Many of you know a lot about me already, so I wanted to share something you may not know. Nine years ago, I was in a transitionary period after leaving my corporate job in Marketing and Communications for a media company. I was freelancing doing web and graphic design to pay my rent, and was open to something new to show up in my life. It did. I found myself at a weeklong retreat to study a system of personality typologies that ended up being my own personal rabbit hole!

During that week in 2006, one of the instructors showed us a couple of mainstream publications—Time and the NY Times among them, I think. They all had covers or headlines about the changing planet, environmental issues, and climate change. The instructor talked about the repercussions he perceived we were all going to face as the crisis evolved and people began to get desperate, despairing, frustrated and angry, possibly having to adapt to very difficult physical circumstances to say nothing of the psychological and emotional effects. In his words, there was going to be a "real need for a few people who know a few things" about how to deal with the fallout. 

When he said that, I literally almost fell off the chair I was sitting on! It was almost as lightning struck me and I had this huge (and probably very classical) "Who, me?!!!" response. I knew nothing about psychology; my spirituality was limited to self-help books, writing down my dreams (but not knowing what to do with them), traditional prayer which I was taught growing up (but used rarely by then), and a little bit of yoga which I had just started doing a few months before.

At the time, I couldn't begin to conceive of how I could make a difference to help support people in a changing world. Fast forward nine years. I have finished two Master's degrees and a PhD in depth psychology. I have learned a few things but I don't have any real world experience in counseling or guiding people through hard times. I still wonder how I can help when I still feel I have a lot of personal work to do on my own introversion, tendency to retreat from people, and dealing with my own baggage and correlating psychological fallout. But—that calling is still there, more present than ever, and demanding to be attended to. I guess just as I couldn't fathom where I am NOW nine years ago, maybe my future compared to today is as foreign and alien as this would have seemed then! :)

At any rate, I'm trying to trust the process. I seem to be tending toward fearlessness and the experimental these days, hopefully not too attached to doing things perfectly or having it all figured out beforehand. I do know this can potentially backfire when it comes to certain things, but I'm thinking I'd rather connect and collaborate with others who are also struggling, wondering, or muddling their way toward SOMETHING that has as much passion and feeling for them as that initial calling has held for me—and maybe something bigger than all of us will emerge. What do you think? :)