Today’s DailyOm (daily inspirational email) is about being in the moment and “blooming where you’re planted.” It really hit home for me, albeit in a backward sort of way. Here is the intro to today’s message:
“ Having a vision for our future that differs from our current circumstances can be inspiring and exciting, but it can also keep us from fully committing to our present placement. We may become aware that this is happening when we notice our thoughts about the future distracting us from our participation in the moment. We may find upon searching our hearts that we are waiting for some future time or situation in order to self-actualize. This would be like a flower planted in North Dakota putting off blooming because it would prefer to do so in Illinois.”
Rather than having a vision for my future that is inspiring I have one that is filled with possibilities and challenges that I’m not sure I either want to or will be able to follow through on. My anxiety and stress about what my future may hold have not only kept me from being present, but also caused me to create emotional and physical distress.
Here’s the problem: I’m going back to graduate school next week (after a semester off with a broken ankle). I’m a student in a state university counseling program, which leads to both a master’s degree and, eventually, state licensure as a Licensed Professional Counselor. My anxieties about school and an eventual career as a counselor are multi-faceted and madly intertwined, but they all come down to one word—expectation.
The biggest expectation is that once I graduate and pass the state licensing exam I will go to work full time in order to complete 3,000 hours of supervised counseling work in order to qualify for for full licensure. I’m not at all sure that I have the physical, emotional and psychological health and energy to work full time. My intent for my counseling “career” has always been to work only 10-20 hours per week. In addition to this, being a good partner to my husband, a homemaker and an artist are also very important to me. Neither I nor my husband want work outside the home to take so much of my time, attention and energy that I can’t also joyfully and fully engage in those areas of my life. Furthermore, I’m incredibly fearful that in order to work as a counselor in the kind of places that provide the required supervision I will have to “sell my soul” to the system. I don’t know if it would be possible for me to work in a social services agency environment without becoming so overwhelmed by the bureaucracy and the low vibrations that I become deeply depressed and ill. (I’ve had some experience working with such agencies through volunteer work, so I’m not just talking through my hat.)
With all this worrying about what might happen in two years after I graduate I haven’t been able to be fully in the present. I’ve been unable to just “go with the flow” of going to school. And, worse, I’ve been taking away energy from those things in my life that are most important, my husband, my home, my art, my healing work, my spiritual growth. Not good.
The truth is that when I’m ready to find a position that will allow me to complete my supervised hours I will serendipitously “find” exactly the right situation—one with enlightened people interested in humanistic and transpersonal counseling who will be open to and supportive of my goal to work with people on an intuitive soul level. This kind of synchronicity has always been in my life. A big part of me knows this and has faith in it. I’m just having a hard time quieting that part of my mind and emotions (fear) that doesn’t have that faith.
Today’s DailyOm brought this back into focus. I can’t allow worries about the future, a future that will most likely work out just fine, take my energy away from the present. If I do allow my energy to be siphoned off I won’t have enough left to live fully in the moment in joy, in love, and in integrity.
So, today I’m setting the intention that I will live each day one at a time without investing any energy in possible future events. My life is here in this moment, this day, not two years from now. I will be here now and bloom in this moment!
And so it is.
What a wonderful path to be on! I hear myself in your writing. Jumping ahead. Seeing the possible outcomes. I sooo understand about the outside work thing. I have a friend who told me “You are no one’s employee!” I could never work 40 hours a week full-time. I agree. Put it out there. This is what you need to be in the field and the type of position you need. Break through the barriers. I like that thinking very much. You go girl.
Hey! I think you do fine. It may take a lot of work, but you are always there for us. My only wish is that you could find more time for ’space for grace’. I could not have found a finer partner anywhere else in the universe. I love you.