That’s one of the nicknames my wife and I have for each other. She’s Captain Obvious and I am the General Oblivious. Why? Because it’s astounding the things that I manage to be oblivious to at times. It’s mildly ironic considering the sharp attention to detail I have in many areas of life.
However though, when it comes to certain aspects of myself I manage to remain generally oblivious for longer than the average bear might.
Take for instances my current nagging feeling of “I am meant to be doing something”. I have been poking around trying things out for the last 7 months or so. Trying to figure out what I’m good at and how I am meant to contribute to the world.
It’s been a long standing feeling of mine that I was “meant for great things”. Please forgive me if that sounds pretentious, but no shit that’s really the way it’s been worded in my head for at least two decades. I know I’m not alone on this. I think most of us just choose not to admit it because it kinda sorta sounds like a jackass thing to say. I’m cool with that right now though. It’s just you and me and if I can’t be honest with you then I might as well pack my keyboard and go binge watch HGTV and YouTube videos the rest of the day.
You may have read in another post that I had a reading with past life psychic Ainslie MacLeod in January of this year. To say it was life changing is an understatement. I honestly count it as a pivotal moment in my life. I had read his first book The Instruction after hearing him on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. It’s been a life long exploration of mine to understand the depths of who I am, be it through name meanings, Zodiac, personality quizzes, and yes psychics.
We went into a lot of the basics from the book during my reading about my soul’s age, type, missions, and fears. He told me that his spirit guides were making a very strong point about how I needed to be writing. Maybe podcasting. They saw me on a stage talking. They said “You need to see yourself with the big boys and girls because you’re one of them.”
That line has stuck with me. Maybe because it felt empowering, but also because I find it somewhat terrifying. It’s kind of terrifying to think that I really AM supposed to do something cause… I’m just me. So I did what any person that felt like they got marching orders from The Universe would do. I set out to discover how the hell I was supposed to do it.
In 2020 there is no shortage of people wanting to tell you how to find your purpose. How to put yourself out there. How to market yourself and blah blah blah blah blah. It took no less than two months and the statewide stay-at-home order once the Coronavirus pandemic for me to become completely overwhelmed. I could feel myself shutting down. Maybe they were wrong.
Then in May, a man named George Floyd was killed by a police officer kneeling on his neck for 8:46 seconds and it was all caught on camera. The Black Lives Matter movement took on a powerful new tidal of support. Maybe racial justice was where I was supposed to do my work. I was eyes wide open listening to BIPOC speak their truth and justified rage. I shared knowledge that I found important and empowering on social media.
It wasn’t long before the constant barrage of pain felt like a rip current that I was caught in. Outside of social media, we are never subjected to that many people’s experiences in a matter of minutes. It felt emotionally, mentally, and spiritually toxic. Something was telling me that social media was not my medium.
See that’s what so many of these influencers want to tell you. You’ve gotta be rockin’ The Gram. I really started to feel like if I wasn’t posting on Instagram every day I was failing. One day turned to one week. One week turned to one month. I kept reading and learning but had no energy to post. I told myself that my voice was needed. That I needed to be showing up as myself to breakthrough the sea of negativity and political arguments on Instagram and Facebook. It all felt so out of alignment for me.
It hit me yesterday when I read a post from educator and academic Rachel Cargle. She said “Social media is not my work – it is a tool for the overarching work I do as a writer, lecturer, and academic.” That. That felt like the truth to me the same way Ainslie MacLeod explaining the ages of our souls felt like the truth.
High fives to all the folks out there that rock Instagram and Twitter and all of that. Shout out to every person selling a course on how to convert followers into customers and all that jazz. That’s not my work though. I was searching so hard, trying so hard, that I was completely oblivious to what was true inside of me.
My work is here with you. Just me and you.
Me getting all of these thoughts out and you dear friend being so kind as to oblige me by listening. It’s been like that my whole life. When I would wake up in the morning and tell my mom the 20 ideas I had since my eyes popped open that morning as she looked at me sleepy eyed over her coffee with her cigarette in hand. It’s the same way now with my wife. Bless her patient heart for enduring all of my morning word explosions. It was the same way with my friend Deb when I would go into her office at our job and ask if I could close the door and just babble. How could I have been so oblivious to how this all works for me?
Here’s the moral of the story. There are a lot of people out there doing a lot of awesome things. Learn from them. Some of it will be gold. A lot of it will just be sand. At the end of the day you have to listen to yourself. Only you know what’s right for you. Only I know what’s right for me. Even if it takes me six months or six years of fumbling and trying other stuff and getting frustrated and depressed because it’s not working. That’s part of the sifting to find that gold.
Thanks for reading.
Love,
Sarah