Finding My Purpose

Earlier this year, I participated in a series of two workshops called True You.  The facilitators are friends and we are looking at partnering with them in a ministry we are connected to.  I wasn’t really excited about giving up two full weekends, but I also feel strongly that as a therapist and entrepreneur, it is important for me to continue growing and never to lose sight of the feeling involved in being the other person “on the couch.”  I never want to ask clients to do something I haven’t been willing to do myself.  So I went.  Gale and Kathy had already participated and raved about the impact it had on them.

The first weekend was hard.  There were exercises that triggered me and at times I felt a lot of anger.  After the first night I went home emotionally exhausted; but I also went home with profound new insights.  One exercise had us addressing character defects that were holding us back.  We had written each defect (about 15 of them for each person) on its own piece of paper and during the exercise two particular pieces of paper ended up right next to each other.  One piece said “inhibited” and the other said “impatient”.  I had been feeling both of those emotions most of my life but I had never put the paradox of both of those items together. Staring at those pieces of paper, it hit me like a 2x4 that I was the one holding myself back.  Fears were keeping me inhibited.  I was standing on the sidelines waiting for someone to ask me to dance rather than going out and doing my own dance...and I was IMPATIENT!  There were goals I was tired of waiting on.  Things I longed to experience.

I came by my fear honestly.  I grew up in a family that was full of tension and anxiety.  In many ways, that has changed, thank God, but I continued to wrestle with my fears.  I had grand dreams and every time I would take a step in that direction, my fears would wake up like a coiled snake.  The anxiety literally felt as if there was something twisting in my gut.  The venom of that anxiety gave me stomach aches, GI issues, regular tension headaches...At some moments I felt it wasn’t worth the anxiety to take the next step.  Years earlier, I woke with that snake writhing inside me and prayed that God would allow me to die.  I wouldn’t take my life, but I fervently wished that God would let me go.

Fear had been a powerful motivator and I was sick of fighting it.  Due to the work I had done over the years though, there had been some progress.  I began to believe that fear would not be a constant and was something God didn’t intend for me.  I got in my Bible and began to claim promises.  I cried in my therapists office, yelled in the quiet of my room, and years later, went to True You and continued to face the final vestiges of my fear.

In the first weekend of True You you develop what they call “a contract” it is basically a short statement that sums up who you are.  In the second weekend you develop a purpose statement.  The whole weekend is built around helping participants find their purpose.  Naming these two items has been transformative.  It reminds me of my direction and keeps me grounded in who I was created to be.  I never could have found them alone.  It took the committed facilitators walking me through it and seeing what I don’t always see to come up with the short statement that now helps to define my direction.

“I am a powerful woman offering certainty in the face of fear.”

God is so ironic.  You would be hard pressed to find someone more timid and scared at heart than I have been.  But by growing through it.  By surrendering.  By fighting.  By drenching myself in and clinging to God’s promises, I have become a powerful woman who offers certainty in the face of fear.

So here is something I’m certain about.  You have the capacity to face your fears.  You have the capacity to do that business you’ve dreamed of.  You have the capacity to build the skill-set and take action.  We hope you’ll join us in the journey.  Let us share our trials and triumphs and let us listen and encourage you in yours.