Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A few months ago I wrote a post covering the first four weeks of my journey through The Calling. I said it seems like a short amount of time to uncover my calling if I didn’t know it by now, but I also said I would have to do the work. That first four weeks, I did the work. After that, maybe not so much. Maybe it was putting my post out there and saying it that caused me to stall. Maybe it was the shift to working from home due to COVID-19. But here’s the thing… I might have slacked off regarding how hard I was working, but I didn’t quit.
In the introduction, it says not to get hung up on doing it perfectly and completing every exercise and experiment. So I didn’t. Some days I didn’t feel like writing in my lab journal or I didn’t have it with me, so I just did the exercises in my head. Sometimes I just read them. So, yes, I feel I could have done this program better, and maybe that will lead me to do it again sometime in the future. But I did it!
What follows is a very brief recap of parts two and three of the book. Click here to check it out for yourself. Click here to read about Part 1.
Part 2: Energize Your Calling
This section is about giving you tools to energize and help your calling take root. You are tasked with preparing a “Calling Circle.” These are people who will support you and give you feedback. I’ve said numerous times that I have a lot of great support. This talks you through the kind of support that you want in your circle. People willing to see you and hear you. I created a Facebook group for my work here, and then I didn’t share a lot. There are good, trusted people in my group. I think it boils down to feeling that the calling I came up with in week four was too vague, but also being afraid that it isn’t.
The real work in this section was supposed to be around developing a “user’s guide” to your calling, and that’s the section where I feel like I did the least work. I actually took a day off and sequestered myself to work on that… and ended up watching Aurora Teagarden mysteries. I decided not to beat myself up too much, so just read the chapter and moved on without writing out the various plans. This is the part I hope to revisit in the future, but who knows?
Part 3: Engage Your Calling
This section of the book was fun for me, but I could see it being a challenge for many. It’s the part where things get “meta.” Now that you’ve decided what your calling is and what you should do… you turn it over to the Universe and let go of all attachment to the outcome. There’s guidance about how to do that and why it’s a good idea.
There’s a particular story in the chapter on Surrender about a woman who was training with a doctor. She’s going in with the doctor to treat a child who has fallen. They know from the nurse’s notes that the child is fine. The doctor explains, “We’ll just–” and makes the sign of the cross. Then she understood that they weren’t there to treat the child, they were there to treat the mother’s fear. This taught her that there was a sacramental role in what she did. This word jumped out at me as closely related to one that came to me during a recent meditation: sanctity. These are signposts on the way to my calling. In Grit, Angela Duckworth talks about being “in flow.” I think it’s all feeling that connection between your calling and the Universe. I might not feel that today, but now I know what I’m looking for.
So What?
So, I half-assed my way through the 12 week course in 16 weeks. Did I discover, energize, and engage my life’s calling? I honestly don’t know. What I know for sure is, I am closer to all of those things than I would have been if I hadn’t done it. Nothing has ever been a straight and simple journey for me. Maybe some people just get that *click* and find their calling and live happily ever after. I might have just gotten a *click* when I typed that, because the next thought in my head was, “It’s my calling to do the work.” Then the subsequent thought was: “DAMMIT!” The book says you will know it when you get your “truth reaction,” and there it was. That’s why I write this blog. It’s part of doing the work. Which, apparently, is my calling.
Thanks for being on this adventure with me!
