Rushing: Deadlines. Travelling. Noise. Meetings. Family. Restless. Breathless. Shopping. Entertainment. Texting. Emailing. Board rooms. ….. and more dashing….. more deadlines. Working hard, playing hard. To be the best at what I do!
I guess you get the gist of it! This was the story of my life up to a couple of years ago. My drive and ambition drove me to success, to dance to the beat of the drum. Never look back, keep on going. Steadfast.
Screeeechhh. Bang. Brake. STOP!
An unforeseen catastrophe led me to a personal crisis. I was thrown into oblivion. Feeling all alone, in darkness, crushed to the ground and lost. For many long months, I did not know what had hit me. The pertinent question that continuously crept into my thoughts:
Who am I?
WHO AM I?
W H O A M I?
I still love what I do professionally, yet somehow, I now function from a very different place. One of wellness, wholeness, and integration, where hope, faith and love all come together in deep relationships, the ultimate one with Christ.
Had I lost myself beyond recognition in the midst of the mad rush to being a superwoman?
And this is where my most intense inner journey knows its origins. I was invited to dwell on the question and to wait. In my profession, I was trained to plan ahead, be proactive, present options and make decisions! In this journey of stillness, discovery, and a search for the unknown, my former training didn’t serve me so well!
Having decided to lodge on this journey, one thing from my old self remained with me. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. I set my mindset to one that saw me through the most challenging situations in my former life and so I decided to give this journey my best shot. Or so I thought!! Only to find that the rules of the game were very different from what I was used to. Huh! predominately defined by patience.
Months of staying still, delving deep, and asking many more questions didn’t yield many answers! No matter how far I walked through this journey, many a times, I came to understand that, after all, the roads and routes in this journey were not necessarily mine to choose and decide upon. At times, the harder I tried, the deeper I was digging myself into a pit. It is when I found myself against a brick wall and I had no other option but to simply let go that I experienced the freedom to just be, and the path ahead started to crystallize! Along this journey, one of the greatest discoveries was that working harder won’t get me anywhere faster. All I had to do was simply remain open to the will of the Lord.
Actually, my spiritual journey started around 10 years ago when my husband and I started frequenting the Oratory in B’Kara. My first experience of being still allowing myself to be alone was on my first trip with the lay community to the monastery in Bose. To discover the beauty of silence. Beauty in its simplicity. To be alone with oneself and to encounter God in the faces and the pain of the other.
It is the gentle touch of a friend or a hug that speaks a thousand words, the listening ear of a dear friend from the community, the word of a minister that pulled me through the darkest hours. Looking back, God has shown me that He will never ever abandon his children. I was not required to do much. Just remain open and let God carry me when I could walk no more. Through the members of the community, the many friendships built along the years, the life experiences of others, God showed me his faithfulness and his never-ending mercy.
I still love what I do professionally, yet somehow, I now function from a very different place. One of wellness, wholeness, and integration, where hope, faith and love all come together in deep relationships, the ultimate one with Christ!
After months of living in obscurity, it was so relieving to wake up one morning to find that hey: I AM HOME! I am free to just be, wherever I am: in my family; the community; at the Oratory; my profession. Even though I do not know the final destination and there are many things which I don’t understand; I know that HE is right here within me, and I feel safe in the knowledge that I will never walk alone. I am at peace!
I take the opportunity to thank all those that have been accompanying me through this lifelong journey: my mentors, clergy and all my friends at the Oratory and my family for loving me so well and walking the journey with me to rediscover myself for the glory of God