I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland these days.  Yes, I know it’s an over-worn analogy, but every time I turn around, there’s another rabbit running by that attracts my attention, and I have to pinch myself because there’s nothing stopping me from following it.  Or her.  Or him.  And so I do.

In this moment, the rabbit that’s luring me is a woman named Danielle LaPorte,  creator of White Hot Truth. Her site is the most brilliant I’ve stumbled upon since I started this latest chapter in my “spiritual job search,” and her “Permission Slips from the Universe” are rocking my world.

Thanks to my friend Deb, who I should have known would be exactly the person to turn me on to more of this world view, I’m beginning to discover a WHOLE WORLD of people who are talking, writing, thinking, working and generally LIVING THEIR LIVES in such a beautiful, authentic way.

The funny thing is, I’ve been surrounded by people like this for a long time  now.  My best friends live their lives this way.  In fact, one of the biggest reasons I moved to Vancouver is because the place is crawling with these folks, and I wanted to be around them because I wanted to live my life that way too.  Sometimes, though, it’s just about timing, about where you are in that exact moment when you’re ready to hear something with new ears.  With every word I read by Danielle and her cohorts, I am encouraged a hundredfold to pay incredibly close attention to my intuition.  After years of watching and learning from the sidelines, I feel like I’m finally taking ACTION to move forward in this journey to reveal my own voice and in that, find my “right work”.

I love it when I ask for inspiration and it comes straight at me.

On some level, I’ve always known there’s never been anything or anyone stopping me from finding my right work, other than myself.  Not my Self, with a capital S… no, my Self is the one part of me that’s always known that the life I want to live is right in front of me, mine for the taking.  Rather, it’s been the not-so-healthy side of my ego that’s held me back.  But the big shift I’ve been anticipating for years is happening – I’m making it happen – and all of the lessons I’ve learned before are coming back to me and resonating in a whole new way.  I am giving myself permission to “throw myself against the tide,” as my friend Dianna said, and see where I land.  It’s an awesome feeling, in every way.

I’ve been using the phrase “right work” for about ten years or so, going back to my days in San Francisco working with my then-coach, Park.    She helped me find my way to business school, which at the time was the best idea I could come up with to blend my desire to “do good” and “do well.”  Socially responsible business seemed to hold the promise of everything I wanted — values-based work and financial security all rolled into one neat tidy package.  I decided to ignore the fact that I had no interest in business per se – heck, I’d never picked up the business section of the newspaper before I started my MBA program, and was loathe to do so even when I was in it.   I struggled mightily through my two years in b-school, not so much with the coursework (not easy, but doable), but more with the fear that I wasn’t really on a path that was right for me.   But since I couldn’t see what that path looked like at ALL, I stayed with what was in front of me, and finished the program.  Not a small feat for someone with a long track record of “dropping out” of top-drawer programs, classes, jobs, not to mention relationships, all because they didn’t feel “right.”

That sense of struggle stayed with me right up until the beginning of this summer, when I received a pretty severe shakedown from the Universe telling me to get on with it.  (More on that another time, perhaps.)  Sure, it’s taken me a while to understand that I will never be happy with my work unless it comes from my authentic self, but better late than never, right?  No matter how much money I have (or don’t), this whole journey of discovery comes down to following my PASSIONS.  And to do that, I’ve got to give myself permission to discover what those passions really look like.  That’s what I’m doing right now, and let me tell you, THIS FEELS RIGHT.

And so, I will keep writing, and keep paying attention to the words of these muses I’m encountering in person and online.  I have total faith that I can and will manifest a steady income (or at least an income!) from work that I love.

I’m so friggin’ inspired by these inspirational people I’m chasing down the rabbit holes… they’re helping me believe that I can make this happen, that I can find my “right work.”  Maybe I’ll do what they do and inspire others in turn… or maybe I’ll just inspire myself.  And maybe that’s enough.