Chapter eight,
What is your inner child telling you?
If you do what you love,
You'll never work a day in your life,
Mark Anthony.
When I was in grade eight,
We had to write what we wanted to be when we grew up.
I confidently wrote that I wanted to be an intuitive animal communicator.
I put a picture of myself and proudly gave it to my teacher.
Later that day,
He asked to speak to me outside and told me that I couldn't write that as a job because it wasn't a job.
He was my favorite teacher and someone I looked up to a lot.
I hate confrontation,
But I felt the need to defend myself.
What was so wrong with wanting to help people connect on a deeper level with their animals?
My parents had always encouraged all of my dreams and my mom even helped me to write up the text for homework.
She believed in me,
Why wouldn't my teacher?
In life,
We may come from the best families,
Safest and most supportive environments,
But once we leave home,
There are so many outside influences that can affect us negatively.
That day I closed up and buried that dream for a decade.
I wrote about my career journey in my first book,
Intuitive Animal Connections.
When I was younger,
I loved projects.
Every day when I went out to play,
I would tell my sister and my friends that we should start a project.
After I'd repeat myself so many times,
They would start to make fun of me.
Why weren't they as excited about starting a new project as much as I was?
I often asked myself.
As a little girl,
I wanted to make the best slushy stand,
Not just lemonade,
But slush with candies to add.
I also wanted to strategically,
I also wanted a strategically located stand at the corner,
One kilometer away from the local convenience store so there wasn't any competition.
The older kids would bike by and laugh at us,
But I was so passionate,
Enthusiastic,
And excited about life and all the projects life included.
That really hasn't changed very much as I've gotten older,
And I have since embraced that side of me.
I believe that as children,
We know our truth.
We know our passions and what we wanna be when we grow up.
It is those outside influences that mold us in a direction different from what we imagine for ourselves,
Directions that we may not want to take.
Once I facilitated a workshop at my home about connecting intuitively with animals,
Seated in a circle of middle-aged to semi-retired women.
On the last day,
We did an exercise about honoring and recognizing our intuition.
One of the points made about connecting on a deeper level with your intuition was to spend time alone doing what you love.
For me,
That is the absolute easiest question to answer.
I have tons of things I love to do when I have free time,
But I soon realized that everyone in the group was stuck on this question.
I had no other choice than to pause and spend time with each person,
Helping them discover their passions again.
Some said they felt lost and were not sure what to write.
They even asked me to create an entire workshop on discovering their passions.
I thought it was a great idea,
But didn't want them to wait that long to get some answers.
I was shocked that they had forgotten what their truest interests are.
They were so wrapped up,
Living life,
Being adults,
They had forgotten what their inner child yearned for.
Slowly,
As we sat with this question as a group,
And I asked each person individually,
Answers started to flow.
One woman said to start walking in nature again.
For another,
Painting.
For another,
It was writing,
Cooking,
And playing music.
This made me reflect on why I was so passionate about so many things and had no difficulty coming up with activities I love doing in my free time.
The answer was because I actually followed my passions.
If I saw a new dance I had never seen before and my heart fluttered with excitement,
I joined that class to learn.
If I saw someone race past me with a mountain bike when I was out hiking in the forest and it brought elation to me,
I too bought a mountain bike.
The list goes on,
But every feeling of excitement,
Enthusiasm,
And delight was assigned for me to follow that passion and try that activity.
I don't push down my passions.
Therefore,
There are more and more that overflow every year.
I find it extremely sad that as adults we have repressed some of our childhood passions.
I think this is also true for our career choices.
When I was young,
I placed all of my stuffed animals in front of me as I stood in front of a small whiteboard and taught them.
Then I would take all the papers from the garbage in my parents' home office and pretend I was correcting my students' homework.
Even as a little girl,
Teaching brought me so much energy and joy.
To be honest,
I forgot about those days until I was teaching a group of hotel staff one day.
We were using one of the conference rooms as a classroom and they brought in a flip chart for me to write my notes.
While I was standing in front of them,
Teaching a grammar review on the flip chart,
I had a flash of me doing the same thing as a child.
I was almost brought to tears at that realization that I finally accomplished one of my childhood dreams.
There is something so innocent as children and pure in our connection with our true selves.
Even though my inner child knew what I wanted to be when I grew up,
It also created limiting beliefs that needed to be let go of later in life.
Do you remember what you really wanted to be when you were a young child?
Are you conscious of any of your limiting beliefs about working in a job that would bring you endless joy?
