The Human Spirit

I am often asked, “What do you do?”

When I was an Optometrist, it felt easy to answer (for several reasons). 1. People seemed to know what I did – what an Optometrist was: “I am an Optometrist”, and if someone didn’t know what that was, I could clarify with, “I am an Eye Doctor”. 2. At that time, I thought about what “I did” on a day to day basis by the tasks that I actually did: I did eye exams, I checked the health of people’s eyes, I corrected their vision by giving them glasses and/or contact lenses.

What I didn’t know, was that this was a surface answer.  It didn’t really meaningfully speak to me or my spirit. It did not really answer, on a deep level, what I actually did day to day, what inspired me, what mattered to me on the inside, in my soul. As a result, I eventually lost interest, not only in those answers but I lost interest in what I did day to day. It became monotonous and meaningless. I was not put on this earth, at this time in history, to simply do eye exams, check the health of people’s eyes, correct their vision by giving them glasses and/or contact lenses. {I may have kept interested if I had the awareness to connect to my desire to help people see life in a new way but that didn’t come until the next part of this story.}

What I do now helped me realize that.

So, if you were to ask me today, “What do you do?” I would say that I make spirituality practical. Some of you may get what this means and some of you may not. And, that is ok. It likely would spur more conversation which is meaningful in itself to me.

What I mean by making spirituality practical is several fold. First off, it involves embracing that we, humans, are spiritual beings. We have a human spirit that knows itself and likes to feed and honour itself. We are inspired (=in spirit), connected, fulfilled and satisfied when we do this. We feel good (resonant) when this happens. Practically, this means  getting to know yourself, your values, your wants, your dreams, your unique expression of you. This is about getting to know the truth of who you are and then integrating that truth into how you live your life and into what you do day in, day out (both personally and professionally). In order to do this, it requires letting go of everything external from you that you have been told about how to live your life. There is no single other person on the earth that is you. Nobody else knows what is best for you. You do.

So, this is the deeper, more meaningful answer to what I do and I do that through coaching one on one and leading group workshops. I do believe that I was put on the earth to do this every day and partner with people in this way. Now that I have this awareness, now that I know what feeds my human spirit, I wake up each day ready to hop out of bed and work doesn’t feel like work.

“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” Joseph Campbell

“You change the world by being yourself.” Yoko Ono