Finding My Path – Part 1
Some have called it a midlife crisis. Some have called it hormones. All I know is the past year I’ve found myself completely unsatisfied.
Don’t get me wrong, my life is pretty incredible. From the outside, it might look like I “have it all.” I have two amazing kids, one successful husband and a great career. I own my own home, I have a mid-sized SUV and a slobbery dog. I go to happy hours with friends, have the most wonderful in-laws and spend Sundays in the park with my family. Seriously, what’s not to love?
But as awesome as all of that sounds, I felt like I was running on empty. My whole life was passing me by, and I just wasn’t happy. I blamed much of my misery on my job, which while it was well-paying, wasn’t really revving me up. I dreaded going to the office each day and found myself turning pretty ugly to the people I love the most.
After my birthday last year, I made myself a list of resolutions (which can be found here) to make myself a happier person. And really, they did. I started riding horses again. I started running. I found myself doing things I hadn’t since I was a kid and I was definitely happier. But I still felt lost. When people would ask, “Well, what do you want to do?” I didn’t have an answer for them. I just knew where I was wasn’t cutting it.
In March I finally bit the bullet and signed up for a class with the inspiring Karen Walrond called “Path Finder.” The entire goal of this five week course was to really explore yourself and figure out how to understand what you want out of life. It was not easy. It was really, really hard. Many of the exercises Karen gave us to complete involved taking a real, difficult look at yourself, and seeing what it is that really lights you up. I won’t divulge the entire course here (if you want to, or are feeling like I was, you should visit here to find out how to sign up), but suffice to say, my life has completely changed.
I’m a better mother. I’m a happier wife. I’m a kinder friend. And I’m even a better employee. All because I finally, FINALLY took control.
That, I think, is the biggest lesson I learned from the Path Finder course. You want to figure things out? Then try. Try to learn and change and explore…and just by trying, you’ll feel 100 pounds lighter. I can’t even describe the physical and emotional changes that have occurred since I started Path Finder. I am alive. Truly alive, and it shows.
Much, much more to come…but for now, I’d love for you all to watch this video of Neil Gaiman (author of one of my most favorite novels ever, Stardust) giving the 2012 commencement speech to the University of the Arts. My absolute favorite part is at 8:21, if you don’t have twenty minutes to watch the whole thing. Trust me, you won’t regret it. (Hat tip to The Bloggess for the link.)
Love this, thank you for sharing! Definitely need a little path finding of my own….so inspiring!
Thanks for the comment, Tara! Path Finder was one of the best things I’d done in years and hopefully this will inspire more people to find what makes them happy and do it! 🙂
This is hugely inspiring. I feel very much like I’m running on empty all the time–and the biggest problem is I don’t even know where to turn to fill myself back up. I’m really inspired by what you’ve done, and am even going to look into that Path Finder course myself. Thank you for sharing!
Ginger, I totally hear you. I was just so physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted from being unhappy and thinking I had no idea how to change anything. Even just signing up for the course made a huge difference, because I finally felt like I was moving forward. For me, the revelation that I could be the one to fix this (not my partner or my boss or whatever) was huge for me. Good luck to you!
I know you wrote this ages ago…but I saved the video to watch after reading your last Finding Your Path Post and I’m just getting to watching it now. I totally relate to everything you’re saying. I could write a ton more but I think I’m going to check out Path Finder.