A Frog-Strangler Meeting in the Rain
It was a frog-strangler, as some people from around here call it, when I ran into the coffee shop to meet a woman I didn’t know. I leaned my dripping umbrella against the wall and looked around the room for someone I hoped to recognize from her LinkedIn photo. She smiled and waved and after confirming we were indeed looking for each other, we started what turned out to be an intriguing conversation.
Over a cup of minty hot green tea, I listened as she told me her story. As is the case with each of us, she has an interesting story to tell of beginnings, stumble-ings, successes, loves, losses, transitions and then she said something that caused me to lean in a little more.
She said, “I’ve accomplished all this and raised my children to be successful. I’ve worked hard and made a lot of money but I still don’t know who I am or why I am here.”
Isn’t that the crux of it? Our perceptions, our thinking, our behaviors are directed toward our external experience of the world. We are certainly taught early on that our survival requires it, whether it is in school as children or our jobs as adults, in our marriages and our parenting and in our bodies. We spend years measuring our success by what our material, outer life looks like.
Sooner or later we all hear the whisper from inside that makes us wonder, makes us uneasy, makes us dissatisfied. “Is this why I came here? Is this what it’s all about?” And ultimately, “Who am I really?” and “Why am I here?”
The answer is in the journey but it is also in the work to uncover, reclaim and live out our true purpose, that which will move us forward in our evolution and in that way make the world a better place because we were here for this time. None of us gets to that place of certainty and centeredness by ourselves. We have teachers, mentors and guides in different shapes and at different times.
The Realignment Workshop is an opportunity to work in a small group with teachers who guide you from a realistic and lived experience to answering those questions that once answered serve as a compass for the rest of your life.
When: July 27-29, 2018
Where: WellSpring Wellness Center
960 Tunnel Road, Asheville, NC 28805