Why me?

One would think (well, I would for sure) that to choose a profession where your job is to help others, be present every day for long hours giving yourself over completely and focusing on another human being to find the best way for them to move forward, requires great empathy and selflessness.

It’s just logical, isn’t it? Now, the thing is that if I look back on the years of my young adulthood and asked myself to describe my best qualities, guess what wouldn’t have been on the list. I think you guessed right: empathy and selflessness. It’s not that I was falsely modest: I actually think I had a pretty clear picture of what I was really good at. A fast, strategic thinker, a good, efficient problem solver, someone with good communication skills. But not really a ‘people person’.

It’s not that I was a bad person either, or I wasn’t there for others when they needed me: I did it, I helped and supported friends and family as I saw this is how things are done. But my focus was on me. I wanted to be happy, to feel rocking and cool, and it just seemed natural that I’ll achieve it by putting myself first, doing things that were good for me.

OK, now you may ask what is the problem with anyone wanting to be happy and pursuing their goals? Absolutely nothing. We’re all hardwired to do that. What’s interesting is why would anyone renounce all those things that keep them in focus and choose serving others instead if not out of consciously choosing empathy or selflessness?

What seems to determine our goals and desires

I’ve always loved traveling, never minded to be alone. Loved to visit new places, meet new people. That’s when I felt truly alive. The familiar could quickly become boring (no wonder I wasn’t good with long term relationships). I wanted to feel sexy in what I did, more interesting than others.

And because I’d heard many times that you should choose a profession based on your strengths and what you like to do, it pretty much left me with two choices: either to get a job where I harness my skills and which pays enough for me to travel and have fun, and move to the next opportunity whenever it feels like. Or make a job out of traveling, being a guide or exploiting my writing skills as a journalist. Or a blogger, you might add, had it been a thing back then.:)

I went with the first one, becoming a manager and then a freelance translator, and I was good at both. But as it turned out, life had something more for me. A lot more.

What really determines our goals and desires

I came to this world feeling alone, not trusting anyone. The feeling that I could rely on no one didn’t come from a decision I made at some point in my life: it was deeply interwoven in my whole being. My mom, feeling that her marriage was a mistake, wanted to have his pregnancy terminated only to find out that it was too late for that: the risks would have run high by that time.

For some years I was at home with my mom and by the time I had a chance to be among other young children I found I had no idea how to play with them, how to be a part of the group. I became excluded: the others, seeing my clumsiness would laugh at me and left me out of their games. At first it was a torture. I hated and dread kindergarten, crying and pleading I didn’t have to go.

But it didn’t help, no matter what I did, so I slowly resigned and turned inside, spending the days facing the corner with my back to the world outside and to others, feeling so ashamed that I just wanted to disappear into nothingness.

In school and during the years to come it became better: I made some friends and felt a lot less alienated. I found a way to cope with all this, but it came with a price: cutting myself off. I cut myself off from my own feelings and from those of others. I hid everything that hurt, disappointed or frightened me. Or whatever made me feel good, for that matter. I hibernated myself and put myself in a sarcophagus, just to make sure.

Growing up I learned to manage all this and you could say that I did alright. The sarcophagus worked, to some extent, letting me live a life that looked perfectly normal on the surface. But deep inside the fear, the shame, the enclosure, the uncertainty, the feeling of alienation remained. I did everything to hide them of course: the world prefers positivity, high energy and a confident attitude, and I did my best to deliver.

Blocks versus our heart’s desire

I shared all of this with you to give you a hint why I felt like the best life, the best job for me is being separated, not getting too deeply involved with any place or anyone, being ready to move on whenever I liked. Enjoying whatever I could without caring too much about others.

And now, please do me a favor and imagine that it was my original plan for this life. That it was anyone’s plan for this life. That anyone would come here, take on all the hardships from being born and growing up to all the difficulties of a human life just to – what? Walking through it cautiously only to hope nothing too bad will happen? Barricading themselves away from life and people for fear of getting hurt?

Can you do that? No! Of course not! We all came here with a beautiful, burning desire in our hearts to evolve, to grow. With such strong motifs that we could hardly wait for those obstacles and difficulties. Not to fall into their trap, not to believe them but to choose to act from love and unity instead. And getting higher each time, elevating ourselves and everyone on our planet. So never let your blocks determine your goals and desires. Go on, because there’s much more to your story, to the story of all of us.

Life and its jokes

So if you need someone to pretty much renounce her personal life in order to serve others, putting all her focus on them instead of herself, serving light and love unceasingly and unwaveringly, just take the obvious leap and grab someone who locked herself, locked her heart away to the point where nothing could really trespass, and who wouldn’t care too much about the problems everyone else was struggling with. And you have the winner.

OK, that may be funny, but what’s the point?

Now, that’s a very good question. Does it mean that I didn’t have compassion in me and did not care for others? On the contrary, I had enough to give up so many things in my life, just to ease suffering and help others find their true selves and purpose.

But my reactions to the events of my life slowly built up thick walls, which we may call energy blocks. They started telling me a different story. Their version of my happiness served my ego, not the original plan of my highest self. These blocks told me that I’ll be happy if I just mind my own business. Or, if I cannot be happy, then at least I should try to tiptoe through my life with the least possible pain. The blocks told me to let people in my life only as long as it’s fun. To try to feel better, more valuable than others. That serving others is not so cool.

But there are no unfortunate mistakes in our life plan. These blocks helped me become stronger, more deliberate, more persistent, more compassionate. Helped me better understand the nature of blocks and how they work in our lives. How they try to tie us down, pull us back only to help us reach higher to answer the questions of our lives. Not in theory, not in our minds, but for real, in and through our lives, accomplishing it like a perfect piece of art.

And what about you?

Consciously or not, we’re all becoming experts in something. And in so many cases, we become experts in what we really have to work on. And by working our way through all our personal blocks finally to poke our heads on the other side, we’ll be the go-to’s, the experts of that field, offering our hands for others to cross, too.

So, tell me, what are you becoming an expert in? If you know already, I’d be really interested to hear about it. If you don’t know yet, then let’s dive deeper in it together in the next post. Are you with me?