my human experience with the god-given gift that I have. Writing.

Stickers on my skin

If you are searching too, the answer is most likely incredibly simple. It’s in the things you do that take no effort, the things you have most likely done since childhood, like me with my stories, books and magazine articles I wrote all day long as a child.

Recently I figured out another way of putting it.

Most things in my life are like stickers on my skin. They are placed from the outside, representing something impermanent. Some of them are sticking quite well, but they are still something external. These are the labels we give ourselves, like the studies we do and the professions we identify with. I am a wife, a mother, a PMO and MBA, and a diver, a yogi, webdesigner, you name it. I have been, and am, many things.

But many of these things are like post-its, flapping in the wind and one day they may be gone. They get damaged by the rain and their colors fade in the sun.

And because they are just placed on my skin, these are often the parts of my life where I feel my imposter syndrome rising up. Maybe because they are things that I have not fully internalized, but still elements that I want to showcase. They are merits, badges of honor, things you list on your LinkedIn profile, on your CV, and things you talk about at a cocktail party (remember those…)?

The light I carry within

But then there is that one thing that doesn’t feel like a sticker on my skin, but rather like the light I carry within.

It is beautiful, it is eternal, it is full of love and it is pure grace.

I believe we all have that, that something which allows us to express our human experience the best. Maybe it’s dance, art, design, talking, listening, building, singing. For me it happens to be writing.

When I observe this light within, and compare it to the stickers on my skin, there is a world of difference.

First, I don’t have an imposter syndrome or hesitations about writing, because I KNOW I can write. Not from a perspective of ego, and not like I desire awards or want to enter competitions with this skill. It’s rather a deep knowing that when I express myself and my human experience with writing, I am in the presence of grace, and there is only space for love and light.

I don’t need to boost or inflate. I don’t need to pretend of hide. It is such a natural part of me that you cannot hurt it or degrade it. You cannot remove me from it, because it IS me. It is the essence of me, my favorite place and my favorite way of being a human on this earth.

And it’s easy. Most of the time I feel like I cannot even take credit for it, because it just comes through me. It teaches me as much as it teaches anyone else, probably even more. I often read my text and am blessed it came through me, but it isn’t mine. I could not come up with such beautiful stories, it’s from the light within me, the light that only knows love and kindness.

That’s how I know that it must be my dharma, my mission on earth.

But where is the money in that?

Like a fool I have not been putting my time in it because… where is the money in that?! Where is the money for mortgage and diapers for a girl who wants to write about the Universe and the higher guidance all day long?

Funny enough, the Universe sent me a little hint, which made me laugh.

One day, not many weeks ago, I got the urge to send one of my articles to the Elephant Journal. It got published, which is great in itself, but it somehow was one of the top 15 articles that week, so I received an email telling me I won a prize of $50. On the same day I read this affirmation in my book: “I am able to make money easily doing what I love.”

Hit me over the head with it, why don’t you.

There is not a single dollar I have earned easier, and with more guidance and joy than that.

Those 50 precious dollars mean the world to me, because I received them just by being me, and expressing my Universe-given gift of writing as a means of having a human experience.

Not trying, just being.