Changing Your Life Direction: Course Corrections (book excerpt)

Changing Your Life Direction:

Course Corrections

EXCERPT FROM "SPIRITUAL TURNING POINTS: A METAPHYSICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SEVEN LIFE TRANSITIONS" 

"Our essence has an interesting way of creating realignment

with its purpose and one way that it does that is through course

corrections. For example, we may be planning on entering a four-year

advanced study of electronics but learn at the last moment that

the school we were going to attend has been overbooked and we

are now off the roster. If we hold to the opinion that this school was

the only school that would work, or the best school, then we are

scripting the outcome through surety of our choice. But how do we

really ever know that our choice is the absolute best or “right” one?

We can’t. Only in retrospect can we see that our long and winding

path through life took many turns but was always moving forward

even when we felt it had stopped. There are times, however, when

a major course correction is needed from a soul essence point of

view and that no matter how hard it tries to get our attention, we

just aren’t listening.

Laurie was a professional photographer. From roughly the age

of ten she had been taking snapshots and putting them into books,

carefully noting the who, what, and where by each picture. As she

grew older, her love of the camera developed into her work when she

got the job of her dreams as the head reporter and photojournalist

for a local newspaper. After ten years, however, she had, in her mind,

learned all she could and was ready to move on, but by then she

had two young sons and a husband who had just lost his job, so

she stayed at the newspaper, becoming more and more depressed

and literally unable to get out of bed some days.

From an essence perspective, Laurie was ready to move toward

a new line of work through which she would find more creative

self-expression. After several months of incapacitating lethargy,

she found her way to a talented therapist who was able to guide

her toward the real reasons she was hesitant to change jobs and it

wasn’t what she thought at all; it had more to do with her fear of new

situations. What I hadn’t mentioned before is that at the age of twelve,

Laurie’s father had died. He had been her cheerleading team and

emotional support, and when he died she became determined to

make him proud and what better way than to become a professional

photographer? What had started as a childhood hobby, albeit an

enjoyable one, was now a near obsession to follow the path her father

had encouraged. Plus, with an unemployed husband and children who

depended on her, how could she be so selfish as to take risks with a

new career? Well, Laurie did figure it out. She is now sixty-two, and

has thoroughly enjoyed teaching art to children for the past twenty

years. She navigated through a course correction with the help of

a good advisor, her therapist, and the support of her husband who did,

after all his misgivings, suggest she follow her new dream.”

c. 2011 Victoria Marina-Tompkins All Rights Reserved