It’s been a crazy 10 days. A week of practicum, getting deep down into the truth of who I really am, followed up by my long awaited graduation and the chaos of coordinating family to share in my celebration. I’m feeling sick. I wonder – is it illness or a wake up call from the divine?

As I sit here in our AirBnB Rental, stomach churning, 4 a.m. awoken by Spirit, it occurs to me that there is purpose behind this annoying pain that cannot be ignored. You see, the house is full and I have nowhere to go so I’m sitting in the bathroom in front of the toilet. The feeling is that I am ready for an enormous physical purging but what I am discovering is that the purging needs to come from my soul instead. In my awareness, I’m sensing it is a purging of a message divinely orchestrated by something greater than my human understanding.

As I sit in irritation and frustration, buckled over in pain, I am being prodded to share a message I received at graduation yesterday, a message of inspiration, hope and answering a calling – a message that reminds me to listen in the silence to my soul as I did two years ago when I started out on this mission to get to know myself again and to find that girl who used to be on fire for life!

Did I receive a call? Yes, I did. For almost two years off and on, I had an inner sense that I was to be in Los Angeles. It felt like an inner voice and hard to describe. I told my husband, my daughter, my mom and a few friends about it because the voice and feeling were so present and real. I had no idea of the purpose but I just had this inner knowing that LA was calling me. Super weird and hard to explain but it was in me…deep within me. It was a feeling like I had to go there but my current life as a wife and a mother of 3 teens told me otherwise. I started to get an itch to do something big with my life, thus leading to what I would describe as a mid-life crisis. I was frustrated and unsettled because I had a sense that something deep inside of me was trying to break free! Later in school, I would learn that when our Soul is fighting to follow it’s purpose that we can get a deep sense of a longing to be free. Have you ever had that sense? Are you having it now? Is it time for you to answer a calling?

I am here to tell you that you ARE being called. God, Spirit, Universal Energy – whatever you call it…IT is calling you. I refer to this as God and I am here to tell you that He has a plan for your life. Question is, are you ready to listen? Are you ready to act and disregard the fear that is holding you back? I wasn’t. I was scared shitless when my calling finally came to me. I was being called to LA to go to school to get my Masters in Spiritual Psychology. It was insane, I thought.” I live in Ohio! How can I go to school in California each month for the next two years?”

I was working part time as a travel agent and full time as a wife and mother and it seemed unaffordable and insane to answer the call but deep down inside, I felt like I would lose my mind if I didn’t go…didn’t answer the call. Here I was in this deep feeling of loss of self and despair – I needed some space to think, to find myself and to figure out how to go on each day with this sense of abandonment of my true self and a total sense of internal disregard of my feelings, needs and desires. I had this deep yearning to listen to and to trust my gut like I have never before – it was overwhelming me.

To make a long story short, I went to a networking event, which led me to a mastermind in Utah, which led me to a new friend (pictured in this post) who led me to my school. The way it all happened was the work of something greater than myself, an answer to the desire to find myself and to get free to be me again. I didn’t remember who the true me was, I had lost that girl but I could feel a push from within to rediscover the me that was trying to break free.

It was a journey of risk, a few poor business opportunities, travels to California every month and all with no idea how to pay for any of it while dancing between a place of fear and freedom all wrapped up into a package of OVERWHELM. From the outside, people thought I was nuts and at times I thought I was too. Some were jealous and some were skeptics and all the while I was wrestling with my insecurities, fears of letting my family down and looking like I fool when it was all said and done. But — I stepped into the unknown, I trusted my inner knowing and I took the plunge into new possibilities because the bottom line was this. It didn’t matter if I succeeded or failed, what mattered was that I answered the call – there simply was no other choice!

And here I am today, two years later, touched deeply by the commencement address given by Robert Holden, author of “Loveability” (one of the most difficult books I read in school over those powerful yet academically painful 2 years). His message was about allowing God to direct you – to let go of being in control and allow this universal energy to guide you through life instead of making your own non-negotiable plans for your future. It was at that moment that I realized that I had done just that! Somehow, I knew I had a higher calling, it was that nudging and that inner voice. I can tell you now in looking back, I did exactly what my soul and the divine were directing me to do and from that experience, I have never felt more freedom, more purpose filled and more alive than I do today. It was time and I finally listened.

What is keeping you from answering the call? Fear? A belief you are not worthy or not enough? Is someone in your life telling you that you are not allowed or not capable? Do you believe that your family expects you to give up your identity and soul’s purpose for them? I sure hope not because none of that is true. Each one of us has a calling. We are all gifted and talented and capable of living out our soul’s desires – that’s the truth!

Will you answer the call? I hope you do! Stay tuned for the beta test of my new workbook and planner “Spiritual Awakening for Newbies” coming out soon with a focus on helping you to connect to Spirit, your soul and to rediscover your true self so that you can live the life of your dreams.