Rediscovering Myself

I think through the challenges of life, and the dynamics that play out, we tend to lose parts of ourselves.

I have discovered, with me ~ when I moved up north, I had to dig deep to rebuild all that I had lost.  And that was a very difficult time for me.

Then, because I had been so focused on my career in my 20's and early 30's, I wanted to also spend time on the personal, getting married, buying a house, having a child.  But a big chunk of me got lost during this period of time.

I can remember, after a year of my life got put on hold, as I juggled Jeff's illness, taking care of Zack, working, and managing the house......at this particular time my strength was faltering.

A local pastor I have become friendly with saw me sitting at Goldberg's one morning with my coffee and he came over to offer me some encouragement.

As tears slid down my face, I softly whispered, "I thought I would be making a bigger impact through my work by now, instead I don't know what I am doing."

Jack smiled and said, "God sometimes has other plans.  Whether you know it or not, you are making a huge impression with all you are doing to help Jeff right now.  All the guys here (the coffee clutch group) see what you are doing and have nothing but positive things to say.  They hope they can take care of their spouses like you are, if they were in the same boat.  So how you are handling this situation is making an impact on others."

I wiped my tears and took in what he was saying.  It was an interesting viewpoint.

My girlfriend gave me a term recently I hadn't heard before.  I realize that after Jeff's passing I had gone through post traumatic stress ~ but she said some people go through Post Traumatic Growth.  Where the experience had been so intense it forces you to grow exponentially.

When I went through my healing phase, I realized that I had to Rediscover who I was "before" and who I wanted to Be.

"Settling" was not acceptable any longer ~ time was too short for that.

I had lunch the other day with someone who remembered a project I created back in the mid 90's to get kids adopted out of foster care.  It was the first marketing program ever for that population, and it paved the way for other projects making an impact today!

When I came to Tampa I jumped in to a non-profit, to go back to what I was passionate about ~ helping kids in foster care.  And in this case, those kids aging out of the system, and ending up on the streets.

I didn't want to create a non-profit again myself, instead I wanted to utilize my talents to help an organization already doing great work.

To tap into other people's talents as well, and work together to make a difference.

I believe that when you dig down to uncover what your passionate about, and put your talents to use, your purpose is discovered and amazing results can happen!