Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I am working through a twelve week course that is a scientific approach to discovering my calling. Everyone is supposed to have a calling but they don’t all have to be about saving the world. Maybe doing your “true work” is your own way of saving the world, no matter what that work is. Your calling might be to help people learn about native plants or to create a safe space for children or to see how high you can jump. The old saying goes: “Choose a job you love and you’ll never had to work a day in your life.” Imagine a world where more people are feeling that good most days… sounds like a better place to me.
I have often bemoaned the fact that I don’t have a clue what my vocational calling is. I went to the same school from K-12, and some of the people I went to school with are doing exactly what we all always knew they would. Others are doing something they happened upon in their journey and you can tell they found the perfect thing. Others might be in the same boat as me, doing something but wondering what they are really supposed to be doing. I stumbled into something that I enjoy, but I always find myself thinking there’s something more, something else, that I just haven’t woken up to yet. Right now, I mostly do math. I do data analysis. Assessment. Strategy. Visualization. Evidence-gathering. Trend-spotting. So… one day it occurred to me that I should turn all of these skills on myself. I mentioned this to a dear friend, and she had just started this book and told me about it. It is a guide to doing exactly what I proposed to do. That book is The Calling: A 12-Week Science-Based Program to Discover, Energize, and Engage Your Soul’s Work.
Part One: Discover Your Calling
This twelve week program is divided into three sections of four weeks each. The first is about discovery, then energizing and engaging. It promises that you will have a good idea of your calling by the end of week three. That sounds too fast to me and it is terrifying. If I haven’t figured it out in 44 years, how am I supposed to do it in 12 weeks, let alone three?! Here’s the kicker… I have to do the work.
Week One: Preparing Your Inner Laboratory
The author, Julia Mossbridge, uses the term Deep Scientific Method to describe the action of turning the scientific method on our inner selves and personal experiences. It’s all about testing, observing, and drawing conclusions. This is the same process used in any scientific experiment, but most of us think our own experiences don’t qualify for similar examination. Mossbridge debunks that notion and helps the reader set up an “inner lab” where this research will take place. Visualizing this lab was a fun exercise for me. My inner lab is a multi-purpose space filled with books and planning supplies with a cozy seating area and a section for real, deep analysis with microscopes. It is a spacious room filled with light and color. It is a space equally suited to work, play, chatting, reading, building, charting, having a cup of tea… and you guessed it… there’s a SWING!
I don’t know how yet, but my calling has something to do with a swing. People often say to go back to the thing you loved to do when you were seven years old and you will find your calling. Do you know what I loved to do? Swing. So my lab has a swing. Don’t you think better when you swing? I do. Is that my calling? To have an office with a swing? Sounds ideal to me!
Week Two: Experimenting with Authenticity
I thought this week should be easy for me, because I consider Authenticity to be one of my core values. The work I have done in this area probably did give me a head start. Exercises like “notice when you don’t feel like yourself” left me questioning whether I feel like myself most of the time, or if I am just oblivious to the times when I don’t. The book says you know you are digging deep enough into your truth “when the truth is about your feelings and not someone else’s behavior.” The simplest way to summarize the truth I got to in this session: I don’t want to be what they want me to be.
This week also called for some serious data-gathering. I fell behind on that, so I continued to do it over the next few weeks. The method involves asking yourself a series of questions throughout the day and recording your answers, without overthinking it. My data reveals that I love to be right. I feel best when I am surrounded by support. I am excited about movies, concerts, and art. I am learning how to be okay with not having all the answers. That I believe I can change people’s minds. And that my calling might be related to overcoming adversity.
Week Three: Experimenting with Authority
I nearly panicked when the intro to week three said that I would have a first draft of my calling at the end of the week… so naturally it took me several weeks to complete the exercises. There is a lot of good information in this chapter. I like how she covers the different types of authority and helps us see that we never have absolute authority, not over anything outside of ourselves and not even over ourselves. Understanding the limits of your authority gives you the power to better utilize the authority you do have, and it is best to concentrate that authority in your most complete, authentic, highest self. Good stuff!
There is a lot of overlap with Internal Family Systems, aka “parts work,” which has a huge following in my Bright Line Eating community. I have had a lot of resistance to parts work, but I like how the week 3 exercises approach it. My superconscious just happens to look like Gal Gadot but she has to dress down to hang out in my inner lab. She agreed to help me out with the final exercises and we muddled through the nerves of “oh no, we are about to make this real, if it’s real then we have to do stuff” and all of my parts together came to this conclusion: My calling is to be seen. The good news is, that was the end of week three, and I didn’t actually have to go streaking or do anything else drastic.
Week Four: Your Choice, Your Calling
Week four brings more experimentation but also more information. Every day, I read this short summary of The Four Agreements. The last is to always do your best. When Mossbridge talks about choice, she reminds us that “our brain is always trying its best, given the information and abilities it has.” This means every choice we’ve made has been the best choice. Sometimes we get an unexpected outcome from a choice or we don’t get what we want, but what we want is not necessarily what is best for us. We are always just guessing. Some guesses are better informed than others, but our best choice is still always a guess. The point here isn’t to throw in the towel but to focus on improving our ability to make better guesses. Her suggestion is to practice making choices with your “whole self.”
The next section talks about how we tend to view our life path as several, separate, “splintered” paths. Everyone has a career path, right? Then you might have lots of other paths based on the various roles you have. Most of us are trying to balance and juggle all those paths, but there is really only one path. Your “true work” will be something that integrates all of your roles.
Finally, this chapter asks you to brainstorm questions about your calling and then pick one question (using your whole self) and use it to devise your first experiment for testing your calling. I am not going to share all of my secrets on this one, but I suggest that you try it yourself.
Part I Conclusion:
Lots of exciting stuff gets uncovered in the first four weeks, but Mossbridge cautions against running headlong and unleashing your calling on the world. There is more work to do and some fine-tuning is in order. Part II will help “energize” my calling. I will spend the next four weeks developing a practical “user’s guide” to my calling. Am I intimidated? Yes. Excited? Definitely!
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