Once upon a time in a land far, far away, I was sitting on a bench in a playground watching my two pre-school sons navigate the jungle gym with a raw, adventurous curiosity that only children who have not yet been formally educated can have.
But since I'd had almost two decades of formal education by that point in my life most of my curious wonderings were tucked firmly away in deep, dusty pockets of parental responsibility, exhaustion and occasional bouts of generalized cynicism.
Feeling protective of my pseudo-solitude moment on the bench when my boys weren't needing me to wipe something, tie something or solve some emotional crisis between them, I'm sure I let out an audible sigh when a father and his young daughter wandered into the playground.
With no energy to make small talk, I kept my gaze in the direction of my playing boys taking full advantage of that spacey, far-off look I get when tiredness gets in the driver's seat of my attention. A stolen sideways glance at the father revealed the slump-shouldered look of a man who likely had even less energy than I did. For that, I was grateful.
He mumbled some sort of greeting as he sat down on the bench next to me and for a few sacred moments there was an easy silence that was broken only by our infrequent interaction with our children. But then I heard his audible sigh revealing that he was not as much at ease as I had assumed and apparently felt a obligation to begin a conversation.
“Do you live around here?”
We rode the merry-go-round of pleasantries for a few minutes and then he asked what my then-husband did for a living. I caught myself hesitating to respond. Turning to do a visual check of my boys' whereabouts, I did my best to put on an air of casualness.
“He's a...ummm...he's a motivational speaker”.
He grunted. “A motivational speaker? Humph....what does he go on about?”
I stifled my own laughter as I tried to feebly defend my husband's choice of life's work to this stranger who clearly thought the whole thing was a load of bunk. But, in fact, I had struggled to “get“ the idea of my ex's line of work from the moment I met him.
Work to me meant hard labour whether that be mental, physical, emotional or spiritual. It meant getting tired. Exhausted. To the point of getting sick. It meant not taking vacations. It meant people commenting on the unbelievable schedule I was keeping and how dedicated I must be to keep up the grueling pace.
Fast-forward a couple of decades. Boys are now out in the world, on their own. Ex-husband successfully motivating others in another country. I'm choosing to reduce the grueling work pace as Guidance Counsellor, Teacher and Yoga Instructor and to find a better life/work balance.
And after two more decades of informal education, life experience and a new-found curiosity, I'm being drawn inexplicably towards an evolving life's work of encouraging others to dig deep to discover the best version of themselves. To give them a framework for setting out intentions and goals. To help them rewire the neural connections, the habits and ingrained patterns that are no longer useful and are keeping them stuck. To help them explore methods of daily groundedness and ease in the face of free-floating anxiety and numbing fear. To challenge them to draw on their skills, their experiences and their unique personality to create a life of abundance, passion and significance.
So how's that for getting run right over by the karma bus? Snickering cynic turned cheerleader. Sarcastic skeptic turned self-help guru. Life-long workaholic turned life coach.
After I stop rolling my eyes at myself, I realize this work is what I've been doing for most of my life. It's a natural progression of my teaching, my guiding of angst-filled adolescent learners, and my experience with yoga and meditation. The evolution of a life work that works with more balance and is deeply aligned with my core values.
Okay, okay, okay....I guess I'll become a freakin' life coach. But I won't cheer. And I may occasionally suggest that a client just go ahead and “bite me”. What can I say? I'm a work in progress. Clearly, I'll need to seriously re-think my marketing strategy!
