A Normal Girl’s Journey to Becoming a Contemporary Mystic
I spent most of my adult life living someone else’s idea of who and what I should be. I believed that women should try to emulate men in the workaholic professional world, while simultaneously being the perfect wife, doting mother and homemaker extraordinaire. I gave it my best shot, but somehow it never quite seemed to be a good fit.
I started out as a “normal girl” who went to school and got a job in corporate America. I held positions in retail store management and eventually became a fashion buyer. (I tell you, it never felt quite right — try to get an empath to negotiate hard-core business deals in the totally superficial fashion industry — crazy!?)
Fortunately during the mergers and acquisition of the ’80s, I was downsized. I decided to look at it as an opportunity to try something new and innovative. So I created Ready-To-Wear Review, a trade publication for executives in the retail fashion industry that eventually became a renowned international trade journal. You might say I was the “go to” girl when it came to retail fashion trends.
So I did what any “type A” Capricorn would do: I authored several books on the subject, and I covered all the emerging retail trends of the time, from “Electronic Commerce: How to Sell on the Net,” to “Resort Retail: Attracting Today’s Busy Woman,” and “Capitalizing on the Billion $$$ Airport Retail Market.”
And then I woke up! Literally. I woke up one day and said out loud, “Hemlines go up, and hemlines go down. And in the scope of life, it really doesn’t matter. Nobody dies from it, but if I have to write another story about fashion, I might die.”
Hmm…15 years of blood, sweat and tears — and I just couldn’t anymore? What does one do with that?
Enter the Dark Night of the Soul — severe clinical depression, burnout, chronic fatigue. Let’s just say I spent a year on the couch and it wasn’t pretty. Clearly I wasn’t living my life on purpose.
Then I stumbled upon a magazine with an article on lightworkers, and I knew that I was supposed to be a part of whatever they were. Even though I had no idea what a lightworker was, it was as if someone flipped a switch and a light bulb went on. Somehow I just knew.
That was when my spiritual awakening began. I was intrigued by anything and everything even remotely spiritual, from Reiki, to astrology, numerology, tarot, and even angels — I just couldn’t get enough.
You see, during that “dark night of the soul” period I had asked, no, I begged, God to show me what I was here for. And as soon as I said yes to being a lightworker, it was like the floodgates opened. All the right books, authors, teacher, mentors, etc., just fell in my lap. It was wonderful!
“I was thrilled. Clearly I had finally found my life purpose, my true calling, my reason for being.”
Somewhere along the way, I started channeling angels, and during one of those channeled writings I was told to become a spiritual life coach. OMG, how perfect! I had always wanted to be a therapist (but in my family “good girls” didn’t go to college and get master’s degrees; they got married and had babies).
So here I was twenty years later with something even better — life coaching. I had just barely started my life coach training and was still completing my spiritual psychology program, and I already had paying clients. That was so cool! On top of that, my teachers were referring clients to me. I was thrilled.
Clearly I had finally found my life purpose, my true calling, my reason for being. Or so I thought — until one fateful day when I met a wise shaman, Chief Robert TallTree. Much to my dismay, he told me that I was quite mistaken, that all of this was only part of my purpose.
Chief TallTree did readings for all those gathered that evening, and let me tell you, I did NOT want one. Not even one little bit! I just had no desire for him to discuss the details of my personal life in a group setting. Somehow I must have known this wasn’t going to “go well.” But avoidance is a moot point around most shamans, and this one was no different.
After he had read everyone else, he asked me if I was going to finally stop moving around the room and sit down. There was no wiggling out of this one, so I sat down. As I did, he asked me what I do.
“I have the best job in the world!” I declared.
“Really,” Chief TallTree asked, “and what is that?”
“Well, I’m a spiritual life coach!” I replied.
“And what makes that the best job in the world?” he asked.
“Simple,” I responded, “I get to help people find their joy.”
“I disagree,” was his pointed response. “What about your joy?” He informed me that while I was helping others find their joy, I was not in touch with my own. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded.
Being a bit of a stubborn Capricorn, I chose to ignore all of this. After all, he didn’t say “what’ it was I should be doing. So I continued coaching and teaching and, you guessed it, struggling, too. When spirit wants your attention, that’s generally how they get it. They make things a bit difficult.
This went on for months. One dismal January afternoon in Wisconsin, when nothing I tried seemed to work, I went back through my divine guidance journal to see what I had missed. It had to be something, because nothing seemed to be working.
Lo and behold, nearly every channeled writing I had done in the preceding six months contained a message for me to draw. In fact, the angels had begged me, no, they pleaded with me, “Draw Lori, please draw!” But, I had chosen to ignore it. “Draw what?” was my constant response. It made no sense to me at all, so I simply moved on and asked another question.
On that particular gloomy January day, I decided to humor them. And then it happened. I sat in front of my altar with a blank piece of paper and the angelic messages started pouring in. They told me what colors to use, what to draw, where to place it, what it meant. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced in this lifetime. The angels told me to use this medium to bring forth their messages in both pictures and words. By opening to this process, I have seen magic occur before my very eyes. Plus, with no formal artistic training, I have created art that’s been so well received it has found homes in over twenty countries around the world. Now that’s magic in and of itself.
Today, I’m no longer living someone else’s version of reality — I’m living mine — and as the shaman said, it would be filled with joy! And it is.
Let me leave you with these thoughts: Are you you living your version of reality? Have you fulfilled your dreams? Are you doing what you came here to do? The question that will haunt you when it’s time to take your last breath is not how many people you pleased, but rather, “Did you do what you came here to do?”
The questions that you are not asking is:
“Are you being who you came here to BE?
“Are you being all you can BE?
“Are you being the highest version of Self You can BE?
After all we are known as Human Beings……not Human Doings!